The physical effects of undernutrition and malnutrition made themselves felt in a manner which brought them home to every man. Working-capacity dropped to half the normal, or even less. Mortality increased by leaps and bounds, particularly among the children and the aged. The death rate of children from 1 to 5 years of age increased 50 per cent; that of children from 5 to 15 by 55 per cent. In 1917 alone this increased death rate among children from 1 to 15 years meant an excess of deaths over the normal of more than 50,000 in the whole Empire. In the year 1913, 40,374 deaths from tuberculosis were reported in German municipalities of 15,000 inhabitants or more. The same municipalities reported 41,800 deaths from tuberculosis in the first six months of 1918, an increase of more than 100 per cent. In Berlin alone the death rate for all causes jumped from 13.48 per thousand for the first eight months of 1913 to 20.05 for the first eight months of 1918. According to a report laid before the United Medical Societies in Berlin on December 18, 1918, the "hunger blockade" was responsible for 763,000 deaths in the Empire. These figures are doubtless largely based on speculation and probably too high, but one need not be a physician to know that years of malnutrition and undernutrition, especially in the case of children and the aged, mean a greatly increased death rate and particularly a great increase of tuberculosis. In addition to the excess deaths alleged by the German authorities to be directly due to the blockade, there were nearly 150,000 deaths from Spanish influenza in 1918. These have not been reckoned among the 763,000, but it must be assumed that many would have withstood the attack had they not been weakened by the privations of the four war-years. The enthusiasm that had carried the people through the beginnings of their privations cooled gradually. No moral sentiments, even the most exalted, can prevail against hunger. Starving men will fight or steal to get a crust of bread, just as a drowning man clutches at a straw. There have been men in history whose patriotism or devotion to an idea has withstood the test of torture and starvation, but that these are the exception is shown by the fact that history has seen fit to record their deeds. The average man is not made of such stern stuff. _Mens sana in corpore sano_ means plainly that there can be no healthy mind without a healthy body. Hungry men and women who see their children die for want of food naturally feel a bitter resentment which must find an object. They begin to ask themselves whether, after all, these sacrifices have been necessary, and to what end they have served. The first answer to the question, What has compelled these sacrifices was, of course, for everybody, The war. But who is responsible for The War? Germany's enemies, answered a part of the people.