History Memes

One of the reasons why Europeans became so immune to these new diseases was that they lived absolutely filthy lives with their farm animals back in Europe.

Or in proximity with them at all. Even clean living would result in high disease loads compared to societies without large amounts of domesticated animals.

Domesticated animals are a double-edged sword - animals are useful, but also genetically close enough to us to transmit many diseases.

And the only reason why they survived those deadly diseases was not because they had stronger immune systems ….. millions of people had to die first and it was the survivors who carried on. The diseases that flourished was a fine balance between being infectious enough to spread but not so deadly so as to kill people too quickly to stop the spread.

Yep. The more vulnerable die, the less vulnerable get sick and survive, and perhaps curse their luck. It's why epidemics, especially pre-modern epidemics, come in waves. The more 'resistant' a population is, the fewer transmission vectors there are... but that resistance itself is only around because so many of our ancestors' friends and neighbors died.

First Nation people weren’t exactly ultra clean themselves but they kept a distance from wanting to live with a bunch of live animals in their living space.

Not-so-fun fact: Europe (and the Old World in general) in this period still commonly built wattle-and-daub housing with animal (or sometimes human) manure as a binder. 😬