Americapox: The Missing Plague 

The BRvid algorithm has a real dark sense of humour.

The narration was slower but for some reason that didn't feel like a 12 minute video, felt like 4 or 5. Probably because it's really frickin' interesting! Awesome topic, can't wait for part 2.

Thank you so much for this episode! Back when we learned about American colonization in school my history teacher actually told the class that most natives got killed by european diseases, but when I asked why the same didn’t happen to the europeans with american diseases, the answer I got was: “They just didn’t.” This has bothered me for ages

"Being the patient zero of a new animal-to-human plague is winning a terrible lottery"

It is also worth bearing in mind that Europeans did continually have outbreaks from their own plagues after arriving in the New World but they simply died at lower rates.

Fun fact, the americas had dogs, and since we didn't have domesticatable animals a few of the 'jobs' went to dog breeds. The alaskan malamute can pull a sled in the cold weather and we have records of the groups of chihuahua-like breeds pulling each a small cart of goods, or being used to hunt by traveling in the backpack and being relesed once the animal is spotted (yes they hunted with purse dogs). And the north america had a breed of dog called wool dog that, you guessed it, had wool like fur that people used to make clothes. The americas also had a dog breeds that were raised as food, to the horror of europeans.

Speaking of cholera, I remember in high school when talking about Britain, my teacher said she rather have any alcohol than water back in those days, cause alcohol isn’t going to kill you like cholera.

"Now most germs don't want to kill you for the same reason you don't want to burn down your house" this quote is absolutely perfect in every sense of the word.

“You can’t build a civilization on honey alone.”

7:38

It doesn't really change things. But North America does have a number of native goat and sheep species. The NA Mountain Goat, Bighorn Sheep, and Dall Sheep being among the ones I know of. Natives used to collect their molted fur for weaving, but never domesticated them.

"Why is there no Americapox?"

I have frequently wondered why the plagues from Western exploration of the new world only went one way. Thanks for explaining that one.

As a microbiologist I really appreciated your simple and accurate explanation of this subject. Well done sir!

Syphilis, also known as great pox is no cholera or smallpox, and doesn't count as a plague by these standards.

I actually wondered this since 3rd grade when I was first told about the diseases being much worse than the Europeans. Thank you for satisfying my curiosity

Great video, though I feel it leaves out one important factor. Jared Diamonds in his book, 'Guns, Germs and Steel' discusses these questions in depth and also points at the orientation of the continents. In Eurasia, with its East-West orientation, most regions will have a neighbouring region on the same longitude. This means these regions probably have a similar climate, which facilitates the exchange of crops and domesticated animals as these can thrive in both regions. The America’s, on the other hand, have a North-South orientation and on top of this are cut through by various mountain ranges, deserts and jungles. This means that communities in neighbouring regions live on different longitudes and thus in a different climate. This makes for a much slower spread of domesticated plants and animals as direct neighbours have no reason to adopt these from eachother. The societies that do have a similar enough climate to potentially benefit from such an exchange are too far away, being on opposite sides of the equator, to learn about each other's livestock and plants.

"But you can't build a civilization on a foundation of honey alone."

This had literally never occurred to me before, and you answered it so thoroughly and succinctly. Thank you!

This really helps explain why European colonization had such different outcomes for the Americas and Africa.