BMJ  2003;327:261 (2 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7409.261

Filler

British biological warfare

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In 1763 Sir Jeffrey Amhurst, commander in chief of the British forces fighting a North American Indian uprising west of the Allegheny mountains, wrote to Colonel Bouquet: "Could it not be contrived to send the Smallpox among those disaffected tribes of Indians?"

Bouquet replied: "I shall try and inoculate them with some blankets, and take care not to get the disease myself. As it is a pity to expose good men against them, I wish we could use the Spanish method, to hunt them with English dogs who would, I think, effectively extirpate or remove that vermin."

Amhurst answered: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this exorable race."

Captain Simeon Ecuyer, commandant of Fort Pitt, noted in his journal on 24 June: "Out of regard for them [two Indian . . . [Full text of this article]

Jeremy Hugh Baron, honorary professorial lecturer

Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA


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