Guns, Germs And Steel

Evolutionarily, the most important thing about microbes is spreading from person to person, not necessarily killing the person.

Traits of epidemics - spread quickly and efficiently from person to person, in a short time you either die or recover completely, get antibodies that you from the rest of your life, and the diseases tend to be restriction to humans.

Rise of agriculture -> increased population density -> more chance of getting disease. There’s also the increased risk that comes with living in your own sewage.

Many diseases (measles, tb, etc) evolved from similar diseases present in animals like cattle, pigs, dogs, ducks

Diseases are constantly in evolution, and microbes adapt (through natural selection) to new hosts and vectors.

Main reason that explains who no diseases from the Old World became epidemics - there were not many domesticated animals in the Americas (there were only 5) from which these epidemics could have been evolved

uid: 202008260926 tags: #literature #mcb55

Date

February 22, 2023

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