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What Is Pox America During The 1500's

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Pox Americana was the well - written book by the American author Elizabeth A. Fenn whose interest in the smallpox epidemic grew while she was studying as an undergraduate at university. After studying the fur trade of Native Americans, and learning that smallpox spread like a wild fire between native nations across the country. Her interest was instantaneous and she wanted to find out more about the epidemic that not only affected all of us in the country, but even George Washington’s army during the American revolution. What is smallpox? The internet has defined it as an “acute contagious immune disease, with fever and pustules (small bumps on the skin filled with pus) that will usually will leave scars.” Smallpox originated in India and Egypt over 3,000 years ago. After that it slowly started to progress to other areas across the world. It then started to show itself in places like Africa, Europe and then after a few years later, finally made it’s way into the Americas during the 1500’s. In the start of chapter 1, Elizabeth goes over the effects that pox has on our bodies over time. The very first steps of this …show more content…

These people usually passed away before even the telltale symptoms of a rash, bumps and fever even started. Why is this so? Because these people experienced no exposure whatsoever to these types of diseases, as soon as the Spanish and white men started moving into their land and country, they were slowing being exposed to foreign diseases like syphilis and smallpox. One great example of being open to exposure would be Christopher Columbus accidently finding the Americas. Now when Columbus took over this new land and captured everyone living on it, the people slowly started to find themselves getting sick from things they had never experienced before. You then started seeing people die off faster from sickness than from the slavery and

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