Old Britannica on Koch and Famine

03 June 2022
Somewhere , Texas
Mind burst, sans edit

I found an old Britannica set yesterday at a friend’s home in Texas. Eleventh Edition, 1910-1911.

I looked up Robert Koch, the famous microbiologist. No serious mention of his medical fraud in the 1890s. Britannica vaguely alludes to something off, but only IF you are already keyed into what Koch did. Koch went Full-Fauci.

I found the tattered F volume and read on Famine. Britannica attempted to predict how later famines would play out. Brittanica was accurate on some stuff such as transportation could solve much of world famine. Famine has never to my knowledge been a result of a global food shortage (well, until 2023/24), but of local shortages. There’s always enough usable food Somewhere out there.

And so, a premise was that big famine should be a catastrophe of the past because, in part, we have better transport. Did not account for authoritarian-war-famine. The Great famine of 2023/24/beyond is shaping up to be a famine dwarfing the many huge famines Britannica mentions in 1910-1911 Edition. So many massive famines had already occurred BEFORE the communists arrived and brought famine to a new level.

India was, and still is, ravaged by famine. Reasons for constant Indian famines are not just about population. India is geographically massive — every year someone is in drought, flood, or both, and then sprinkle in pestilence. Couple that with bad transport, conflict, and more, and India is a place very acquainted with famine. Famine is part of the Indian backdrop. And thus Indians have a long prepping-tradition.

Indians breed and starve prolifically — math is math. Math, like the seas, deserts, and Darien Gap, has no friends, no enemies. We now have far more people alive on earth than ever. The global population will soon take a massive haircut.

Britannica mentions that famines in British-controlled areas tend to be far less severe than in Indian-controlled areas/times. The truth is unknown to me and politically rough water.

As for Koch and going full-Fauci in the 1890s, that was pretty epic. I will look for the P volume to look up Pandemic. (Also, yesterday looked up Japan/Korea annexation. Mostly that information is under Korea, not Japan. That section will be useful for historians insofar as it presents a view of the time far more benign than current weaponized-history). That history will be important for future wars coming with China/Korea/Japan/Taiwan/World.

On the alien invasion into the United States, another caravan of 7-10,000 should start arriving next week. I plan to be there.

As for Robert Koch, his namesake the Koch Institute kept up the tradition with the Nazis: https://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a2398