A plague pot. A fumigation jar. Peasant disinfectant.

Thin-walled ceramic, fifteen to thirty centimetres, scored to fracture on impact, charged at the moment of use with crushed Allium — garlic, onion, leek, ramson, or a compound. Whole bulbs are inert; the alliin–alliinase reaction that produces allicin requires the crush. On fracture in a confined space the volatile fraction becomes an airborne thiol saboteur. Allicin's half-life in air is on the order of fifteen minutes. The vessel is the area-delivery vehicle for PHARM-0001: pulmonary and mucosal absorption, no wound required.

Doctrine is cellar, crypt, mine-shaft, cave — the documented shelter types of haemophagic cryptobiosis. Throw. Withdraw. Wait the dispersal window. Then engage, if anything is still standing. Hellenistic throwing-pots and Carpathian fumigation jars are the same object read once as military history and once as folk medicine. Both readings are incomplete.