Who is this person?

[Leon Greene]

(02-27-2019 11:42 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Yes, Laurie, you are correct. The answer I was looking for is indeed Dr. Luke Blackburn. His plan to terrorize the North with yellow fever did not work out as yellow fever cannot be spread through distributing the clothing of deceased yellow fever victims. If Dr. Blackburn's plan had worked, it is possible that thousands, if not millions, of Northern civilians would have been killed. President Lincoln, himself, was also a target of Dr. Blackburn, but this plan did not work either.

Dr. Leon Greene is a member here and is a retired cardiologist. I think his book is fascinating, and I was particularly taken aback by the closing sentence of its last paragraph:

"Blackburn's devotion to the heritage and traditions propelled him into a scheme that would ultimately bring him shame. He had a passion, a goal, and a method to aid the South, and to his detriment he sought valiantly to support his chosen cause. Dedicated in the extreme, he focused on an outcome to be achieved at all costs. He elevated his love of Southern society above universal love of man, giving the South a misbegotten gift of love in the form of hatred toward the North. His one fault emerged as his view of the injustice of the North drove him to attempt the unthinkable - germ warfare. In today's parlance, he sought to distribute a "weapon of mass destruction." He tried to send a gift of yellow fever, with misguided love, from Bermuda. His actions will forever serve as an example of indecent medical conduct. Fortunately for him, the techniques he used could never have been productive. But had he succeeded in finding clothing contaminated by smallpox, a disease transmissible by such methods, then..."

Not unlike some politicians today, when Blackburn was running for Governor of Kentucky, his sordid past became an issue of the campaign. Rather than answer directly the questions posed to him about the yellow fever conspiracy, Blackburn simply said that such accusations were so outlandish that he would not dignify them with a response.