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Christopher Columbus brought measles to the New World. It was a disaster for Native Americans.
San Jose Mercury ^ | May 6, 2019 | Michael S. Rosenwald

Posted on 05/06/2019 6:15:09 AM PDT by artichokegrower

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, bringing to the New World a bounty of wonder: coffee, horses, turnips, grapes, wine.

But Columbus and his fellow explorers, in addition to importing crops and animals we now take for granted, were also the Typhoid Marys of their time.

The New World before Columbus: no typhoid, no flu, no smallpox, no measles.

The New World after Columbus: epidemics of death.

(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: columbus; discovery; measles; outbreak; plague
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To: pepsi_junkie

They did.

Syphilis was the new king of diseases................


21 posted on 05/06/2019 6:30:08 AM PDT by Red Badger (We are headed for a Civil War. It won't be nice like the last one....................)
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To: pepsi_junkie
why didn’t the Europeans get previously unencountered diseases from the indians?

syphilis is one possibility. Although it was many years later, the men on the Lewis and Clark expedition had a very high percentage contract syphilis during the expedition.

22 posted on 05/06/2019 6:30:11 AM PDT by Michael.SF. (California: knowingly give someone aids: misdemeanor. Give them a straw, go to jail.)
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To: artichokegrower

And, the drumbeat for reparations to “First Peoples” begins...


23 posted on 05/06/2019 6:30:23 AM PDT by Darteaus94025 (Can't have a Liberal without a Lie)
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To: artichokegrower

Before Columbus there was no disease. People who died from unknown causes were probably just possessed by evil spirits. How far would the poor abused noble savages have come if not for the evil white man.

*puke*


24 posted on 05/06/2019 6:31:11 AM PDT by bk1000 (I stand with Trump)
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To: taterjay
Did people coming in get any diseases from the Indians?? Are we saying the Indians had no diseases at all???

Just the clap.

The Americas were lacking in large domesticable beasts.

According to Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel, 1997), since the europeans domesticated and lived with horses, pigs, sheep, chickens, geese, ducks, ox and cows they traded zoonotic diseases back and forth, and the survivors had genes to resist any number of diseases.

By the time settlers arrived in what would become America, something like 90% of the people here were already dead.

Dead of the diseases that to europeans were minor annoyances.

'If this is small pox, what must the great pox be like?' an Aztec is said to have wondered...

25 posted on 05/06/2019 6:32:34 AM PDT by null and void (The press is always lying. When they aren't actively lying, they are actively concealing the truth.)
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To: dljordan

“We got the first step down.”

“Yup. Now all we need is our own Robert Jarvik.”


26 posted on 05/06/2019 6:33:02 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: pepsi_junkie
The question to me is “why didn’t the Europeans get previously unencountered diseases from the indians? Why was it only one way?”

There is a great book that deals with that question called "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond

27 posted on 05/06/2019 6:33:41 AM PDT by Poison Pill
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To: ealgeone

28 posted on 05/06/2019 6:34:28 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: taterjay

“Are we saying the Indians had no diseases at all???”

syphilis?


29 posted on 05/06/2019 6:34:52 AM PDT by Mercat
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To: rightwingcrazy
What’s the practical difference between noble savages and savage nobles?

Good question. Hmmm...

The Noble Savage kills people retail.
The savage Noble kills people wholesale.

Does that sound about right?

30 posted on 05/06/2019 6:35:45 AM PDT by null and void (The press is always lying. When they aren't actively lying, they are actively concealing the truth.)
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To: dljordan

re: “The Aztecs were pioneers in heart surgery.”

Getting it out was easy, the next step is the hard part ...


31 posted on 05/06/2019 6:35:52 AM PDT by _Jim (Save babies)
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To: ConservativeDude

They would also have benefited from contacts with the ancient black Egyptians. That way they could have had an air force as well.


32 posted on 05/06/2019 6:36:06 AM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
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To: null and void

‘If this is small pox, what must the great pox be like?’ an Aztec is said to have wondered...


In 1530, the pastoral name “syphilis” (the name of a character) was first used by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro as the title of his Latin poem in dactylic hexameter describing the ravages of the disease in Italy.[59][60] It was also called the “Great Pox”.[61][62]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis#Etymology


33 posted on 05/06/2019 6:37:07 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: null and void
"what must the Great Pox be like?"

This...…..

34 posted on 05/06/2019 6:37:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

*ouch*


35 posted on 05/06/2019 6:39:48 AM PDT by null and void (The press is always lying. When they aren't actively lying, they are actively concealing the truth.)
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To: artichokegrower

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071659/

The natives of the pre-Columbus era were a very sickly lot.

Today’s native indigenous enjoy average lifetimes approaching 80 years.

They are soooooooo victimized.

Columbus = Trump = Hitler or something.


36 posted on 05/06/2019 6:40:51 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: artichokegrower

The Natives gave the Spaniards and Italians syphilis in exchange.

It spread so rapidly in Europe that within 50 years, the King of England was infected.


37 posted on 05/06/2019 6:40:52 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: PeterPrinciple

Wouldn’t the great pox infest the big head, not the small one?


38 posted on 05/06/2019 6:40:55 AM PDT by null and void (The press is always lying. When they aren't actively lying, they are actively concealing the truth.)
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To: artichokegrower

It would have been someone eventually, and unless it would have occurred in some inexplicably modern environment where all the new world populations were immunized to the old world’s diseases and microbiome, it would have been just as deadly.

It happened to have been Columbus, and we know a comparative lot about one of the most important hinge points in the history of humanity. If you think Columbus was a terrible person, you can still appreciate the magnitude of the columbian exchange.

.


39 posted on 05/06/2019 6:41:34 AM PDT by jz638
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To: ealgeone

It kind of proves the point that you need very strong border security.


40 posted on 05/06/2019 6:41:57 AM PDT by PGR88
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