29513YD10B Two centuries later, on 18 Januari 1778

Q
THE BRITISH EXPLORER CAPTAIN JAMES COOK FINALLY REACHED HAWAII!
The Hawaiian islands were densely populated by half a million people, who lived in complete
isolation from both Europe & America, and consequently had never been exposed to European
& American diseases? Captain Cook & hìs mèn introduced the first flu, tuberculosis ànd syphilis
pathogens to Hawaii! Subsequently European visitors àdded typhoid & smallpox. By 1853, only
70.000 survivors remained in Hawaii! Epidemics continued to kill tens of millions of people well
into the twentieth century. In Januari 1918 soldiers in the trenches of northern France began
dying in their thousands from a particular strain of flu, nicknamed 'the Spanish Flu'! The front
line was the end point of the most efficient global supply network the world had hitherto seen?!
Mèn ànd munitions were pouring in from Britain, the USA, India & Australia. Oil was sent
from the Middle East, grain & beef from Argentina, rubber from Malaya & copper from Congo.
In exchange, they all got Spanish Flu! Within a few months, about half a billion people - a third
of the global population - came down with the virus. In India it killed 5% of the population
(15 million people). On the island of Tahiti, 14% died. On Samoa, 20%. In the copper mines
of the Congo one out of five labourers perished! Altogether this pandemic killed between 50 million
& 100 million people in less than one year. The First World War killed 40 million from 1914
to 1918. Alongside such epidemical tsunamis that struck humankind every few decades, people also
faced smaller but more regular waves of infectious diseases, which killed millions each year. Mòrs
mother & father were born in '11 & '14 @ Sliedrecht & Harderwijk. Children who lacked
immunity were particularly susceptible to them, hence they often called 'childhood diseases'!
Until the early 20th century, about a third of children died before reaching adulthood from a
combination of malnutrition & disease. During the last century humankind became ever more
vulnerable to epidemics, due to a combination of growing population & better transport. In '70
we visited the Expo@Osaka which showed our present world after Korea, Berlin, Congo, hipsters
& Provo, Six Day War and the 'new' USSR, USA, EU with capitalists, communists, anarchists, CIA,
KGB, Vietnam, Pakistan & India! I refused to be soldier, started hitching rides between
Vale Ouwe & the Far East: see also Kees Smit@Aswan: 72 years are running faster every day now.
10 okt 2017 - bewerkt op 14 dec 2017 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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