ABSTRACT
In both times of peace and war, history is replete with deadly battles fought between humanity and disease. Throughout recorded history, the menace of disease, especially during conflicts, has left indelible fingerprints in the complex interaction between humanity and microbial forces. The decimation of a significant percentage of humanity by infectious diseases has led to the collapse of states and empires during conflicts. Thucydides wrote that the plague that devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian War originated from Ethiopia and spread through Egypt and Libya before it arrived in Athens in 430 BC because of troop movement.3 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, small pox, measles, influenza, and other exotic diseases decimated Native American populations in their contacts with European forces during the imperial battle to conquer the Americas.4 These exotic diseases led to the collapse of the Aztec and Incan empires.5 During the American Revolution in 1776, smallpox prevented the American forces from capturing Canada, then known as British North America.6
It has been argued that, throughout history, soldiers have rarely won wars;
