Read the paragraph given below and answer the questions  :

Demographic trends in primitive populations are influenced not only by food technology but also by health, transport, war technologies, and by the system of organisation, which could be called 'administrative technology'. In the past health technology was so primitive that many well-fed populations had low birth rates owing to endemic venereal disease and malaria, and high mortality rates, particularly for infants. The main technique of avoiding contamination by epidemic disease was to isolate oneself as much as possible from the source of contamination by such procedures as abandoning the old village and building a new one in another place.

Improvements in the means of transport, which open up new regions for human contacts, are likely to raise mortality rates by giving greater sway to the spread of epidemics. It is true that improvements in transport technology might sometimes reduce mortality by facilitating the supply of food to a famine-stricken region, but since such improvements make it easier for a conqueror or an indigenous ruling class to move food away from the region where it is produced, they could also result in reduction of food available for local population, with negative effects on demographic trends.