Montezuma’s Revenge






The story of tungiasis, chigger flea infestation, is simpler and clearer.  Female chigger fleas burrow into the skin (often the big toe)  and start releasing eggs, which can lead to infection,  sometimes even to gangrene.  It looks as if they originated in the West Indies, and were inadvertently spread to the mainland by the Spanish.   Tungiasis hit the crew of the Santa Maria.  Much later, the chigger flea was introduced to Africa,  carried in ballast by a ship from Brazil:  the Thomas Mitchell, in 1873. It spread all through tropical Africa, and  made it to India and Pakistan in 1899.  It causes quite a bit of trouble even today, particularly in poor areas – specifically, people without shoes.






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27 Responses to Montezuma’s Revenge

  1. dearieme says:

    “Columbus discovered America and made it stick.” Do you mean “sick”?

    Some historians of the Dark Ages seem to feel that one reason for the collapse of Romano-British civilisation to the German invaders was a plague that picked selectively on the R-Bs. Is there much known about this hypothesis?

  2. Cubano says:

    The last paragraph answered most of my questions of why was it the reverse in the case of Africa, where the African diseases kept Europeans out for a long time. Of the factors you mentioned, why is the time passed since the adoption of agriculture important? How does it affect the dangerousness of the diseases in a population?

    • Anonymous Coward says:

      Agriculture → higher population densities → makes it easier for pathogens to spread and thrive.

      • billswift says:

        Also agriculture means more contact with livestock which results in more diseases transferred from animals to humans. Malaria and influenza for example started in livestock and spread to humans. Note that most only become really dangerous when they start being transmitted directly between humans, which is why many predicted influenza strains fade out, they don’t make that transition.

      • billswift says:

        I haven’t read anything about where malaria originated, but I understood it was a major problem, even in rural areas, because cattle were a major reservoir for it. (Can’t remember where I read it, it was a long time ago.)

  3. Karl Narveson says:

    The Athenian strategy at the start of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) was to crowd behind defensive walls, let the enemy ravage their cropland, and wait out the siege while bringing in provisions by sea. It was working till a pestilence broke out. Hans Zinsser (Rats, Lice, and History, 1935) thought this celebrated “plague of Athens” was typhus. A conference at the University of Maryland Medical Center came to the same conclusion in 1999: Plague of Athens

    • gcochran9 says:

      Zinsser had an unusual way of expressing himself, regarding the Plague of Athens: ” There is, in my opinion, practically no reason for assuming that the disease in question was a variety of typhus. “

      • Karl Narveson says:

        I stand corrected. It’s been a long time since I read Zinsser.
        That leaves the University of Maryland conference, but the participants may simply not have been aware of the closely related organism in American flying squirrels.

  4. Tschafer says:

    Yes, it’s really remarkable how much Hans Zinsser got right in RLH, that was later totally forgotten or denied. In some odd way, this ties in with GC’s claim that Rober Howard was actually more accurate concerning human pre-history than Boas or Margaret Mead. Of course, this is hardly a cooincidence; Zinsser was a doctor, and Howard was a storyteller – Boas and Mead were professional liars.

  5. Morley says:

    I think it was Greg or Paul Ewald who mentioned in an article that he believes eventually most cancers will be discovered to be caused by infectious pathogens, which several decades ago was not believed to be responsible at all for cancer.

    A new study suggests a significant number of cancers are caused by infection:

    “‘One in six cancers worldwide are caused by infection'”

  6. as says:


    Where did smallpox and measles and malaria come from then? When did they come?

    • gcochran9 says:




      • Sid says:

        The Iliad opens with Apollo scourging the Achaian army with a plague. On the whole, though, plagues and diseases in the Classical Age tend to come off as either punishments from the gods (Oedipus Rex) or evidence that anything could happen. You might not expect disease, but it could end you at once and without warning.

        By the Middle Ages, however, artists tend to depict disease as omnipresent and proof that the world is demon-haunted. It wouldn’t surprise me if horrible plagues became more endemic in the Middle Ages than they were in Classical times.

  7. erica says:

    Do we know the origin of mumps?

  8. j says:

    Regarding Roman legions’s lack of losses by epidemic diseases, I think the reason is the excellent organization of the legions and its camps. The camps were designed in a superb way, with latrine areas, with supervised drinking water source, and in general legions were well managed and provisioned, and discipline was incredibly strict (in current terms). Also the City of Rome has a tremendous sewage disposal system (The Cloaca Maxima under the Forum) and a vast aqueduct system that provided running water to the city. European cities and armies have not yet reached Roman public health standards in WWI.

    Regarding rheumatoid arthritis, I know nothing but let me copy a note in today’s HaAretz leftist fishwrap: “a team of Israeli scientists from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot may have achieved a breakthrough in treating autoimmune diseases, such as Crohn’s, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue rather than invading germs.

    The scientists managed to “trick” the immune systems of mice into targeting an enzyme known as MMP-9, one of a family of proteins essential for processes including healing wounds. When the enzyme gets out of control, however, MMP-9 facilitates autoimmune diseases as well as the spread of cancer.”

  9. david says:

    Re: Rheumatoid arthritis

    I remember reading over fifty years ago that free-living amoebae had been found in the joints of people afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis. The primary proponent of the idea that this is the cause of the disease seems to be this guy

    Other researchers are claiming a cure rate of 80% for treatment with the appropriate drugs. Could this be another case like helicobacter pylori and ulcers where an effective treatment is being overlooked?

    • billswift says:

      You might find Paul Ewald’s book Plague Time (it was also printed under another title that I can’t remember off hand), interesting. He discussed evidence that many chronic diseases, including heart attacks and arterial plaques may have microbial causes.

  10. dave chamberlin says:

    I don’t believe the book has yet been written that documents the impact of disease from classical times up to the present. It could be one of those rare big history books which come along very seldomly that by themselves shed new light on an important element of human history. It anybody qualifies to write that book it’s you Cochran.

  11. j says:

    Paul, the Road Back posits the theory that the cause is some mycoplasma. It is very difficult to discover those small skinless beasts, they are in most cell cultures, so the idea is plausible.

  12. j.plenk says:

    What about alimentory factors-much of the post-columbian populationgrowth is associated to the introduction of the humble potatoe to Eurasia- and some of the substances it produces to defend itself against being eaten ( f.i. solanin) are suspected to enhance joint inflammation, just as gliadin from cereals is linked to some cases of M.Crohn etc….adaption to modern food sources is slow!

  13. Pingback: Rheumatoid Arthritis | West Hunter

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