Introduction: When Europeans arrived in the western hemisphere they brought diseases with them links to a world of disease that Native Americans to had never been exposed to before. Needless to say, it is now quite well documented that the diseases, which the Native Americans were now being exposed to, had an impact of killing off large percentages of Native groups. Below you will find a two lists of diseases. Click the disease to find out more about it. This list was taken from the book by Robert Boyd, The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline Among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774-1874 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999) p. 15.
The following is a list of Native American diseases here before the time of Columbus.
Native American Diseases
1. salmonella & other food poisons
2. Fungal diseases: some tineas, blastomycosis, etc.
3. Diseases caused by intestinal parasites: tapeworms, roundworms, pinworms
4. Streptococcus and staphylococcus
5. Shigellosis (shigella dysenteriae)
7. Hepatitis
8. Encephalitis
10. Tuberculosis
12. Pinta
17. Bartonelliosis
Here is a list of “disease imports.” Diseases which arrived with Europeans as they arrived in the western hemisphere.
Disease Imports
1. smallpox
2. malaria
4. yellow fever
5. measles
6. typhus
9. cholera
10. pertussis
11. diptheria
12. scarlatina
14. polio
15. amebiasis
16. trachoma
17. hookworm and