We often hear indigenous peoples died from disease introduced by European settlers in North and South America. If indigenous peoples there were susceptible to eradication by unfamiliar disease why is the same not true of disease and death to settlers? Or is it true but more easily overcome?
In: Biology
It’s complicated. Disease transmission is not necessarily an even exchange; you give me two and I give you the same . And even when there are relatively similar numbers of new diseases, they are not necessarily transmitted in the same way or are equally deadly. The immune system learns and develops as it encounters new diseases; if a disease doesn’t kill on first contact we may still see illness but not deaths.
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