You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

PLAGUED CORPSES, GREEK FIRE, AND MUSTARD GAS
 
�            Chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons have prob­a­bly exist­ed since the
Pre-his­toric Era in one form or anoth­er. Poi­son­ing an enemy’s water
sup­ply is an ear­ly exam­ple.
 
�            It’s believed Mon­gol armies brought the Black Death into Europe
when they besieged the Genoese trad­ing city of Kaf­fa on the Black
Sea in 1347. The Mon­gols cat­a­pult­ed infect­ed corpses into the city,
spread­ing the dis­ease.
 
�       Lewisite was a chem­i­cal weapon devel­oped by the US gov­ern­ment in
1917 for World War I. The war end­ed before any was used.
 
�            The Carthagini­ans report­ed­ly cat­a­pult­ed pots filled with ven­omous
snakes onto the ships of the Perg­a­mon navy dur­ing a bat­tle in 184
BCE.
 
�            The Bio­log­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion (BWC) is a treaty signed in
1972 that went into effect in 1975 pro­hibit­ing the pro­duc­tion and use
of bio­log­i­cal weapons. Who has not signed the BWC? Ten states have
nei­ther signed nor rat­i­fied the BWC (Chad, Comoros, Dji­bouti,
Eritrea, Israel, Kiri­bati, Microne­sia, Namib­ia, South Sudan, and
Tuvalu). The BWC opened for sig­na­ture on April 10, 1972 and
entered into force on March 26, 1975.
 
�       The first large-scale use of a chem­i­cal weapon on the bat­tle­field took
place on April 22, 1915, at the Sec­ond Bat­tle of Ypres in Bel­gium.
The Ger­mans dis­persed chlo­rine gas on the French, cre­at­ing a
tem­po­rary salient.
 
�            The Sas­san­ian Per­sians defeat­ed the Romans at the Siege of Dura-
Euro­pos in CE 256 through chem­i­cal war­fare. The Per­sians dug
tun­nels under the city and ignit­ed sul­fur diox­ide when the Romans
attempt­ed to enter one of the tun­nels.
 
�            Scythi­an archers report­ed­ly dipped their arrow heads in snake
ven­om, rot­ting flesh, feces, or a com­bi­na­tion of these. Their
effec­tive­ness is unknown.
 
�            The Chem­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion  (CWC), which was signed in
1993 and went into effect in 1997, bans the pro­duc­tion and use of
chem­i­cal weapons. Only four coun­tries have not rat­i­fied the
agree­ment.
 
�       Fort Det­rick in Fred­er­ick, Mary­land was the head­quar­ters of the US
bio­log­i­cal weapons pro­gram from 1943 to 1969. After the BWC, it
served as a cen­ter for “bio­log­i­cal defense.”
 
�            Greek Fire was an incen­di­ary, napalm-like weapon used by the
Byzan­tine Empire from 672 to 1453. The ingre­di­ents and process to
make Greek Fire remain a mys­tery.
 
�            In World War I, the Ger­man troops that used the gas/chemical
weapons were the Pio­neer Reg­i­ment 35, while the French equiv­a­lent
was called the Z Com­pa­nies.
 
�            The 2001 anthrax attacks took place in the US from Sep­tem­ber 18,
2001, to Octo­ber 12, 2001. The dead­ly bac­te­ria were mailed to
tar­gets, killing five peo­ple.
 
�       Smoke was rou­tine­ly used in war­fare by pre-mod­ern mil­i­taries. The
Taino Indi­ans of the Caribbean used smoke bombs against the
Span­ish in the 1500s.
 
�            Chlo­rine and phos­gene were chem­i­cal weapons that affect the
res­pi­ra­to­ry tract. Phos­gene was six times more dead­ly than chlo­rine
and account­ed for 85% of all chem­i­cal weapons deaths in World War
I.
 
�            Israel is not a sig­na­to­ry of the BWC. The nation is sus­pect­ed of
hav­ing a bio­log­i­cal weapons pro­gram but has nev­er pub­licly
acknowl­edged it.
 
�       Although the British pos­si­bly gave small­pox infect­ed blan­kets to the
Delaware Indi­ans dur­ing the Siege of Fort Pitt in 1763, there are no
oth­er his­tor­i­cal accounts of “small­pox” blan­kets. 
 
�       The Viet­cong traps known as “pun­ji sticks” were dead­ly enough, but
they were often made dead­lier when the VC gueril­las tipped the
sharp­ened sticks with plant poi­son, feces, or urine.
 
�            Chem­i­cal weapons could be deliv­ered two ways in World War I:
can­is­ters or shells. Can­is­ters required stealth and favor­able wind,
while chem­i­cal shells required spe­cial can­nons.
 
�            Oper­a­tion Ranch Hand was the code­name of the US military’s
cam­paign to defo­li­ate large areas of Viet­nam from 1962 to 1971 using
the chem­i­cal Agent Orange. It was a mix­ture of two dead­ly and
dan­ger­ous her­bi­cides.
 
�            Mus­tard gas, or sul­fur mus­tard, is a vesi­cant that burns the skin. It
was first deployed on the bat­tle­field in 1917 dur­ing World War I by
the Ger­mans.
 
�            Napalm is sim­ply the mix­ture of a flam­ma­ble liq­uid and a gelling
agent. The napalm used in most mod­ern mil­i­taries is “napalm B.”
 
�            Egypt, South Sudan, and North Korea have not signed the CWC.
Israel has signed but not rat­i­fied it, lead­ing many to believe it has a
chem­i­cal weapons pro­gram.
 
�       The Hit­tites may have dri­ven plague vic­tims into ene­my ter­ri­to­ry in
the Lev­ant in 1,324 BCE. Hit­tite King Sup­piluli­u­ma died from the
same plague when infect­ed Hit­tite sol­diers returned.