Linked Life Data

10230264

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/10230264

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
1
pubmed:dateCreated
1999-6-2
pubmed:abstractText
With the discovery of the New World, the Europeans flocked to America and with them spread infectious diseases. During long sea voyages the agents of these diseases increased their diffusion capacity in a suitable environment. Lack of hygiene, fatigue and privations, a diet without vitamins and many persons kept in confined spaces were the essential features of this environment. Sick persons, whose health conditions worsened during the journey to the New World, carried the germs of infectious diseases. The first disease to appear in the New World was smallpox described in 1518 in Hispaniola. From there the disease moved rapidly to Mexico in 1520, exterminating most of the Aztecs, Guatemala and to the territories of Incas from 1525-26, killing most of them and the King himself. The second disease, influenza, appeared in La Isabela, a few years later, causing a heavy epidemic between 1558 and 1559. Other diseases followed such as yellow fever and malaria. So Europeans and these invisible and mortal agents caused enormous destruction of American populations. In fact historians have estimated that beginning from early 1500, in only 50 years the population of Peru and Mexico fell from 60 to 10 million; in the latter country, in one century, the populations fell from an initial 10 million to only 2 million.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Mar
pubmed:issn
0031-0808
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
41
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
78-84
pubmed:dateRevised
2004-11-17
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1999
pubmed:articleTitle
The major epidemic infections: a gift from the Old World to the New?
pubmed:affiliation
Interdivisional Centre for Social Diseases, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Historical Article