PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

APPENDIX C
WORLD WAR II FAVORED TUBERCULOSIS
APPENDIX FIGURE 5.2 Tuberculosis victims in the United States. The fit is only
on the historical window 1900–1931. Penicillin was discovered in 1931, but
effective medication that may be considered as a “miracle drug” for this case
became available in 1955. Ironically, the agreement between the data and the
curve determined from the first three decades becomes best for the years after
1955! A significant excess seems to be related to World War II. In the nset I
have extracted the contents of the bump by subtracting from the actual data the
share estimated by the smooth line. ∗
∗ The data come from the Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970,
vols. 1 and 2, Bureau of the Census, Washington DC, 1976, and from the Statistical Abstract
of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
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