Millions of "tiny animalcules" were observed in rainwater by the Dutch biologist Anton van Leeuwenhoek way back in 1674 as he peered through his simple single-lens microscope. More than 165 years later, in 1840, the German pathologist Friedrich Henle proposed criteria for proving that microbes were responsible for causing disease (the 'germ theory' of disease); and subsequently the Golden Age of Microbiology was born, from 1857 to 1914, spearheaded by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, because of their rapid advances in germ theory which established microbiology as a science. Yet, in the 14th and 15th centuries, there were no microscopes and little, if anything, was known about infectious disease; but, the Tartars were successful in 1346 in their siege of Kaffa (aka Caffa), a city on the Black Sea held by the Genovese, by introducing one of the earliest forms of biological warfare, when they catapulted their plague-ridden dead over the city walls.
How would you explain this phenomenon of exercising 'germ theory' nearly 300 years before its time? Did the Tartars know something extraordinary of the time? What's your interpretation of an event that happened more than 650 years ago? Also, please pick a moment in history that you have found particularly interesting regarding biowarfare or bioterrorism and discuss it. Therefore, please provide your responses in two succinct, carefully written paragraphs.