Summary Of The Arrow Of Disease

As we all know, diseases wiped out most of the populations of Native Americans. Different diseases that were brought in by the Europeans. Germs were the worst weapons that the natives experienced. “The Arrow of Disease” by Jared Diamond explains how the Europeans had an advantage over the Indians with diseases brought upon them. Epidemic diseases spread through a nation and almost erased an entire existence of a group of people but it didn’t affect the Old World. The Old World was left untouched and its people were left well and healthy. Europeans settlement in the Americas caused the Indian population to decrease. As the native population decrease, the European’s population increased. This issue occurred because as the Indians were suffering from the diseases that the settlers brought them, the Europeans were not affected. The Indians were exposed to germs that they didn’t have the genetic resistance for. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and many more diseases were the Indians’ main enemy. They couldn’t
fight the germs because they didn’t have the proper equipment for it. The germs were not something that the natives were use; therefore they couldn’t help themselves beat the diseases. Indian tribes began to vanish very quickly once they Europeans arrived in 1492.
Most diseases come from animals.
Its stems from a animal and travels through other animals before it reaches humans. Animals and human interactions cause diseases to spread through the human population. Bugs are one of the main animals that carry microbes looking for a host to infect. Once a bug or insect finds its new host, they die after they infect them, therefore, the new host has to carry the microbe in them and they feel the affects. Sometimes, a person with a specific microbe can affect many others around them. When a person is infected they can either be treated or die from the diseases. Back in the days treatments for most diseases were not invented so many people died from sickness. That’s what happened with the Indians. When they were exposed to the diseases from the Old World, they didn’t have the proper treatment to take care of themselves and also they didn’t have any idea of what to do. They were not used to microbes that were in their body
system.
For small populations like the Indian Tribes, it is easy for diseases to spread. In their areas, it takes an outsider to bring a disease to them and infect everyone. The outsider’s diseases will affect those who are familiar with an area because they don’t have the system to fight it. They don’t have what it takes to take down the microbe that has been brought to them. If a person can’t fight off diseases, they spread it to other healthy people around them and that’s how it becomes an epidemic. The disease that affected the area is so strong that, the natives cannot start their own to give to the visitors. Therefore, the native population gets erased and the settlers’ population continues to bloom.
Epidemic diseases throughout the 1400s only affected one side of people but not the other. They affected the natives but didn’t affect the settlers. Native Americans want to battle with Europeans and fought against their strong weapons but they couldn’t defeat the powerful weapon of them all, germs. Microbes spread though the tribes and affected elders, who then spread it to their offspring. Without the proper technology, genetic resistance, and treatment; the Indian population decreased at a fast rate. The question still remains, how come the diseases were one-sided exchange? The epidemic diseases only affected one group of people because the other folks brought the diseases in and they had the genetic resistance to prevent infections. If they got affected, they would’ve still survived because their body system were built to fight off the microbes.