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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Grumpus_Maximus@thelemmy.club to c/historymemes@piefed.social
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[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Did colonists die of “new” germs that they caught from Native Americans? You always hear about Europeans bringing diseases to the Americas, but not the other way around.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago

Disease requires mass concentration of people which was less common in America. They did transfer syphilis to Europe though.

[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Basically, and I'm generalizing but still, all those diseases that Europeans brought over to the Americas came from domesticated European animals. On the other hand there weren't really domesticated animals in the Americas (lamas but barely). So there weren't really epidemic diseases in the Americas to infect Europeans.

This one fact basically explains the entirety of the history between these two hemispheres.

[-] cjoll4@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, Europeans caught syphilis from indigenous Americans, and without any existing immunity to it there was a genuinely terrifying pandemic in Europe with worse symptoms than present-day forms of the disease (and no penicillin to treat it).

But indigenous Americans caught smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus from Europeans, so it really wasn't a fair exchange.

[-] pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

That's where syphilis came from?? Man, I really do learn so much from this community.

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It’s cause of how European agriculture worked and how they essentially helped create new pathogens.

European medieval peasants were just soooo filthy

this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
568 points (100.0% liked)

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