Pestilence, that old follower of warfare, did not arrive until the very end of [World War I) in 1918. For four years
medical science staved off any general epidemic; then
came a great outbreak of influenza about the world which
destroyed many millions of people.
Famine also was staved off for some time. By the
beginning of 1918 however most of Europe was in a state
of mitigated and regulated famine. The production of food
throughout the world had fallen very greatly through the
calling off of peasant mankind to the fronts, and the
distribution of such food as was produced was impeded
by the havoc wrought by the submarine, by the rupture of
customary routes through the closing of frontiers, and by
the disorganization of the transport system of the world.
w
By the fourth vear the whole world was suffering from