<font color=purple> Food, Gold, Guns, Drugs, Conquest and Chastity</font>.
"Europeans, such as the Italians, eventually became used to corn, but it was used primarily as food for chicken, geese and other fowl, and for pigs. If the introduction of potatoes produced a caloric revolution, the acceptance of corn brought about a protein revolution. Since the land of Europe could now produce more food, the relative price of food began to drop. The productive capacity of the land had caught up with the population, and the average European could now eat more. The Europeans, in turn, introduced corn into Africa and sweet potatoes in China, where these new foods also changed conditions dramatically
He could also eat better, since a number of lesser food crops arrived from the New World that made possible a more varied diet. The French imported tomatoes, which they called "apples of love," and used them for ornamental purposes in their flower gardens. They thought that they were poisonous, which, in fact, many of the early varieties were. In time, however, the poison-producing capacities of the tomato were bred out, and the tomato became one of the most popular additions to European cuisine. There were many other food plants brought back to Europe -- particularly many varieties of squash, beans, pumpkins, peppers -- that introduced a welcome variety, as well as a wide range of vitamins, into the European diet. The health of the average European began to improve, and his height, weight, and strength increased. As this occurred, his resistance to disease grew.
Drugs
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A great deal of attention is paid to the terrible death toll among the native inhabitants of the New World caused by the European's introduction of new diseases for which they had no immunity. It should also be noted that over half of the Europeans coming to the Americas died within a year of their arrival, usually from some fever, and that the death toll among Europeans in the interior of Africa was so great that it remained largely unexplored by them until well into the 19th century. The Europeans were quick to use native remedies for their ailments, and the bark of the chincona tree -- from which quinine was extracted -- was of great help to them. The medical establishment of Europe resisted the introduction of these new drugs, however, and it was not until the 1830's, for instance, that quinine was brought into general use.
This lag has continued to be the case. It was only in 1952, for instance, that Western medical researchers recognized the value of Rauwolfia, a root that the inhabitants of India had chewed to relieve nervousness for centuries. The active substance was extracted from the root and sold as miltown, the first tranquilizer. Given this general resistance to "native remedies," the medicines and medical techniques of the new lands had relatively little effect on Europe. The importance of the drugs of the new worlds lay in another direction."
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