Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the New World (the Americas) in the Western Hemisphere, and the Old World (Afro-Eurasia) in the Eastern Hemisphere, in the late 15th and following centuries. It is named after the Italian explorer Christopher ...
Native American disease and epidemics. Although a variety of infectious diseases existed in the Americas in pre-Columbian times, [ 1 ] the limited size of the populations, smaller number of domesticated animals with zoonotic diseases, and limited interactions between those populations (as compared to areas of Eurasia and Africa) hampered the ...
Originating in the Eastern Hemisphere, smallpox was first introduced to the Americas shortly after the beginning of the Columbian Exchange. Brought to Santo Domingo in 1519, it spread to the mainland during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, causing widespread devastation across Mesoamerica. [2]
During the siege of British-held Fort Pitt in the Seven Years' War, Colonel Henry Bouquet ordered his men to take smallpox-infested blankets from their hospital and gave them as gifts to two neutral Lenape Indian dignitaries during a peace settlement negotiation, according to the entry in the Captain's ledger, "To convey the Smallpox to the ...
The history of smallpox extends into pre-history. [ 1 ] Genetic evidence suggests that the smallpox virus emerged 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. [ 2 ] Prior to that, similar ancestral viruses circulated, but possibly only in other mammals, and possibly with different symptoms.
978-0837172286. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 is a 1972 book by Alfred W. Crosby on the Columbian exchange, coining that term and helping to found the field of environmental history. The exchange was of cultivated plants, domestic animals, diseases, and human culture between the Old World and the New World ...
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. [7] [11] The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, [10] making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date.
Contents. 1775–1782 North American smallpox epidemic. George Washington by Charles Willson Peale, 1776. The New World of the Western Hemisphere was devastated by the 1775–1782 North American smallpox epidemic. Estimates based on remnant settlements say at least 130,000 people were estimated to have died in the epidemic that started in 1775.