Modern medicine helps people who contract the measles to recover. Centuries ago, most cases ended in death.
A statue of Christopher Columbus stands in Columbus Circle in New York. The famous explorer brought measles and other diseases to the New World. By Michael S. Rosenwald Michael S. Rosenwald Enterprise reporter focusing on history, the social sciences, and culture. Email Bio Follow May 5 at 7:00 AM In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, bringing to the New World a bounty of wonder: coffee, horses, turnips, grapes, wine.
The effect — though on a smaller and far less lethal scale — has been seen in recent outbreaks of measles, one of the many diseases Columbus brought to shore. Religious and other anti-vaccine groups are suddenly seeing a highly infectious illness thought to be eradicated spread quickly through their communities.Modern medicine is helping most sufferers to recover. Centuries ago, most cases ended in death.
“Indigenous peoples suffered from white brutality, alcoholism, the killing and driving off of game, and the expropriation of farmland, but all these together are insufficient to explain the degree of their defeat,” wrote the late Alfred W. Crosby, a University of Texas historian considered the preeminent expert on the Columbian Exchange. “The crucial factor was not people, plants, or animals, but germs.
Archaeologists, paleontologists and historians have not been able to pin down which diseases most shattered the Old World, primarily due to illiteracy and lack of written record from those times.
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