Famine can be defined as a failure of food production or distribution resulting in dramatically increased mortality.
This increase is attributable to two, and very often three, orders of disease. First, there is the disease of general starvation characterized by wasting and inanition. Second, there are behavioral disorders and social disruptions, some a direct consequence of energy deficiency, others linked to mental disturbance.
These can be lethal in their own right while at the same time contributing to the general starvation and to the spread of contagious illness. Third, there is epidemic infection, which is not always seen in mass starvation but which is frequent enough to be considered a classic concomitant. Facilitated by impaired individual and community resistance to pathogenic agents, contagions tend to run an exceedingly rapid course through famished populations, contributing in large measure to overall mortality.
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