Final answer:
The first attempt to give prison guards who died from the plague was to launch corpses into the city in the hopes of spreading disease and killing everyone inside.
Step-by-step explanation:
The first attempt to give prison guards who died from the plague something was to place corpses in catapults and launch them into the city. The hope was that the intolerable stench from the rotting corpses would kill everyone inside.
This desperate measure was taken during the siege of a city, where the situation was desperate and people were trying different strategies to contain the plague. It was believed that the overwhelming stench and the disease itself would prevent anyone from escaping the city.
The use of corpses in warfare as a means of spreading disease goes back centuries, and this method was seen as a form of biological warfare.