Been researching the history of hyperinflation a bit lately, and I came across an interesting article about a mental condition known as zero stroke or cipheritis, which was (supposedly) a mental condition identified by German doctors during the 1919-1923 period in which the German mark lost essentially all its value.
From Time Magazine, 1923:
The last return of the Reichsbank gave the total German note circulation as 92,844,720,742,927,000,000 marks, nearly 93 quintillions.
With the price of bread running into billions a loaf the German people have had to get used to counting in thousands of billions. This, according to some German physicians, brought on a new nervous disease known as “zero stroke,” or “cipher stroke,” which may, however, be classed with neuritis as cipheritis.
The persons afflicted with the malady are perfectly normal, except “for a desire to write endless rows of ciphers and engage in computations more involved than the most difficult problems in logarithms.”
More from Wiki:
Zero stroke or cipher stroke was a term used to describe a mental disorder reportedly diagnosed by physicians in Germany under the Weimar Republic and which was caused by hyperinflation that occurred in the early 1920s. The disorder was primarily characterized by patients’ desire to write endless rows of zeros, which are also referred to as ciphers.
Background
After the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I in 1919, Germany faced a damaged economy and a requirement to pay immense war reparations to the Allies. At the beginning of 1921, the German currency was relatively stable at about 60 Marks per US Dollar,[1] but inflation rapidly increased after August 1921, and the Mark fell to less than one third of a cent by November 1921 (approx. 330 Marks per US Dollar). The Mark stabilized again at the beginning of 1922, but when there was no resolution to the reparations problem the inflation changed to hyperinflation and the Mark fell to 8000 Marks per Dollar by December 1922. The inflation reached its peak by November 1923, but ended in the same year when a new currency (the Rentenmark) was introduced.
Cause
The disorder was supposedly caused by the dizzying speed of hyperinflation and the calculations required to conduct commerce under its effect. It has been said that during the worst period of hyperinflation that in the time it took to drink a cup of coffee, the price for the cup could double.[2] The fast pace of hyperinflation caused people to quickly buy goods when they received their wages.[2] Workers would demand to be paid at the beginning of the day for their work and after they were paid, they would be given half an hour to run off to buy goods before their earnings became worthless.[2] The requirements to calculate and recalculate commercial transactions in the millions and trillions made it practically impossible to do business.[2]
The foreclosure wave, caused at least in part by a bank-crafted liar loans and loose monetary policy, is already causing higher levels of depression and other health problems in the U.S.
Add zero stroke and cipheritis to the list of conditions that big pharma firms could fill their dwindling pipelines with. By the time they re-brand some anti-D or benzo as a treatment for zero stroke, who knows? We could be in the midst of it. Restless pitchfork syndrome … the list goes on and on.
If you’re looking for a book on the Weimar hyperinflation, I hear When money dies: The nightmare of the Weimar collapse
is good.
, is on sale at Amazon. Also see his 