germs and guns: smallpox introduced into the Americas
Columbus exchange
Global history This topic often starts from 1500 years and takes 1500 years as the approximate value of 1492. With the discovery of the new world in 1492 of Columbus , the Age of Navigation means that the human society on Earth finally had a global connection. Historians call this phenomenon Columbus Exchange (Columbian Exchange) . The most well-known exchange is the human migration of across the Atlantic : Thousands of European immigrants arrived in the Americas one after another and established new settlements and countries. The United States is the result of this great migration. But at the same time, countless people were forced to leave their hometowns to come to the New World : About 12 million Africans were sold as slaves and transported to the Americas to work in plantations and mines.
Atlantic slave trade, source: Statista
Columbus exchange Another far-reaching exchange is the spread of animals and plants . Many of the eating habits we are familiar with now are the result of this exchange: Today, Brazil and Colombia are the main production places of coffee, and China and the United States are the main production places of bananas, but these are not native to the Americas; bananas are native to Southeast Asia, while coffee is native to Africa.
The various peppers commonly used in Hunan, Sichuan and Indian cuisine are native to Central American ; potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn, which are widely loved by people from all over the world, are native to the Americas; tomatoes commonly used in Italian cuisine are also native to the Americas. In other words, the dishes we are familiar with are scrambled eggs with tomatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, pickled pepper chicken feet with , stir-fried potato shredded potatoes with , all of which are familiar to us, have a history of no more than five hundred years. Compared with foods such as rice, millet, and cabbage, they look very young.
Flora and fauna in the Columbus Exchange, Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
Unfortunately, disease has also followed the movement of humans to the New World . Since humans' first line of defense against diseases is the body's own immune system, Americans who have no immunity to pathogens they have never been exposed to have suffered a severe blow. The most typical and deadly one is smallpox. The origin of
小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小� in the 15th century BC, the mummy in ancient Egypt was detected on . The virus was introduced into China during the Qin and Han dynasties.
Because smallpox virus infection is not distinguished by the high and low, it has left a strong mark in history: French King Louis XV , Russian Emperor Peter II both died of smallpox; British Queen Elizabeth I and US President Lincoln both suffered from smallpox; Japanese famous Warring States general Ida Masamune was blind in his right eye when he was young; in Chinese history, the most famous smallpox patient may be the Qing Dynasty Emperor Shunzhi; Emperor Kangxi was also selected as the heir to the throne because he had been infected with smallpox and had immunity .
Ida Masamunjom image, now hidden in Tofuku Temple; Source: Wikimedia Commons
Dusplenia virus generally enters the human body through the respiratory tract. After the incubation period without obvious symptoms for 10-14 days, the infected person will experience symptoms similar to severe colds, including headache, fever, muscle pain, etc. When these symptoms gradually relieve, the patient will have rashes, especially on the face and limbs; the rash gradually turns into blister-like abscesses, and eventually scabs leave scars. The mortality rate of ordinary smallpox is about 30%, but the mortality rate of severe patients can reach 90%. Because smallpox virus can be transmitted through the patient's exhaled oral secretions and rash, it is highly contagious. However, compared with other epidemics, smallpox has two major characteristics that make it relatively easy to control: survivors who have infected smallpox have lifelong immunity to smallpox; smallpox cannot infect animals other than humans .
vaccination
British doctor Edward Jenner discovers the story of vaccination method to prevent smallpox. Before this method was discovered, people had already used " human acne " to prevent smallpox: the inoculation either inhales the skin scabs of patients ground into fine powder, or use a sharp weapon stained with the skin scab powder to scratch the skin. However, the smallpox virus in human acne is more active, and failure to vaccinate will cause smallpox. In short, because smallpox has repeatedly appeared in human history, most human society has certain response measures. Native Americans who have never been exposed to smallpox are not so lucky.
小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小� But this does not mean that Native Americans all die from newly introduced diseases due to their delicate bodies. The Americas are not without local epidemics; on the contrary, just as Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas, the epidemic in the Americas has spread to the global , including syphilis and Trypanosomiasis. Although Americans do lack measures to deal with smallpox, Americans’ own living habits and social composition are not easy to form an epidemic: although human societies in China and South America are both agricultural societies, the population density is much lower than that of the same period of Eurasian . In North America, Indians, which mainly produce activities, are scattered on the vast plains. For smallpox, which requires close contact between people and humans to be transmitted, even if Americans lack resistance, the spread of smallpox epidemic is difficult.
The disaster caused by the smallpox epidemic to Native Americans is closely related to European colonialism. European colonists not only brought germs; their destruction of local society and environment, and persecution of local people exacerbated the impact of smallpox. Taking the Southeastern United States as an example, after smallpox was introduced to North America in the 15th century, it initially had no obvious impact on local natives. But by the 17th century, with the influx of European colonists and the initial establishment of the plantation economy, the native North Americans, who were originally spread across the North American continent, were forced to live in increasingly narrow reservations. Population movement further aggravates the spread of disease. By 1715, nearly 90% of Native Americans had died of disease, hunger and unrest.
blue part is a reservation of native peoples in the United States now. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Jared Diamond pointed out in his representative work "Gulls, Germs and Steel" that due to the different natural conditions, the transformation and adaptation of the environment by Eurasian society is far stronger than that of people in other regions, and therefore has gained a dominant position in the world in modern times. But this trend is not formed naturally: as shown above, the natural factor of (smallopsis) was further amplified by artificial (colonialism) , causing the indigenous people to suffer a severe blow in society and population. Fortunately, the relatively low infectivity of smallpox and years of immune prevention and control measures mean that humans have the upper hand in this battle against the epidemic. In 1980, World Health Organization officially announced that smallpox has completely disappeared in nature. means that except for the highest level biological laboratory with a few complete facilities, there is no smallpox virus on the earth anymore. (To be continued)
