Mikey; //with the greatest of respects, that was before the discovery of antibiotics.//
We have squandered the effects of antibiotics by abusing what should be one of humanities most valuable assets by using them for every trivial ailment and they are already losing their effectiveness. Ebola ? well we can't be sure we have beaten it yet, and I'm sure there is more of its like to come.
More on Malthus;
"In Essay on the Principle of Population,Malthus proposes the principle that human populations grow exponentially (i.e., doubling with each cycle) while food production grows at an arithmetic rate (i.e. by the repeated addition of a uniform increment in each uniform interval of time). Thus, while food output was likely to increase in a series of twenty-five year intervals in the arithmetic progression 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and so on, population was capable of increasing in the geometric progression 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and so forth. This scenario of arithmetic food growth with simultaneous geometric human population growth predicted a future when humans would have no resources to survive on. To avoid such a catastrophe, Malthus urged controls on population growth."
Without this, humanity can realistically expect to see one or all of, famine, pestilence and war.