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There is a pretty strong argument that Haemophilia is the disease that has had the biggest impact on the last 100 years. Russian heir to the throne Alexis Roma
by sswaner 9y ago
There is a pretty strong argument that Haemophilia is the disease that has had the biggest impact on the last 100 years. Russian heir to the throne Alexis Romanov inherited the disease and his suffering and lack of treatment options destabilized his family and contributed to leadership issues culminating in Russian defeat in WW1 and the Russian revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union.
Agree? If not, what disease led to a greater string of consequences? Malaria, Spanish Influenza, polio, AIDS?
- mirimir 9y agoThe plague in Europe. And in North America, smallpox, which decimated (and more) indigenous peoples.
- TylerE 9y agoNeither of which occurred in the last 100 years.
- mistermann 9y agoI couldn't resist. https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/895774914820546560 https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/895774914820546560
- mirimir 9y agoOK, fair enough. Let's see ... 100 years. How about nationalism?
- mirimir 9y agoRacism, then?
- seren 9y agoJust to be extra pedantic, and not in a serious way, the 1917 Russian October Revolution, was neither in the last 100 years since we are in December.
- nervousvarun 9y agoInteresting question. Can the eradication/treatment of a disease be taken into account? Would think the wide-scale availability of vaccines for Polio/Small Pox/other various viruses etc coupled with antibiotic treatments for bacterial infections had an enormous impact on the last 100 years.
- liveoneggs 9y agosyphilis increased the crazy of many many important people until antibiotics came into common use
- Nomentatus 9y agoApparently it was the most common cause of death until 1946 in the US, although doctors usually didn't write "Syphilis" in death certificates for the sake of the family; just the final cause of death such as pneumonia.
- dghughes 9y agoThat's like a James Burke Connections episode.
- openasocket 9y agoI'd argue the Bolshevik revolution would still have happened even if Romanov wasn't a hemophiliac. I don't see how the child's disease would have affected the management of the Russian supply lines in WWI, or have caused the February Revolution.
- Nomentatus 9y agoIt may have been quite helpful in fact; particularly after the invention of the telegraph, remote amateur micromanagment by royal, tyrannical and elected HIPPOs (including Hitler and even perhaps even Lincoln at the start of the war) has crippled many a military effort.
- pmoriarty 9y agoSome high-end estimates of the Spanish Flu death toll are that it killed around 300 million people, which dwarfs the death toll of WW1 (49 million) and WW2 (73 million) combined. We'd likely live in a very different world had it been prevented or curtailed, though it's hard to know what specifically would be different, as even the existence or non-existence of a single person could be pivotal in history.
- Nomentatus 9y agoPossible, but... Russia being able to mobilize faster at the start of WWI than the Germans believed possible diverted enough additional troops East (busting their original plan) that the German invasion of France was too weak to succeed. There may be a better argument for Russia being stronger than could reasonably have been expected. Granted, French-subsidized railways and Austrian incompetence were very large factors, here. The follow-on Kerensky government proved even less effective militarily, although it can be argued that the consequences of a century of mismanagement favoring the 1% wasn't easily reversed. Malaria has defeated many an army and invasion; yellow fever, too. The fall of Rome has been blamed on a severe plague; particularly the fact that Rome was hit last, and therefore weak when it's neighbors were recovering and stronger.