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Salmonella Probably Killed the Aztecs (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In 1545 disaster struck Mexico's Aztec nation when people started coming down with high fevers, headaches and bleeding from the eyes, mouth and nose. Death generally followed in three or four days. Within five years as many as 15 million people -- an estimated 80% of the population -- were wiped out in an epidemic the locals named "cocoliztli." The word means pestilence in the Aztec Nahuatl language. Its cause, however, has been questioned for nearly 500 years. On Monday scientists swept aside smallpox, measles, mumps, and influenza as likely suspects, identifying a typhoid-like "enteric fever" for which they found DNA evidence on the teeth of long-dead victims.
Scientists now say they have probably unmasked the culprit. Analysing DNA extracted from 29 skeletons buried in a cocoliztli cemetery, they found traces of the salmonella enterica bacterium, of the Paratyphi C variety. It is known to cause enteric fever, of which typhoid is an example. The Mexican subtype rarely causes human infection today. Many salmonella strains spread via infected food or water, and may have travelled to Mexico with domesticated animals brought by the Spanish, the research team said. The study has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Scientists now say they have probably unmasked the culprit. Analysing DNA extracted from 29 skeletons buried in a cocoliztli cemetery, they found traces of the salmonella enterica bacterium, of the Paratyphi C variety. It is known to cause enteric fever, of which typhoid is an example. The Mexican subtype rarely causes human infection today. Many salmonella strains spread via infected food or water, and may have travelled to Mexico with domesticated animals brought by the Spanish, the research team said. The study has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Don't worry. The new world had it's revenge by sending syphilis to the the old world. Trade went both ways.
Everyone knows the story - the US government deliberately caused smallpox epidemics by distributing contaminated blankets. There's one problem: it isn't true. It was neither an act of terrorism nor an attempted genocide because it didn't happen. The entire story is a fraud, perpetrated by a former "ethnic studies" professor named Ward Churchill.
The High Plains Smallpox Epidemic of 1837 was caused by personal contact with infected passengers from the riverboat St. Peter's, owned by a fur trading company. The epidemic on the High Plains centered around Fort Clark which, despite the name, was not a military installation. It was a privately owned fur trading post. The boss of Fort Clark was Francis Chardon, a fur trader. His personal diary survived to this day, one of numerous eyewitness accounts preserved from the time.
Not only were infected blankets not distributed, but correspondence from Joshua Pilcher, the Indian Bureau's sub-agent to the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Ponca at Fort Kiowa, just south of Fort Clark, to Mr. Chardon describes one particular problem interfering with attempts to contain the epidemic that is curiously relevant to today. A smallpox vaccine existed in 1837, but Mr. Pilcher noted "it is a verry delicate experiment among those wild Indians, because death from any other cause, while under the influence of Vaccination would be attributed to that + no other cause[.]"
In 2006, Ward Churchill was found guilty of seven counts of research misconduct by the University of Colorado Ethics Committee. He was fired in 2007. He promptly filed suit, and won a jury trial for wrongful dismissal. The jury followed the instructions to the letter in coming to their conclusion, but recognized Churchill for the lying shitheel he was and awarded him precisely $1.00. (One juror denied any such motivation in a public interview.) A judge vacated the jury verdict on the grounds that the (state) university enjoys quasi-judicial immunity. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal and in 2013 agreed with both the first judge and the Court of Appeals that the university was immune to suit in these circumstances. The US Supreme Court declined to get involved.
It took 19 years from when Churchill first published his fraudulent bullshit in 1994 to the time when the judicial system finished with the case. It could easily take four or five generations for his lie to finally exit the public consciousness. This despite the fact that humanity currently has the fastest, most ubiquitous communications systems in the history of the species.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I really do wonder, though... would the Old World folks have acted any differently if they'd understood that going to the New World would pretty much obliterate the locals through disease?
My feeling is that it would be unlikely to change their policy, at least by those in power.
Many people tended to view subjugation or even extermination of "lesser" peoples as their divine right. That attitude is pervasive even in relatively modern times, as with WW2-era Nazis or Japanese and their attitudes about races they viewed as inferior to their own. And I shouldn't give the Allied powers a pass either, such as with the British subjugation of India and the middle east, or the French and Dutch colonies in the Far East. And I believe there is historical evidence the US army deliberately used germ warfare against Native Americans in one case. Sadly, empathy for tribes outside of one's own has not historically been one of humanity's bright points.
In fairness, contact between long separated peoples was basically inevitable once global exploration and trade became a thing. There's really no way to effectively quarantine a large population like that, at least in the long term. A single shipwrecked sailor is probably all it takes to trigger an epidemic.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Many of the Aztec (and Maya) did live "in dense cesspools of cities".
