Did you know that 95% of the Incan population died after first contact with the Spanish? Or that while America successfully sent men to land on the moon, Papua New Guinea was still forced to use stone tools? The world is unequal and the seeds were planted in geographical resources. These uneven geographical resources doomed some cultures to failure, but some to stardom. For example, Papua New Guinea was too wet to grow efficient crops crops, had no domesticable animals and because of that were stuck in the stone age until sixty years ago. In contrast, because of Europeans geographical location and climate, they had reliable and nutritious crops, nearly all the domesticable animals on earth (which just happened to provide immunity to diseases).
…show more content…
Firstly, germs benefit the a civilization because when someone from that civilization gets those germs, they live or they don’t live, and if you live you can pass on resistant genes to offspring, and if you don’t, you don’t. Over generations of these resistant genes being intermingled through a civilization, the whole of the civilization becomes immune to the disease. The Spanish and other Europeans are an example of this. Because they had animals and commonly shared the same house as them, drank their milk, ate their meat, and breathed in their germs, they became very close with smallpox and eventually became resistant. This cannot be said with any other civilization, the Incan culture is one example. They had a domesticable animal, the llama, and worked with it, but never went to the same lengths as the Europeans did with theirs, and they never had a disease of their own because they never milked the llamas, kept them in large herds, and never kept them in barns. Because of this, they never received the benefit of immunity from smallpox or other animal-based diseases. When the Incan culture was first introduced to the Spanish diseases, the Incas were weakened and made an easy target for Spanish conquest. This was because when Incas had smallpox, after two to three days, a rash appears and covers the body, it is extremely infectious. The difference in impact of a Spanish getting the disease and Incan is massive, when Spanish got smallpox, it didn’t really affect them because they had so much immunity, but when an Incan got smallpox, it led to 95% of the Incan populations demise. Of course geographical advantages to the Europeans, if shared with the Inca, would have led to them both being immune to smallpox, and a fair playing ground for both
Firstly, germs benefit the a civilization because when someone from that civilization gets those germs, they live or they don’t live, and if you live you can pass on resistant genes to offspring, and if you don’t, you don’t. Over generations of these resistant genes being intermingled through a civilization, the whole of the civilization becomes immune to the disease. The Spanish and other Europeans are an example of this. Because they had animals and commonly shared the same house as them, drank their milk, ate their meat, and breathed in their germs, they became very close with smallpox and eventually became resistant. This cannot be said with any other civilization, the Incan culture is one example. They had a domesticable animal, the llama, and worked with it, but never went to the same lengths as the Europeans did with theirs, and they never had a disease of their own because they never milked the llamas, kept them in large herds, and never kept them in barns. Because of this, they never received the benefit of immunity from smallpox or other animal-based diseases. When the Incan culture was first introduced to the Spanish diseases, the Incas were weakened and made an easy target for Spanish conquest. This was because when Incas had smallpox, after two to three days, a rash appears and covers the body, it is extremely infectious. The difference in impact of a Spanish getting the disease and Incan is massive, when Spanish got smallpox, it didn’t really affect them because they had so much immunity, but when an Incan got smallpox, it led to 95% of the Incan populations demise. Of course geographical advantages to the Europeans, if shared with the Inca, would have led to them both being immune to smallpox, and a fair playing ground for both