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
According to Jarret Diamond, a fctor is that the indigenous Americans did not live with their livestock, who act as reservoirs for these diseases, so there weren’t as many to infect the Europeans.
Latest Answers