The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion (45 page)
Read The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion Online
Authors: Lois H. Gresh
The greatest disaster in recorded history took place during the years 1347 through 1350. It was a disease outbreak that became known as the Black Death, and it killed an estimated 34 million people, approximately one-third of Europe’s population. Records from the Far East and the Middle East show that the Black Death was part of an even larger bubonic plague pandemic (a pandemic is defined as an epidemic over a wide geographic area and affecting a large percentage of the population) that struck much of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The total number of people killed by this pandemic will never be known, but some historians estimate that, in total, over 60 million people died due to the plague.
Bubonic plague, the main cause of the Black Death, returned to haunt Europe again and again until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Recurrent episodes of the Black Death included the Italian Plague of 1629–31, the Great Plague of London (1665–66), and the Great Plague of Vienna (1679).
According to modern researchers, the Black Death most likely began in the steppes of central Asia, though some historians believe it might have originated in northern India. The cause of the disease was a bacteria named
Yersinia pestis,
which was carried and spread by fleas. Plague fleas were transported by rats across half the world. It was the unchecked spread of rats through Asia, Europe, and the Middle East that brought the Black Death. No other bacteria had so much of an effect on human history.There were three types of plague. Bubonic plague was the most common. A flea bite deposited the bacteria into the victim’s lymphatic system. The disease was characterized by
buboes,
large, inflamed, and painful swellings in the lymph glands of the groin, armpits, or neck, depending where the flea bite occurred.In
septicaemic
plague, which was almost always fatal, the bacteria entered the bloodstream directly, rather than through the lymphatic system where they might be contained. Like bubonic plague, the
septicaemic
variety of plague was caused directly by flea bites. Death usually took place within twenty-four hours of catching the disease.Pneumonic
plague was the most deadly form of plague. It was usually fatal and wasn’t caused by a flea bite. When the plague bacteria reached the lungs of a victim, it caused severe pneumonia. The bacteria were present in water drops spread by coughs and choking. This third variation of the plague was highly contagious. Death from the
pneumonic
plague occurred within three or four days.In all three versions of the plague, internal bleeding caused large bruises to appear on the skin. This bruising resulted in the plague being called the Black Death.
Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism, including bacteria, virus, or some other disease-causing organism or poison found in nature to wage war. Biological warfare is designed to kill enemy soldiers, and in some cases, enemy civilians. Biological warfare also means attacking nature in the area where the enemy is located—destroying his food supplies, destroying his environment, destroying his habitat.
The creation and stockpiling of biological weapons was outlawed by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which was signed by over one hundred countries. Biological weapons were deemed too extreme for warfare as they could cause deaths in the millions and major economic disasters in countries throughout the world. In a strange bit of wording, the treaty prohibited the creation and storage of the weapons, but did not outlaw the use of these weapons.
Biological warfare was used as far back as the sixth century
BC
, when the Assyrian armies poisoned enemy wells with a mind-altering fungus that would drive their enemies mad. In 184
BC
, Hannibal of Carthage had his army fill clay pots with poisonous snakes and instructed his soldiers to throw the pots onto the decks of Pergamene ships.
During the Middle Ages, the Mongols threw diseased animal bodies into the wells and drivers used by their European enemies for drinking water. Before the Black Death hit all of Europe, Mongols were notorious for catapulting diseased corpses into cities they were besieging, hoping to infect the population with the plague.
The practice of throwing the corpses over city walls only grew worse after the plague enveloped Europe. The last time infected corpses were used as weapons of terror was at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
During the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45 and World War II, Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted experiments on thousands of prisoners, mostly Chinese. In certain military campaigns, the Japanese used biological weapons on soldiers and civilians. The Japanese secretly fed their Chinese prisoners poisoned food. They also contaminated the water. Estimates suggest that over 500,000 people died, due to the bad food and also plague and cholera outbreaks.
Suspicious of reported biological weapons development in Germany and Japan, the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada initiated a Biological Weapons development program in 1941 that resulted in the weaponization of anthrax, brucellosis, and botulinum toxin. The center for U.S. military Biological Weapon research was Fort Detrick, Maryland. Biological weapons research was also conducted at “Dugway Proving Grounds” in Utah. Research carried out in the United Kingdom during World War II left Gruinard Island in Scotland contaminated with anthrax for the next forty-eight years.
Despite having signed the 1972 treaty, the Soviet Union continued research and production of offensive biological weapons in a program called Biopreparat. The United States was unaware of this program until Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, the deputy director of biopreparat defected in 1992.
During the Cold War era, considerable research was performed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and other major countries on biological warfare.
In 1986, the U.S. government spent $42 million on developing defenses against infectious diseases and toxins, ten times more money than was spent in 1981. The money went to twenty-four U.S. universities in hopes of developing strains on anthrax, Rift Valley fever, Japanese encephalitis, tularemia, shigella, botulin, and Q fever.
At present, several countries are developing biological warfare programs. According to the defense department, these countries include Russia, Israel, China, Iran, Libya, Syria, and North Korea. The characteristics of effective biological weapons are that they are highly infective, have a high potency, can be delivered as an aerosol, and vaccines are unavailable for the victims.
Diseases considered for use as weapons or known to have been used already as weapons include anthrax, Ebola, bubonic plague, cholera, tularemia, brucellosis, Q fever, Machupo, Coccidioides mycosis, glanders, melioidosis, shigella, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, typhus, psisticosis, yellow fever, Japanese B encephalitis, Rift Valley Fever, and smallpox. Naturally occurring poisons that can be used as weapons include Ricin, SEB, botulism toxin, saxitoxin, and many mycotoxins.
While it’s quite possible that plague and biological warfare could wipe out the world’s populations, it’s unlikely they could destroy skyscrapers, suburbia, infrastructures, and entire cities across the globe. All of these manmade items would eventually weaken and collapse. So while an evil government could conceivably employ biological agents against its own people and somehow protect government leaders, such an empire would also have to use other means to destroy the actual cities and infrastructures.
CHEMICAL WARFARE
Unlike bombs, which of course explode, this form of warfare uses nonexploding chemicals. Like biological warfare, stockpiling of chemical weapons is forbidden, in this case by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
As with biological warfare, it’s conceivable that an evil empire might use chemical warfare on its citizens; however, the use would have to be limited unless everyone in the Capitol, for example, wore gas masks during the Dark Days of the war in Panem. Unlikely scenario; biological agents would make more sense because government researchers could also create the antidotes for the leaders’ use.
In more general terms, a worldwide apocalypse based on chemical agents is less likely than one caused by a plague, for example, which spreads rapidly from victim to victim.
Chemical warfare comes in various forms:
Pulmonary agents that attack the lungs and suffocate victims. Examples are chlorine and phosgene.
Blood agents that attack how the body uses oxygen. An example is cyanide.
Blister agents attack the skin, making flesh break out in massive bloody blisters. An example is mustard gas.
Nerve agents, which are far more lethal than pulmonary, blood, and blister agents, attack and destroy acetylcholine neurotransmitters in the victim. An example is sarin.
Hallucinatory agents, which may not kill victims but would certainly incapacitate their abilities to function normally. Probably not the weapon of choice for an apocalyptic scenario unless used in conjunction with something lethal.
Tear gas, which may not kill victims, but again, incapacitates them. Again, probably not the weapon of choice for an apocalyptic scenario unless used in conjunction with something lethal.