I really do wonder, though... would the Old World folks have acted any differently if they'd understood that going to the New World would pretty much obliterate the locals through disease?
I am quite certain that they would have been delighted. Killing millions of the locals without even having to go to the trouble of shooting or stabbing them? So much cheaper, too.
You should read the original sources, or even history books, about this period. It is hard to believe that human beings could be so cruel.
Incidentally, it is told that while Cortes and his Spanish troops were living in luxury in the royal palace at Tenochtitlan, they were accompanied everywhere by Aztecs burning incense. They proudly believed that this was to honour them as gods, whereas in fact it was to disguise their appalling body odour.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
>or not sleeping with loose women
I know that was the attitude at the time (and until fairly recently)... but... it takes two to tango. How 'loose' could those women be without a bunch of men seeking sex with them?
"Promiscuity increases the probability of spreading sexually transmitted diseases". No moral judgement, no strongly implied misogyny, just statistical fact that applies equally to both people involved in the individual act.
Many salmonella strains spread via infected food or water, and may have travelled to Mexico with domesticated animals brought by the Spanish, the research team said.
My understanding is that salmonella is always around. To this day we periodically have outbreaks due to contamination. Why would it be more likely to have travelled to Mexico with domesticated animals brought by the Spanish rather than just come from the local environment? I have not seen any explanation of why it is more likely to have travelled to Mexico with domesticated animal.
This post is at -1. I only see it because I have a low threshold explicitly configured, most people won't. That said, your post is at 0, so by replying to it you've increased the number of people who see it.
It's easy to be in favour of censoring people that you disagree with, the problem is that the censor is going to be a human making judgement calls. Most of us agree that censoring child pornography is fine, but the group charged with doing that in the UK managed to block Wikipedia because it contains a picture of an album cover that contains a naked child. So, if you want to censor racist posts, who do you want to give the authority to decide what is racist and what isn't to? If you can't name an individual, then there's a simple solution: log in and use your mod points.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
To bring this back on topic for a geek site: can you tell the difference between real fish names and ones that come from a neural network?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Women who sleep around are dirty. They are not desirable mates and they spread disease. Men default to dirty and disease spreaders. That is why the gay community is so plagued by STDs. Having veto power means taking responsibility. That's just the way things have always been.
Totally true. A woman who is raped can choose not to get an STD or to get pregnant. If that's what they really want, they'll control that with their mind. They always have complete control over their body and what happens to it. And people who have pre-existing conditions are sinners and are going to burn in hell. Oh yeah, and football is the devil.
It is true that the bacterium discussed in the Nature, Evolution & Ecology paper discusses is of the genus Salmonella, but describing the disease that killed the Aztecs as being "salmonella" conveys the wrong information to the lay reader (or even the scientifically informed one) since this term is commonly used to describe food borne disease. There are several different pathogenic bacteria species, and subspecies, in the genus Salmonella. The infectious form of Salmonella enterica that is transmitted person-to-person is a different sub-species from ones that cause food poisoning and in this form is known as Paratyphoid Fever (similar to the related Typhoid Fever).
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The nations/people conquering the US and the Spanish/Portugiese conquering south america are close to unique in that regard.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Having actually had typhoid fever that lasted 7 days before I was finally put on the proper medication, I can really empathize with a population that lived with such horrible illness. The vomiting, diarrhea, and a general sense that your bowels are being constantly twisted like a wet washcloth are just awful. Living with such symptoms until death finally takes you must have been horrific.
>or not sleeping with loose women
I know that was the attitude at the time (and until fairly recently)... but... it takes two to tango. How 'loose' could those women be without a bunch of men seeking sex with them?
"Promiscuity increases the probability of spreading sexually transmitted diseases". No moral judgement, no strongly implied misogyny, just statistical fact that applies equally to both people involved in the individual act.
Speaking as a man, and assuming the majority on Slashdot are men (most likely heterosexual); saying don't sleep with loose women applies for most people. Sure, if you're a woman don't sleep with loose men. If you're not hetero, don't sleep with whoever you sleep with that is loose. :)
I think you millennial folk are just a tad sensitive. Don't assume everything is "anti" whatever the campaign of the day is.
The first Spanish making contact with the Aztecs, coming over with Cortez would have been primarily men. They would have picked it up from native women, probably prostitutes or rape victims. The non-heterosexual men on the ships were probably sleeping with each other rather than picking up STDs from natives. So in the time period mentioned. Don't sleep with loose women would have been an accurate statement.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch