Vital revolution and overpopulation

Jenner and smallpox

Beginning from 1798, the year in which Edward Jenner published his results about vaccination against smallpox, a series of scientific victories over contagious diseases has taken place. Between 1877 and 1879 Louis Pasteur discovered the bacillus of corbuncle; in 1882 and 1883 Robert Koch the ones of tuberculosis and cholera.

Robert Koch

At the same time of the discovery of the first vaccines the vital revolution[1], so called by some authors, started. Until then there had been some periods, even long, of population increase, but they came dramatically to an end and sudden rises of mortaltity rate brought back world population nearly to the starting point of the growth moments.

Difficult clostridium

Since the end of the XVIII century the graph of world population assumes a constantly vertical tendency with a rate of an annual increase that got, in 1933, to 94 billion units and still lasts. (Vital Revolution and Overpopulation). At half 1994 the total was 5,66 billion people.

Graphic of world population

For 2050 projections go from a minimum of 7,8 to a maximum of 12,5 billion people(according to the tendency of fertility rate).

From these figures we can deduce that the animal man, thanks to his evolution from a monkey to Homo Sapiens, has become the absolute master of the earth.

Microbacterium of tuberculosis

In spite of predators, famines, wars and epidemics he has obeyed the biblical commandment Be prolific and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and subject sea fish and the winged creatures of the skies and every living creature moving on the earth”.

I don’t think the Bible could conceive the existence of bacteria and viruses or however could consider them as living creatures, but man’s control over these microorganisms might be only apparent and anyway temporary.

Another consequence of overpopulation is the fact that “ with our billion bodies ” we offer a wonderful target for a virus which has adapted to invade us[2]. And ironically it was just the brilliant elimination of most human infections to cause this condition. That is the lack of catastrofic epidemics, the ones which occurred in the past, allowed a huge demographic increase. Overpopulation causes, in its turn, the conditions for a new epidemic.

Civilization and overpopulation cause overcrowding, this, in its turn, causes, as we will see later, the increase of intraspecific aggressiveness between man and man and the refusal-abandonment of children. The pressure of human density on the environment causes climatic alterations the consequence of which, perhaps, had been foreseen by the Bible itself.

[1] Helleiner K F, The vital revolution reconsidered. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. Vol.XXIII,N.1.Pag.79-86.

[2] Mc. Neill. Patterns of Disease Emergence in History. In Emerging viruses. Op. cit. Pag.29-36.

Cholera bacterium

  Translated from “Il Virus Intelligente” by Enrica Narducci