Diamond Epidemic Diseases

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Diamond explain in his book that that microbes have been evolved to make humans sick in bizarre ways such as genital sores or diarrhea. This is because the most effect way to spread germs is by waiting inside the host to transmitted passively to the next victim. In this case genital sores can be tranmitted through sexsual contact. Over time when a population died of a certain disease some humans survived, this was because they had a higher resistance to the disease. Those who survived pass on their immunity to their offspring. The four characteristics of “epidemic” diseases that cause them to die out and not reappear for a long period of time is, first, they spread quickly and efficiently throughout the population in an area meaning everyone …show more content…

People that survived developed a higher resistance to the diseases that's why they are slow developing and spreading. Farming civilizations are more adept at sustaining the development of infectious crowd diseases. This is because agriculture sustains a higher population densities therefore disease can evolve more. In addition most microbes can be spread if feces are left behind, but farmers are sedentary and they live amid their own sewage sometimes using them as fertilizers allowing the microbes not to spread. Farmers also trade with other societies which allows diseases to spread to new populations. The exchange of diseased from the old world (Europe) and the new world (America) was so one-sided in that America's got killed off, not Europeans. This was because the old world had a resistance to their diseases compared to the native americans how were never exposed to such deadly diseases like smallpox and measles. Social animals are domesticated animals that live together for example pigs,cows, horses etc. They are the ones that carry the epidemic diseases. The old world had a domesticated these animals and were less vulnerable to them but the new world was off by its

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