I have frequently heard about how smallpox devastated the new world’s indigenous populations during the beginning of colonization because they had no natural immunity. What I don’t understand is how did the reverse not happen. I naively assume indigenous diseases would impact Europeans and probably be brought back to Europe but I have never read of this happening.
In: Biology
Before Columbus there were a lot less diseases circulating in the New World than the Old World, because there were far fewer people there and because there weren’t many domesticated animals (because humans already killed off most potential candidates like horses when they arrived from Asia). Europeans were exposed to pandemics that spread from Asia and potentially Africa, as well as anything that emerged in Europe, and a high proportion of human diseases originally jumped from or were spread by animals, hence the higher disease burden there compared to the Americas.
Additionally, it’s thought that Syphilis did originate in the Americas and spread through Europe after contact, so at least one disease travelled the opposite way.
Incidentally, Europeans trying to colonise tropical countries certainly were affected by diseases they had less immunity to. There’s a reason the ‘Scramble for Africa’ didn’t take place until after the popularisation of quinine treatment for malaria.
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