Hi KLP; Re CDISS's comment: "We are almost as virgin a population as were the Aztecs when the conquistadors descended upon them."
The Aztecs had never known small pox, and were therefore particularly genetically susceptible. In addition, the inhabitants of the New World had less genetic variation than most of the rest of humanity, and consequently diseases here tended to become, by disease evolution, more virulent to them. (The principle is that a disease evolves in your system to survive longer, and therefore a bug that you catch from your sibling is more directed towards your susceptibility than an average random bug.)
Our population, in contrast to the Aztecs, is largely descended from people who have successfully survived bouts with this virus for many thousands of years. In short, we are the survivors. And in addition, even among highly susceptible populations, I doubt the 25% death rate would obtain, as the figure is from before most of the advances of modern medicine.
For more on the subject see, for example:
Immunology History II
keratin.com
The Mathematics of Disesases
plus.maths.org
In his History of the Peolpponesian War, Thucydides records the Plague of Athens. It is generally agreed that his very detailed descriptions point to Smallpox as the specific disease.
geocities.com
-- Carl
P.S. I'm not saying that smallpox is a joke, just noting that a full blown terrorist outbreak, with for example, 20 terrorists spreading the disease each in 20 different cities giving 400 simultaneous outbreaks of the disease, is going to result in 50,000,000 deaths in the US. Maybe as many as a few hundred thousand, but I doubt even that.
Nevertheless, those who believe that the military power of the United States may be used freely, without causing our enemies to obtain revenge through attacks of this nature would do well to think more carefully about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There's damn good reasons for not getting involved in Europe and Asia's foreign wars. We had to have 50,000 young men die in Vietnam before that generation learned this simple lesson. Someday we will forget again and have to suffer again. How many will die then? |
