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On Wed, 8/31/16, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] Future forced colonization efforts and Harry Turtledove
 To: "xxxxxx@simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
 Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016, 11:56 AM

[BIG SNIP]

This, too
 was seen in real life. The first Europeans to visit the New
 World brought back disease for which they had no immunity
 either, like syphilis, which progressed and killed much
 faster back then that it does today.

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Speaking of syphilis there was a documentary (Secrets of the Dead?) that I watched some years back.
It concerned the disinterment of the grave of a noble, in England, that showed clear signs of having suffered this disease.
The problem was that the noble died a few centuries before Columbus!
According to the authors/producers syphilis was a well-known problem for a long, long time before Columbus, both in the New & Old Worlds.
They estimated that almost all the indigenous pop in the Caribbean contracted it in their teens but it was something akin to modern 'chicken pox'.
It hit & looked gross but then went away w/ no after effects except, perhaps, minor scarring.
However, when the two varieties came into contact, they sorta' merged into a 'super-bug' which has been bouncing back & forth, all over the globe, ever since.

Anyone else have any  info?

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