Maybe It Wasn't Smallpox Afterall

[kbs2244]

It seems like it has been around for some time.

http://www.hantavirus.net/

[circumspice]

Dby: Check out Doctor Acuna-Soto of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. Dr. Acuna-Soto studied epidemiology and molecular biology at Harvard University, and his 12 year study of the Aztec demise concludes that the Aztecs died off from a hemorrhagic virus rather than smallpox, about a decade before Hernando Cortes stormed Mexico with less than a thousand soldiers in 1519. Millions of Aztec had already died off, including the royal family, and the country was divided between warring warlords.

The codices called the disease Cocolitzli, and the victim’s symptoms were the same as those of a hemorrhagic fever virus, such as Ebola, Marburg or Lassa, that had lain dormant in its animal hosts, most likely rodents. Severe drought would have contained the population of rodents, forcing them to hole up wherever they could find water. Initially, only a small percentage may have been infected, but when forced into close quarters the virus was transmitted during bloody fights. Infected mother rodents then passed the virus to their young during pregnancy. When the rains returned, the rodents bred quickly and spread the virus through their urine and feces - as they came into contact with humans in fields and homes. Once infected, humans transmitted the virus to one another through contact with blood, sweat, and saliva.

The Spaniard’s military policy of alliance and conquest worked well to defeat, enslave, and murder the Aztecs, but now it seems that a native hemorrhagic virus called cocolitzli, is what really finished them off - and the epidemic had nothing to do with smallpox.

El Halcon

* ---> Has Dr. Acuna-Soto published his findings, to allow for the standard peer review process? Can you provide links?

I'm guessing that the answer to both of my questions is "No".

[kbs2244]

http://www.ajtmh.org/content/62/6/733.full.pdf


http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/4/01 ... rticle.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730237/

[E.P. Grondine]

Has Dr. Acuna-Soto published his findings, to allow for the standard peer review process? Can you provide links?

Looks like your guessing was off, CS.
The CDC folks take their job fairly seriously.

Thanks for the links, Gary.
The effects on the Mississippians of the SW climate collapse 1270-1275 still have not been worked through.
Nor do we know what pathogen killed off the Dorset, nor exactly when.

[circumspice]

http://www.ajtmh.org/content/62/6/733.full.pdf


http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/4/01 ... rticle.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730237/

Thanks for the links kbs!

[Cognito]

Incredible. The graph shows a greater than 90% reduction in population within one generation which would create a complete cultural, economic and idealogical collapse. From circa 21.5 million to circa 1.5 million between 1520 and 1545. Being a Native American at that time must have been a nightmare.

[E.P. Grondine]

Stunning, isn't it?

Generally, even archaeologists have a tough time picturing the lands as the peoples knew them.

[kbs2244]

You have to remember that the Pilgrims related walking into villages with food stored away and skeletons lying in the streets.

It was pretty clear that whatever happened did so real fast.

[clubs_stink]

Does not have to be Ebola or Hanta, there is a hemorrhagic version of dengue fever too...and dengue is indigenous to the area. Regular dengue is bad enough (I had it) don't want to know anything more about the hemorrhagic version.