How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?

Re:How did British officers live in the scorching heat of In... by NLips on Monday January 20, 2020 @11:47AM (#22100059)

My uneducated guess is that the Europeans lived in much larger communities (in Europe), which is a much better breeding ground for disease. This meant they were much more full of disease than the native Americans.

Another uneducated guess is that this is why your pet <insert species name here> doesn't often get sick - they have much less contact with other <insert species name here>s than you do with other humans, contributing to less and slower spread of disease.

Please could a pathologist jump in and enlighten me?

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Re:How did British officers live in the scorching heat of In... by thrower123 on Monday January 20, 2020 @12:09PM (#22100257)

> My uneducated guess is that the Europeans lived in much larger communities (in Europe), which is a much better breeding ground for disease

Not a bad guess, but completely wrong. The cities of Mesoamerica or the Andes or the Mississippian culture of North America would have dwarfed most European cities, before they were ravaged by disease.

The best explanation I have seen is that almost all domesticable animals in the New World were exterminated early, and so there wasn't anywhere near the cross-species disease potential in the Americas. Old Worlders had domesticated horses, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, a wide array of fowl, camels, dogs, cats, etc, etc. In the Americas, there were turkeys, ducks, llamas & alpacas, and guinea pigs - and not all of those in any one place.

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Re:How did British officers live in the scorching heat of In... by NLips on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @02:07AM (#22115291)

Fascinating! Thanks

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