# New World Colonizers and Disease **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2006, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155 "2006-07-19T11:42:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/21 "2006-07-19T16:49:27Z")
[Dr. Francisco De Balmis and His Mission of Mercy](http://www.doh.gov.ph/sphh/balmis.htm) > [@](#): > > On February 5, 1805, Dr. Francisco Xavier De Balmis took along 25 Mexican children and embarked on a dangerous voyage from Acapulco to Manila, carrying with them the vaccine for smallpox. Using the orphan children as living repositories for the vaccine, Dr. Balmis reached the port of Manila on April 15, 1805. Other cites talk of his initial trip to the New World. Clever? Yes. Ethical? I really don’t think so, unless every orphan volunteered to be a carrier. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/22 "2006-07-19T16:52:14Z")
In weak defense of Dr. Balmis, he was likely the person most responsible for the eradication of smallpox. He definitely had a “needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few” outlook. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/23 "2006-07-19T16:55:17Z")
> [@](#): > > There is still an element of chance involved, however. Of, surely. I don’t deny it. I just wanted to point out that the Vikings really were present long enough to be able to do damage. They’re treated so cursorily in most histories that you sort of getr the feeling that they just zxipped y for the weekend. But some of them evidently wanted to stay in for the long haul. Circumstances were against them, though. ---
**Author:** ![Blanche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Blanche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blanche)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/24 "2006-07-19T17:01:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The ones who survived? They were infected with cowpox, not smallpox. Being infected with cowpox gives you immunity to smallpox, but cowpox is not lethal except in rare cases. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/25 "2006-07-19T17:03:32Z")
Was the Amazon basin disease-free until the europeans came? today, insects in that area harbor diseases like Dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, leishamaniasis, and many others. yet, the early explorers noted the large numbers of native inhabitants, with settlements all along the river. Something did change for the worse. ---
**Author:** ![Blanche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Blanche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blanche)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/26 "2006-07-19T17:04:40Z")
> [@Blanche](#): > > They were infected with cowpox, not smallpox. Being infected with cowpox gives you immunity to smallpox, but cowpox is not lethal except in rare cases. Here’s an interesting article on it. > **[Ana María Rodríguez - THE IRON BUTTERFLY: MEMOIR OF A MARTIAL ARTS MASTER....](https://www.anamariarodriguez.com/work2.htm)** > > The website maintained by Ana Maria Rodriguez, author of books about outstanding people, science, nature, cultures, and history. She is the author of 26 books and over 80 magazine articles. Her most recent books are THE ANIMAL SECRETS REVEALED... ---
**Author:** ![Blanche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Blanche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blanche)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/27 "2006-07-19T17:05:48Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Was the Amazon basin disease-free until the europeans came? today, insects in that area harbor diseases like Dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, leishamaniasis, and many others. yet, the early explorers noted the large numbers of native inhabitants, with settlements all along the river. Something did change for the worse. The jungles and rain forests weren’t as extensive as they are today due to slash and burn agriculture. After European diseases wiped out most of the locals, the vegetation reclaimed it’s old territory. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/28 "2006-07-19T17:16:07Z")
While respecting the education and the work of Ana Maria Rodriguez, she is a children’s science writer. Sadly, many tales geared towards children in modern publications must have happy endings, regardless of true outcome. The article you cite is an extract from a _Highlights for Children_ article. I take the closure of the article with a grain of salt. People do survive cowpox, but I seriously doubt that the young orphans were willing participants, and while I would like to believe all were taken in and educated on the crown’s dime, I’m too skeptical. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/29 "2006-07-19T17:25:34Z")
**ralph124c** , a quick bit of research on malaria and leishamaniasis indicate that both have roots outside of the New World, and were likely transported here. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/30 "2006-07-19T18:54:11Z")
In the context of cowpox, ratherr than smallpox, I much less troubled by the story–both ethically and historically–(and have since found a lot of the information corroborated by searching on Balmis). For one thing, the use of cowpox explains why they did not simply create the vaccine from smallpox victims in the Americas and Philipines: cowpox, a children’s disease, would have been much less likely to be prevalent in the Americas since the number of children on any voyage would have been unable to carry the strain over naturally, going through **toadspittle** ’s “six week quarantine,” unlike smallpox that would periodically have an entire ship’s crew (or even fleet’s crews) as incubators. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Prize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Sir\_Prize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Prize)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155/31 "2006-07-19T19:25:09Z")
In Mexico, it may have been native hemorrhagic fever following drought that wiped out the population. Europeans had a lifestyle that spared them from the epidemic. > [@](#): > > The most devastating cocolitzli epidemic–which from 1545-1548 killed up to 80 percent of the native population living in Mexico at that time–swept across the northern and central high valleys of Mexico, ending in Chiapas and Guatemala. But both the 1545 and 1576 epidemics spared the low-lying coastal plains on the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast. Thus, the epidemiology of the disease did not follow geographic patterns that researchers might have expected to find with the introduction of a non-native virus to Mexico. [http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=TREEEP.UAR](http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=TREEEP.UAR) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-world-colonizers-and-disease/365155.md?page=1)