eli5: Why Weren’t European Colonizers As Impacted By New World Diseases as The Natives were by European Diseases?
In: Biology
In the end, its because there were lots of animals in Europe/Asia/Africa that could be domesticated, and almost none in the americas. As far as I know, only the Lama was somewhat suited for that.
Therefore europeans, asians and africans had a lot more direct contact to animals, and by the 15th century, were already exposed and then immune to a wide variety of diseases, but still carried them. Europe having some megacities (for that time) probably also helped spreading diseases and therby making the survivors immune.
So when europeans and amaricans met, the americans got the same crap that europeans sufferd through in their entire history, except all at once.
The extent of this effect can also be seen in another way: Europeans were just as evil to africans as they were to americans, but, bluntly speaking, today Africa is still full of africans.
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