Virgin Soil Epidemics and Demographic Collapse in Latin America

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Virgin Soil Epidemics and Demographic Collapse in
Latin America
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Virgin Land/Virgin Soil?

• Virgin Soil Initial outbreak of a disease
  previously unknown or absent from a particular
  area for many generations
• Precolumbian Diseases syphilis other
  trepanomas, tuberculosis, arthritis, (American)
  murine typhus, other enteric diseases probable

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Biology and Epidemics

• Etiology
• Morbidity
• Mortality
• Environmental Factors (temperate vs. tropical,
  seasons)
• Ecological Systems (including human populations)

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Epistemology and Epidemics

• Epistemological explanations central in
  determining human behavior
• Social Behavior in face of epidemics informed by
  epistemological concepts of Life, Death, Dying,
  the Hereafter and the Here Before
• Epistemological Understandings Inform Human
  Behavior when facing epidemics
• Prevention
• Healing Medicine and Prayer
• Quality of Social Welfare and Health Care
  Delivery
• Quarantine and/or Flight

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Hispaniola

• Population and Epidemics
• 1491 230,0000 or 1,500,000
• 1650 lt2000 Taino, /- 5000 Spaniards
• Material World Conuco Agriculture
• 1491 Conuco Agriculture (Yuca Batata)
• 1650 Gold Mining Sugar Plantation
• Social Political
• 1491 Cacigazcos caciques
• 1650 Forced Migration and Reducciones, Famine
• Epistemology
• 1491 Cemie, Cohoba, and Conucos
• 1650 Despair, abortions, suicide

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Las Casas Hyperbole?

• There came over them so much illness, death and
  misery, from which infinite numbers of fathers
  and mothers and children sadly died. So that
  with the killings of the wards and the starvation
  and sicknesses that came because of them, and the
  hardships and oppressions that afterward took
  place, and miseries that according to what was
  believed there did not remain a third part of the
  multitudes of people that were on this island
  from the year of 1494 until that of 1496.-Las
  Casas

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Mexico Tenotchtitlan

• Population and Epidemics
• 1491 10,000,000-12,000,000
• 1520-21 Noche Triste
• 1650 1, 300,000
• Material World
• 1491 Maize, Beans, regional specialization
• 1650 Silver Mining, Farming (wheat) Domestic
  Animals, Cattle husbandry
• Social Political
• 1491 Aztec Empire with occupied client-state
  tributaries and dependent tribes
• 1650 Reducciones, Labor rotations, forced
  migrations to mines in northwest, tribute
  diverted to export
• Epistemology
• 1491 Five Directions,Ages (Duality at 5th
  Cardinal Direction)
• 1650 Temples Destroyed replaced with
  Cathedrals, Nahuatl Royalty subject to Spanish
  authorities

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Inca Empire

• Population and Epidemics
• 1491 37,500,500 (H) 3,300,000 (L)
• 1527 Huayna Capac succeeded by Atahualpa in
  Quito, who threatens Inca Emperor Huascar. 1650
  1, 300,300
• Material World Verticality (Mountains, Valleys,
  Plains)
• 1491 Potato, Quinoa, guinea pigs
• 1600 Exports from Mines of Potosí to Ports of
  Lima
• Social Political
• 1491 Inca Redistributive System linked by labor
  rotations, ayllus, mitmaes (colonists) and mita
• 1600 Forced migrations to mines in northwest,
  Production diverted to export
• Epistemology
• 1491 Viracocha Inca as Sun God,
• 1527 Huascar murdered, followed by Atahualpa,
  and Sun God vanquished
• 1650 Viceroy Toledo in 1572 imposes new colonial
  order and puts end to neo-Inca State

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Execution of Atahualpa

• The earth refused to devour the Incas body
  rocks trembled tears made torrents, the Sun was
  obscured the Moon ill.

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Guayna Capac, IncaCay curitacho micunqui?" (Do
you eat this gold?) -- Candia, Spaniard Este
oro comemos." (We eat this gold.)
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Demographic Collapse
Estimated Precolumbian Indigenous Population Estimated Precolumbian Indigenous Population Estimated Precolumbian Indigenous Population Estimated Precolumbian Indigenous Population
  1492   1650
Area "High Counter" (Dobyns) "Low Counter" (Rosenblatt) Nadir (Lowest)
c. Caribbean 553,750 230,000 22,150
a.Mexican Civilization 30,000,000 12,000,000 1,500,000
b.Central America 10,800,000 4,800,000 540,000
d, Andean Civilization 37,500,000 3,300,000 1,500,000
e. Other 9,000,000   450,000
Total 78,300,000 13,400,000 3,540,000
96 74
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Historical Epidemiology What Can We Learn?

• Ecological Systems Human populations are
  integral to ecological systems, environmental
  transformation, and Epidemic Disease
• eg. Relation between shift from Rubber tapping to
  cattle ranching in Brazilian Amazon and spread of
  Chagas Disease
• Economy and Epidemics
• Trade trading networks (ships and boats, paths
  and roads)
• Introduction of new plants and animals
• Markets
• Disruption in circulation and flow of goods
• Introduction of new products
• Source of prosperity/livelihood
• Agriculture, husbandry, hunting, fishing
  gathering, mining, industry
• Social Conditions and Epidemics
• Settlement Patterns (Fixed, Migratory)
• Migrations (rural urban or urban-rural)
• Social Standing and Relative Prosperity
• Politics and Epidemics
• Occupation vs. Colonization
• Redistributive vs. hierarchical

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Denial and Political Will

• Investment in Prevention and Threats to World
  Economy
• Re-emergence of malaria, dengue, and other
  tropical diseases in part due to weakened
  vaccination rates in health sector reforms
  privileging privatization over social medicine
• Outbreak of polio in D.R. 1999 (due to breakdown
  in vaccination program from inadequate allocation
  of resources)
• Emergence of Multi-drug resistant TB in Caribbean
  introduced in NY in 1990s (due to lack of
  treatment/medication)
• HIV/AIDS in Haiti

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Looking Ahead Infectious Disease and Disease
Prevention

• High counters vs. Low counters in Predicting
  Epidemics
• spread of AIDS world wide
• Cholera in Peru 1991
• Re-emergence of MDR TB, Malaria, Dengue, and IPD
• Health Care Inequities Global and Local
• Cholera in Colombia (1991) Urban vs. Rural
  Indians
• HIV/AIDS in Haiti

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Epistemology in Epidemic Prevention

• Effective Intervention and/or Prevention
• Requires Specific Knowledge of Local Knowledge,
  Attitudes, and Practices (KAP)
• Requires understanding of core epistemological
  concepts about life, death, dying, the hereafter,
  and the here before
• Requires Expertise from Area Studies (knowledge
  of language, culture, history, religion,
  politics, economic..)

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• Research and surveillance can map the global
  movement and evolution of microbes and guide
  interventions. Integration of knowledge and
  skills from many disciplines the social,
  biological, and physical sciences is needed.
  The focus should be system analysis and the
  ecosystem, rather than a disease, microbe, or
  host. - M.E. Wilson, MD, EID 12 (April-June,
  1995)

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Epistemology and Epidemics

• Disease medically defined physiological
  dysfunction
• Illness Individual Perception about disease
• Sickness Social role of affected individual