home

__//**A White Man's Disease**//__
//**Small Pox**// __//What is it?//__  Smallpox is a very serious illness caused by a virus called the variola virus. Smallpox gets its name from the pus-filled blisters (or pocks) that form during the illness. Most cases are fatal.  Smallpox is spread by face to face contacts between the carrier and victim.    __//The Vaccination//__ For many years before an actual vaccine was created, people had become immune to the disease by scratching infected pus into their skin. In 1788, Edward Jenner conducted an experiment on a young boy who had survived a case of cowpox (a very similar form of the disease). The experiment was a success when the boy failed to contract smallpox. The vaccination that was used up to 1972, contained a live strand of the disease. Children, military recruits, and people traveling between countries where vaccinated. __//Smallpox and American Indians//__ When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he brought with him African slaves. The smallpox disease originates in Africa, thus some of Columbus' slaves carried the disease over the sea, landing in the West Indies. Ten years after Hernando Cortez sailed to Mexico, population has dropped 74%.

Before Europeans came to America, the Indian population was up to 1 hundred million.

The first case of smallpox in what will be known as the United States was recorded in 1616. The Massachusetts and Algonquin tribes were reduced from an estimated 3,000 to 300 by the time the Pilgrims came in 1620.

//__Indian Genocide__// Definition: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. General Amherst and General Bouquet had mentioned spreading smallpox to the natives as a means to reduce them.

In a letter to Bouquet, Amherst stated: "Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them". In reply, Bouquet wrote that he would try to use infected blankets on the Indians, but was afraid for his men.

Though we have no evidence that Bouquet actually used blankets to infect the natives, we do have supporting evidence that General Ecuyer had at Fort Pitt. He had stated that he had given the Indians two blankets and a handkerchief from a smallpox hospital, hoping that they will have the "desired effect".


 * Typhus**

//__What is it?__// A disease caused by bacteria. There are two different types of Typhus, Murine and Endemic. The disease is usually transferred from vectors, like fleas or lice. It includes a high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and a rash. Symptoms last for at least 2 weeks. Less than 2% end in death.

//__Typhus and American Indians__// The disease was introduced by the Spanish when they landed in America. It is still around today, usually popping up where there are cold, hungry and filthy people. There were large outbreaks during the World Wars, and Korea in 1951.


 * Cholera**

__//What is it?//__ It is an infectious disease that results in painless diarrhea, severely dehydrating humans, and sometimes resulting in death. The disease enters the body by the person eating or drinking sources contaminated by //V. Cholerae//.

//__Cholera and American Indians__// The deployment of the British Army to her colonies brought Cholera to the Americas. The disease continues to spread through new countries.


 * Measles**

//__What is it?__// It is a very contagious disease caused by the rubeola virus. Symptoms include a runny nose, dry cough, conjunctivitis, runny eyes, light sensitivity, sneezing, fever, and rash. Scientists have discovered 21 strands of the measles disease.

//__Measles and American Indians__// In a small populated area, the disease will infect every person, then "die out" as the humans disappear. It has been one the most contagious disease known to man, and is responsible for a large portion of Indian population decreasing.

//**Credits:**// 1.[] 2.[] 3.[] 4.[] 5.[] 6.[] 7.[] 8.[]

1.[] 2.[] 3.[] 4.[] 6.[] 7.[]
 * //Picture Credits://**