According to a theory put forward in '' Journal of Australian Studies '' ( '' JAS '' ) by independent researcher Christopher Warren , British marines used smallpox in 1789 against indigenous tribes in New South Wales . This theory was also considered earlier in '' Bulletin of the History of Medicine '' and by David Day in his book '' Claiming a Continent : A New History of Australia '' . However it is disputed by some medical academics , including Professor Jack Carmody , who in 2010 claimed that the rapid spread of the outbreak in question was more likely indicative of chickenpox — a disease which , at the time , was often confused , even by surgeons , with smallpox , and was in fact comparably deadly to Aborigines and to other peoples without natural immunity to it . Carmody noted that in the 8-month voyage of the First Fleet and the following 14 months there were no reports of smallpox amongst the colonists and that , since smallpox has an incubation period of 10 – 12 days , it is unlikely it was present in the First Fleet ; however , Warren argued in the '' JAS '' article that the likely source was bottles of smallpox virus possessed by First Fleet surgeons . Ian and Jennifer Glynn , in '' The life and death of smallpox '' , confirm that bottles of " variolous matter " were carried to Australia for use as a vaccine , but think it unlikely the virus could have survived till 1789 . In 2007 , Christopher Warren offered evidence that the British smallpox may have been still viable . However , the only non Aborigine reported to have died in this outbreak was a seaman called Joseph Jeffries , who was recorded as being of " American Indian " origin . W. S. Carus , an expert in biological weapons , has written that there is circumstantial evidence that smallpox was deliberately introduced to the Aboriginal population . However Carmody and the Australian National University 's Boyd Hunter continue to support the chickenpox hypothesis . During World War II , scientists from the United Kingdom , United States and Japan ( Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army ) were involved in research into producing a biological weapon from smallpox . Plans of large scale production were never carried through as they considered that the weapon would not be very effective due to the wide-scale availability of a vaccine
Unit 731
Unit 731
Smallpox