What is the history of smallpox? Has it been used as a biological weapon in the past?
Smallpox, or variola, is caused by a DNA orthopoxvirus and has been plaguing mankind for at least 3000 years. The first documented epidemic of smallpox occurred during the Egyptian-Hittite war in 1350 B.C. An inspection of the lesions on the mummy of Ramses V, the Egyptian pharaoh who died in 1143 B.C. at the age of 35, reveals that he may have died from smallpox. The first use of smallpox as a biological weapon, albeit inadvertently, occurred when Spanish conquerors led by Cortez introduced smallpox in 1520 during their assault on the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan in Mexico. In the years that followed, almost 90% of the population of the New World was killed by smallpox. The disease was used deliberately as a biological weapon during the French and Indian war in 1754 by the English, who distributed tainted blankets to Native Americans; the mortality reached 50% in many tribes. Smallpox was also used by the American government during its wars with Native Americans. After an extrem
