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
They didn’t really have diseases in the amount europeans did. A huge amount of diseases are from animal farms. Like bird flu, there are a lot of diseases that can go between animals and humans. But natives didn’t really do that, not anywhere near as much as in Europe.
Aside from not having as many diseases directly, the europeans also had stronger immune systems in general. Having to deal with so many disease made their bodies more able to handle the introduction of new ones. the natives did not have the same protection.
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