Poisons and Pestilence

Welcome to the first-ever bonus episode of the poisons and pestilence podcast!  

This episode is the first in a two-part special on large area biological weapon simulant trials, carried out in the UK during the Cold War. In this episode, we focus on work carried out by scientists from Porton Down up until the mid -1960’s- which involved the spread of zinc cadmium sulphide over vast swathes of the UK. In part two of this special, we...

You can check out the Declassified MOD film on the Lyme Bay Trials here (a clip of this appears in the show audio) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTwQJ1ASyws&t=302s 

You can also check out various documentaries and excerpts of  press coverage of the Zinc Cadmium and Lyme Bay Trials produced when these issues first hit the headlines over at https://www.youtube.com/user/experimentsrus/featured 

INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF THE POSSIB...

Hello! And welcome to episode 7 of the poisons and pestilence podcast- If you buboe me by now.

Now I had a great time putting together the last two specials- and I hope you enjoyed them. However, it is high time we returned to our trundle through the history of biological and chemical warfare.

As you will recall, in earlier episodes, we have been covering some pretty vast time periods. But we are not beginning to become a little mo...

In this episode, we look at transitions in Chemical and Biological defence in the British army between the tail end of the Cold War and the Gulf War. We talk about noddy suits- and I didn't make a joke about being cold once. Be sure to say hello to Gareth on Twitter ( especially if you like tanks) 

I do not own the media clips, they can be found here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsUcz2Bh1z4vWjI9zM15qbb43sVPl7LeX

Icon image...

During World War II, the Polish resistance movement used chemical and biological weapons (CBW) against the Third Reich. The use of CBW against the Third Reich most likely originated in a secret Polish biological-weapons program, which existed in the 1930s and went underground after the September 1939 German invasion. Between 1940 and 1942, a unit of the Polish resistance movement named WKZO (Wielkopolskie Kierownictwo Związku Odwet...

In this episode Dan discusses his work examining the life of Edmund Tilly. After WW2 Tilly interrogated those involved in the German chemical warfare programme- which was the first to develop and produce a nerve agent ' Tabun'- on a large scale. 

Sound Credits:  This clip is from the 1963 film, Nerve Agents, available at the national Archives.  Video found on this amazing Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/markdcatlin/...

In this episode we examine preparations by the US in the advent of Operation Desert Storm (2003) for dealing with what was believed at the time to have been a large Iraqi CBW capability- with Al Mauroni. 

Further reading: 

A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (2007) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poisonous-Affair-America-Gassing-Halabja/dp/0521876869

In this episode, we examine the western gunpowder revolution and consider ideas for poison weapons which were outlined at this time in numerous military manuals. 

I am very grateful for the input from: 

the stupendous Seth Carus, the amazing Anna Roessing, the unbelievable Una Jacob, the awe-inspiring Alexander Samuel, the terrific Tonio Andrade, and the remarkable Rainer Leng.

Show notes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...