"You can't say that civilization doesn't advance, for in every war, they kill you in a new way." These words were spoken by the famous American Will Rogers and certainly apply to World War II. While libraries may be filled with books about specific battles and Hollywood movie director Steven Spielberg illuminates on film that, in the words of US Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman "War is cruel and cannot be refined," there is very little information to be obtained on the war tactics of the Japanese in the West beyond the suicide bombers who so willingly gave their lives for Japan's empire.
In the years between 1932 and 1945, Japan conducted experiments that included the testing of biological and chemical weapons on humans. They then used what they had learned to attack 11 Chinese cities with the completed biological weapons, making significant progress in the use of and knowledge of traditional agents such as botulism and anthrax.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Botulism is a rare but serious paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin that is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. There are three main kinds of botulism. Food borne botulism is caused by eating foods that contain the botulism toxin. Wound botulism is caused by toxin produced from a wound infected with Clostridium botulinum. Infant botulism is caused by consuming the spores of the botulinum bacteria, which then grow in the intestines and release toxin. All forms of botulism can be fatal and are considered medical emergencies.
The Center for Disease Control states that Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic lower vertebrates (cattle, sheep, goats, camels, antelopes, and other herbivores), but it can also occur in humans when they are exposed to infected animals or tissue from infected animals.
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