Forgive my ignorance, but is introducing penicillin such a good idea? It would provide a considerable advantage in the short-term, but once the cat gets out of the bag and the knowledge spreads to the rest of the Empire (I assume it’s not that difficult to manufacture), you’d have antibiotic resistance everywhere, and no international medical community to clamp down on over-prescription.
Additionally, showing off what biodiesel can do might kickstart general fossil fuel extraction before the technology exists to monitor pollution and greenhouse gas levels.
Re: drug resistance—that takes decades to become a problem. By then I’d be soundly in control and could disseminate germ theory freely. I’d need to introduce other antibiotics as well but I’d have the ability to do so easily.
Introduction of biodiesel would bypass the adoption/usage of fossil fuels. Also, the population-at-large would be significantly smaller and would reach postindustrial status at a population far, far smaller than modern population.
Would disseminating germ theory really help all that much? Rome itself might have been a fairly literate society, but in the time it would take to overcome all the inferential distances in just the educated classes, the drug would have spread like wildfire through the rest of Europe and the Near East by merchants hoping to make a quick sesterce from selling the “miracle cure” to the peasantry.
The Romans already believed something very similar to germ theory: that diseases were caused by an invisible contagion that was passed through contact/exposure to those already infested by it.
Also, I would be the primary distributor and manufacturer of pennicillin; so I could have some control over how it was distributed. Ensuring it got into the hands first of medics trained in my courses—I.e.; people who knew about germ theory—would be trivial.
Forgive my ignorance, but is introducing penicillin such a good idea? It would provide a considerable advantage in the short-term, but once the cat gets out of the bag and the knowledge spreads to the rest of the Empire (I assume it’s not that difficult to manufacture), you’d have antibiotic resistance everywhere, and no international medical community to clamp down on over-prescription.
Additionally, showing off what biodiesel can do might kickstart general fossil fuel extraction before the technology exists to monitor pollution and greenhouse gas levels.
Re: drug resistance—that takes decades to become a problem. By then I’d be soundly in control and could disseminate germ theory freely. I’d need to introduce other antibiotics as well but I’d have the ability to do so easily.
Introduction of biodiesel would bypass the adoption/usage of fossil fuels. Also, the population-at-large would be significantly smaller and would reach postindustrial status at a population far, far smaller than modern population.
These aren’t major problems.
Would disseminating germ theory really help all that much? Rome itself might have been a fairly literate society, but in the time it would take to overcome all the inferential distances in just the educated classes, the drug would have spread like wildfire through the rest of Europe and the Near East by merchants hoping to make a quick sesterce from selling the “miracle cure” to the peasantry.
The Romans already believed something very similar to germ theory: that diseases were caused by an invisible contagion that was passed through contact/exposure to those already infested by it.
Also, I would be the primary distributor and manufacturer of pennicillin; so I could have some control over how it was distributed. Ensuring it got into the hands first of medics trained in my courses—I.e.; people who knew about germ theory—would be trivial.
Plus, I’d have decades to resolve the issue.