# Native American Diseases **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2000, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869 "2000-06-09T14:00:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WIGGUM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@WIGGUM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WIGGUM)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/1 "2000-06-09T14:00:23Z")
When Europeans starting coming to the “New World” they brought with them a plethora of diseases that wreaked havoc on the native population. I assume this is because the natives had never encountered these diseases before and had not built up an immunity. But were the tables ever turned? Did the Native Americans infect the Europeans with “New World” diseases that the Europeans had no immunity to? ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/2 "2000-06-09T14:03:29Z")
Does tobacco count? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/3 "2000-06-09T14:34:54Z")
Some authorities will tell you that syphilis was unknown in Europe until Columbus’s men brought it back to Italy. Dunno if that’s true or not. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/4 "2000-06-09T14:46:17Z")
It appears, to the best evidence so far that at the very least the deadliest forms of syphillis did return back from the Americas. If it existed before, it appears that the strains in the Americas turned out to be more virulent when exposed to the Europeans. I think Jared Diamond has something about this somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/5 "2000-06-09T14:46:17Z")
It appears, to the best evidence so far that at the very least the deadliest forms of syphillis did return back from the Americas. If it existed before, it appears that the strains in the Americas turned out to be more virulent when exposed to the Europeans. I think Jared Diamond has something about this somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/6 "2000-06-09T16:38:50Z")
Yeah, **WIGGUM** , if you’re interested in this stuff, you should read _ **Guns, Germs and Steel** _ by Jared Diamond. That book explains in some detail why the exchange of diseases was so one-sided. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/7 "2000-06-09T17:09:05Z")
You can also read about syphilis in Cecil Adam’s Straight Dope column, “[Why didn’t Europeans die of native American diseases? (Week of: 29-Jul-94)](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/940729.html)”. ---
**Author:** ![labdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/8 "2000-06-09T19:21:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Yeah, **WIGGUM** , if you’re interested in this stuff, you should read _ **Guns, Germs and Steel** _ by Jared Diamond. That book explains in some detail why the exchange of diseases was so one-sided. > \*\* I also recommend this book. It’s a must read! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2000, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/9 "2000-06-09T23:36:38Z")
There’s actually a better book that details the evidence that syphilis came from the New World, specifically brought by Columbus’s men (and possibly even Columbus himself) from Hispaniola. See if you can find _Yellow Fever, Black Goddess_ by Christopher Wills. Chapter 9 is all about this (still controversial) subject. Perhaps the major evidence against this is the 1994 discovery of the signs of tertiary syphilis on the skull of a 1000-year-old Swede. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2000, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/10 "2000-06-10T01:06:41Z")
the short answer is _livestock_. The Americans had far fewer varieties of livestock or domesticated animals of any sort than the Europeans (or Africans or Asians). A great many of the diseases that became pandemic killers of the New World populations had crossed the host-species barriers in the Old World years before and had become less virulent to populations who built up immunities through constant exposure. (And, of course, chicken pox, cow pox, small pox, measles, influenza, etc. all emerged in the Old World one at a time, allowing the populations to acclimate to one plague before the next came along. When they headed west across the Atlantic, they came in one massive set of waves so that a survivor of one plague might be killed by the next before that survivor could raise a new generation with some resistance to the first.) In the New World, dogs, llamas, and alpacas were about it for domesticated animals and obviously the latter two were restricted to the Andes in South America. Such great germ incubators as pigs (and, I believe, chickens), to say nothing of horses, sheep, goats, cattle, ducks, geese, etc. were present in domesticated varieties, living among their human owners, throughout the Old World. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2000, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/11 "2000-06-10T20:38:54Z")
Another “disease” that Native Americans seem to have suffered disproprtionately from is alcoholism. They don’t like to talk about it, but Amerinds seem to have more trouble handling alcohol than other races. Is this, like diseases, because of lack of exposure? I thought that the current medical opinion was that alcoholism was psychological in origen. If so, why has this trend emerged? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2000, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/12 "2000-06-10T22:48:12Z")
Well, one explanation is that for most of the joint history of Native Americans and Europeans, the Americans were treated pretty badly, and the downtrodden elements of society are generally goingto have higher incidence of alcoholism, no surprise there. The physioloogy may also play a role, but I’m not qualified to comment on that. ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2000, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/13 "2000-06-11T00:21:09Z")
Many Asians also have problems with alcohol. Some lack an enzyme needed to process it, I think. I had a Chinese friend who would pass out if she even had a couple of sips of wine. Not an alcoholism problem, though. ---
**Author:** ![charizard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charizard/32/4166_2.png) [@charizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charizard)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2000, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/14 "2000-06-11T02:19:25Z")
I think you may have met an atypical Chinese. In general I don’t think they have any problem metabolizing alcohol. One of the first bits of advice I got when starting to interact with the Chinese was “don’t even get _started_ drinking with them; they’ll put you under the table.” In business settings, it’s common to stoke up your clients with a great deal of alcohol. And once you get started, it’s both 1) impolite and 2) unmanly to be the first one to stop. The best advice I got was to opt out of the drinking even before it got started - to plead religious reasons, or an allergy, or _anything_. My experience since then has certainly borne this out. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2000, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/15 "2000-06-11T05:59:11Z")
The enzyme that many Native Americans and Asians lack or produce in smaller amounts is called **alcohol dehydrogenase**. Interestingly, the lack is sometimes used to explain both the high rate of alcoholism in Indians and the low alcoholism rate in Asians. I take no sides, except to state that the enzyme (and its absence or paucity in Asians and Indians) is real. To answer the OP, there are some who speculate Yellow Fever originated in the New World, but others who say it came to the NW from Africa. The first documented cases were from the New World. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2000, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/16 "2000-06-11T06:21:27Z")
I always found it curious that American Indians, Australian aborigines, and Taiwanese aborigines all had reputations for alcoholism in their respective societies. Any Ockers out there want to comment? DHR ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2000, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-diseases/21869/17 "2000-06-11T17:39:30Z")
Back to the diseases- here is my limited understanding and maybe someone can clear this up for me- it wasn’t so much _European_as _African_ diseases (such as malaria and the more virulent African form of smallpox) that really played havoc with the Americans, and with the Europeans. I understand that Africa is the region with the most viruses around (likewise, the Americas had few human viral diseases before the Columbian exchange). This is for the same reason that Africa is the most biologically diverse of the continents- it was the cradle of life, so different forms of life have had more time to mutate and branch out. Now, I know that Africa is the cradle of human life, but as for flora/fauna/fungi/viruses- does anyone know?