Birth Control | Page 6

not four times but sixteen
times its present population; and that the latter figure could be still
further increased by the progress of inventions. But, apart altogether
from the accuracy of these figures, the danger of overpopulation is
nothing more or less than a myth. Indeed, the end of the world, a
philosophic and scientific certitude, is a more imminent event than its
overpopulation.
Section 8. HOW NATIONS HAVE PERISHED
Before speculating on what might happen in the future, it is well to
recollect what has happened in the past. The earth has been inhabited
for thousands of years, and modern research has revealed the remains
of many ancient civilisations that have perished. For example, there
were the great nations of Cambodia and of Guatemala. In Crete, about
2000 B.C., there existed a civilisation where women were dressed as
are this evening the women of London and Paris. That civilisation
perished, and even its language cannot now be deciphered. Why did
these civilisations perish? Surely this momentous question should take
precedence over barren discussions as to whether there will be
sufficient food on the land or in the sea for the inhabitants of the world
in 200 years' time. How came it about that these ancient nations did not
double their numbers every fifty years and fill up the earth long ago?
The answer is that they were overcome and annihilated by the
incidence of one or other of two dangers that threaten every civilisation,
including our own. These dangers are certain physical and moral
catastrophes, against which there is only one form of natural insurance,
namely, a birth-rate that adequately exceeds the death-rate. They help
to illustrate further the fallacy of the overpopulation scare.
The following is a general outline of these dangers, and in a later
chapter (p. 70)(see [Reference: Dangers]) I shall quote an example of
how they have operated in the past.

Section 9. PHYSICAL CATASTROPHES
Deaths from famine, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are
confined to comparatively small areas, and the two physical
catastrophes that may seriously threaten a civilisation may be reduced
to endemic disease and war.
(a) Disease Disease, in the form of malaria, contributed to the fall of
ancient Greece and Rome. In the fourteenth century 25,000,000 people,
one-quarter of the population of Europe, were exterminated by plague,
the "Black Death," and in the sixteenth century smallpox depopulated
Spanish America. Although these particular diseases have lost much of
their power owing to the progress of medical science, we have no right
to assume that disease in general has been conquered by our civilisation,
or that a new pestilence may not appear. On the contrary, in 1805, a
new disease, spotted fever, appeared in Geneva, and within half a
century had become endemic throughout Europe and America. Of this
fever during the Great War the late Sir William Osler wrote: "In
cerebro-spinal fever we may be witnessing the struggle of a new
disease to win a place among the great epidemics of the world." There
was a mystery about this disease, because, although unknown in the
Arctic Circle, it appeared in temperate climates during the coldest
months of the year. As I was able to prove in 1915, [8] it is a disease of
civilisation. I found that the causal organism was killed in thirty
minutes by a temperature of 62°F. It was thus obvious that infection
could never be carried by cold air. But in overcrowded rooms where
windows are closed, and the temperature of warm, impure, saturated air
was raised by the natural heat of the body to 80°F or over, the life of
the microorganism, expelled from the mouths of infected people during
the act of coughing, was prolonged. Infection is thus carried from one
person to another by warm currents of moving air, and at the same time
resistance against the disease is lowered. Cold air kills the organism,
but cold weather favours the disease. In that paradox the aetiology of
cerebro-spinal fever became as clear as the means of prevention. The
story of spotted fever reveals the forces of nature fighting against the
disease at every turn, and implacably opposed to its existence, while
man alone, of his own will and folly, harbours infection and creates the

only conditions under which the malady can appear. For example,
during two consecutive winters cerebro-spinal fever had appeared in
barracks capable of housing 2,000 men. A simple and effective method
of ventilation was then introduced. From that day to this not a single
case of cerebro-spinal fever has occurred in these barracks, although
there have been outbreaks of this disease in the town in which the
barracks are situated.
There are many other diseases peculiar to civilisation, and concerning
the wherefore and the why an apposite passage occurs in the works of
Sir