Empty America without the Emptiness

[CanadianGoose]

CanadianGoose, the reason European diseases were less serious to Europeans was that they kept appearing in reduced form every generation or two, eventually reduced to the level of children's illness, and this exposure kept them at a reduced level.

It seems to me that Old World population did not inherited those germs every generation or two from animals, decease had been kept within human population. So why couldn't New Worlders do the same?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

It seems to me that Old World population did not inherited those germs every generation or two from animals, decease had been kept within human population. So why couldn't New Worlders do the same?

IIRC for measles you need a population of some 5 million in a single disease pool to keep the disease going. That's quite possible in e.g. Central America, but that might well be the only place that is large enough.

Still, it really should be large enough, so why not? The *Toltecs would view the constant wiping out of 'barbarian' tribes by disease as a sign that their civilization was favoured by the gods.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

CanadianGoose, outside Mexico/Central America and possibly Incan territory there simply wasn't an adequate population base to do as Dathi says.

Given the population crash even in those two areas OTL I have to wonder if even those two locations could provide an adequate population.