Guns, Germs, and Steel; Diseases

Disease influenced a lot of the world’s history, how these disease reached human, and how over a period of time we became mutated to these diseases. It affected a lot of wars, and settlements, such as when the new world was discovered. Most of the germs from these diseases came from domesticated animals, and people from the Old world. Diseases have even been the cause of wars. Around 1526 the Atahuallpa had won battles in a civil war that had left the Incas vulnerable and divided.

An epidemic of smallpox was that was spreading among South American Indians, which had arrived from Spanish settlers, had killed the Inca’s emperor, Emperor Huayna Capac and then his designated heir, Ninan Cuyuchi. The deaths of the emperor and the heir lead to Atahuallpa and Huascar to compete for the throne. The civil war started because of the epidemic of smallpox leading to two very important death. This situation also emphasized on the lack of immunity certain people had towards smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, bubonic plague, and other diseases.

Diseases brought by the Europeans killed around ninety-five percent of pre-Columbian Native American population. The most populated native societies disappeared for being affected by epidemic of diseases around 1462 and the late 1600s. In 1713 a smallpox epidemic, caused by European settlers, became the destruction of South Africa’s native San people(78). The spread of diseases helped people conquer other people. (86) Wild plants and animal species appropriate for domestication helped certain diseases reach humans (86, 86, and 92).

Human who domesticated animals were the first to get sick with the new diseases, however it helped them evolve resistance towards these diseases. Other people who had not been exposed to any of these diseases would have a harder time at surviving it. Germs that came from domesticated animals played a significant role in the European conquests of Native Americas, Australians, South Africa, and Pacific Islanders (92). When we started to domesticate animals, they had already been contaminated by epidemic diseases. For example, the measles virus is closely related to the virus that causes rinderpest.

Rinderpest affects cud-chewing animals, but not humans, measles in turn doesn’t affect cattle. The similarity between the two viruses suggests that the rinderpest virus evolved into the measles virus so it could reach humans. (206) Similar cases have been found, tuberculosis and smallpox from cattle, the flu from pigs and ducks, pertussis from pigs and dogs, and Falciparum malaria. (207). In 1959, East Africa was contaminated with the O’nyong-nyong fever, it started from a virus of monkeys and spread to humans by mosquitos.

The victim affected by this recovered quickly and became immune to the virus, helping the disease die out quickly. (208) There are some diseases that originated from animals diseases that have still not died out. The Lassa fever was first originated in 1969 in Nigeria, it was derived from rodents. The future for Lassa fever remains uncertain. The Lyme disease was first discovered in 1962 in the United States. It reaches humans by a spirochete that we get from the bite of ticks, this disease is carried by deer and mice.

The future of Aids seems to be secure, it was derived from the monkey viruses and first seen around 1959. (208,209) There were diseases that were confined to human, such as typhus. At first typhus was transmitted by rats and rat fleas, that being sufficient for it to transmit to humans. Then typhus found a much more efficient way of traveling to directly to humans through lice. Americans have deloused themselves, hence, making typhus find a new way to reach humans. It started infecting flying squirrels, and flying squirrels transferred it to us.

(209,210) Lethal microbes became very important to the European’s conquest and the destruction of the population in the New World. More Native American deaths where cause by the Eurasian germs than battle wounds (210). Since Native Americans had never been exposed to these Eurasian germs, therefore making it hard for them to recuperate from the diseases. Indians ‘were not immune or didn’t have any genetic resistance to diseases like smallpox, measles, influenza, yellow fever, tuberculosis or malaria. (210-211).

For example, when Hernando De Soto became the first European conquistador to go through the southeastern United States, in 1540, he found abandoned two years earlier because the people who lived there had died in epidemics. (211) Diseases lead to many wars and depopulation of many tribes. Many diseases that cause depopulation came from animal domestication evolved in order humans. These became some of the deadliest diseases (77), causing many to die, especially those who weren’t immune to them (210-11). Diseases played a very significant role in World History.