I
was a follower of Gerard Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel"
theory of the colonization of the Americas. But lately that theory
has come under attack and the main culprit is the cocolitzli virus.
This virus is a local virus, native to the Americas and it is deadly.
Dr Francisco Hernadez, a Spanish physician in Mexico at the time of
the conquest, in his writings never named the disease. He listed the
symptoms but never named the disease.
If it was smallpox or the
plague or one of the other diseases from Europe, he would have known
the disease and said so. But since he didn't name the disease Dr.
John S. Marr MD an Historical Epidemiologist assumed he didn't know
what it was. It was a new disease, native to the New World. But the
Aztecs knew about it and they had a name for it, the Cocolitizli
virus or the great pest. It is estimated this virus killed 16 out of
every 20 people. It was deadly. There were 2 outbreaks one in1545 and
the other in 1576 then it vanished. It is estimated to have killed
around 17 million people.
Now
fast forward to New Mexico in 1993 there was a strange deadly disease
that was killing people very fast. It turned out to be a new strain
of the Hantavirus that had first surfaced during the Korean war. Now
this virus is also deadly. But the main difference between these two
viruses is the one in New Mexico was transmitted from the rodent, a
deer mouse to humans. While the Cocolitizli virus ended up,
epidemiologist historians surmise because of how many people were
killed, that the virus was transmitted from human to human.
If the
Hantavirus goes human to human the human race has problems. Well it
has already gone human to human once in Argentina there was an
outbreak in 1998. There it went from patient to doctor and to wife
and husband. We were lucky it died out before it did any serious
damage to the human race. Because it died out so fast the host rodent
was never found.
Now
we will go back in history to the native Indians living in the South
Western desert areas of America. The same area were the Hantavirus
came back to life in 1993. The Indian peoples who live in the
southern desert regions of the USA have a saying, “If a mouse walks
over your bedding burn your bedding, and if a mouse moves into your
house you move out.” They had been plagued by the disease for
generations, but for modern man it was a new disease. This disease is
like the Cocolotozli virus the local peoples knew about it but
Spanish did not.
Also
it might have paid a part in why the Native Indians left the desert
areas. One of the unexplained migrations from early America is why
did the Indian people pack up and leave their beautiful cities in the
southern desert areas of the USA. There might have been a mice plague
leaving the Indians with two choices – stay and die or leave so
they left.
The main reasons put forward so far are the usual ones,
overpopulation with global warming equals famine so they left for
greener pastures. The main problem with this theory is, if you are
starving you can't walk very far. Also being humans we don't like to
just up and go, well I don't.
The
archaeological record shows that they had what looks like the ritual
burning of their homes meaning they weren’t coming back. I would
say the ritual burning had more to do with the mice having moved in,
so it was time for the native peoples to move out and on. If there
was a mice plague and they saw mice everywhere they would have an
incentive to leave.
The local Indians would have been aware of the
connections between the mice and the disease and they would have
realized that to survive they would have to leave. Actually it is a
mystery where they went, no one seems to know.
Knowing about the mice
and keeping out of their way has been passed down from generation to
generation. It is possible to have started in antiquity so the saga
of mice and men continues to this very day.
For more gloomy stories about what we could expect very soon check out.
http://www.animalsdinosaursandbugs.com/Weakest-Link2.htm
Thank you for your time
Peter Legrove
The suburban survivalist
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