Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T02:27:09.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Earliest American Epidemic: The Influenza of 1493

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Francisco Guerra
Francisco Guerra*
Affiliation:
Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Alcala de Henares, Spain
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There are considerable differences regarding the estimates of pre-Columbian population in America, but everybody agrees that a dramatic reduction occurred after the discovery of the New World. Smallpox has usually been blamed for much of this reduction. Yet historians agree that this disease was not introduced into the Isle of Santo Domingo until 1518. By then, the Indians of the Antilles had practically disappeared and the importation of an African labor force was underway to replace them.

No documented explanation has been offered for the causes of this earliest demographic disaster. The basic clinical signs, however, of the first American epidemic in contemporary descriptions, along with the concordance of the accounts, strongly suggest one conclusion. The epidemic that broke out in 1493 at the Isle of Santo Domingo and was responsible for the disappearance of the American Indians in the Antilles during the first quarter of a century after the discovery was swine influenza.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , Fall 1988 , pp. 305 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1988 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvarez Chanca, D. (1825) “Carta ... a la ciudad de Sevilla,” in de Navarrete, M. Fernandez (ed.) Colección de los Viajes y Descubrimientos. Madrid: Imprenta Real: 1:182–195.Google Scholar
Anglerius, Peter Martyr (1511) Opera. Legatio Babylonica. Oceani Decas. Poemata. Epigrammata. Sevilla: Jacobum Corumberger.Google Scholar
Anglerius, Peter Martyr (1964) Decadas del Nuevo Mundo, por . . . Ed. por E. O’Gorman, trad. Cario, de A. Millares. 2 vols. México: J. Porrua e hijos.Google Scholar
Blair, E. H. and Robertson, A. A. (1903-1908) The Philippine Islands 1494-1898. Cleveland: The Arthur Clark Co.Google Scholar
Buzeta, M. (1850-51) Diccionario geográfico, estadistico, histórico de las Islas Filipinas. Madrid: Jose C. de la Pena.Google Scholar
Colon, Hernando (1571) Historie . . . della vita e dei fatti dell’ Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo suo padre. Venezia: Francesco de Francheschi.Google Scholar
Columbus, Christopher (1825) Lo que vos Antonio de Torres . . . habeis de decir . . . al Rey e la Reina, in de Navarrete, M. Fernandez (ed.), Colección de los Viajes y Descubrimientos. Madrid: Imprenta Real: 1: 196–205.Google Scholar
Columbus, Christopher (1985) Diario. Relaciones de Viajes. Madrid: Ed. Sarpe.Google Scholar
Columbus, Christopher (1874) Memorial. Vol. 21.Google Scholar
Guerra, Francisco (1983) “El intercambio epidemiologico tras el descubrimiento de America.” I Jornadas de Historia de la Medicina Hispano Americana.Google Scholar
Guerra, Francisco (1982-1985) Historia de la Medicina. Madrid: Ediciones Norma S.A.Google Scholar
Henige, D. (1986) “When did smallpox reach the New World (and why does it matter),” in Lovejoy, Paul E. (ed.) Africans in Bondage: Studies in Slavery and the Slave Trade. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press: 11–26.Google Scholar
Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de (1725-1730) Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas i Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano. 4 vols. Madrid: Nicolas Rodriguez Franco.Google Scholar
Jordana y Morera, Ramon (1885) Bosquejo geografico e historico natural del Archipielago Filipino. Madrid: Moreno y Rojas.Google Scholar
Langmuir, A. D. and Schoenbaum, S. C. (1976) The Epidemiology of Influenza. Hospital Practice (October): 49–56.Google Scholar
Las Casas, Bartolomé de (1552) Brevissima relación de la destruyción de las Indias. Sevilla: Sebastian Trugillo.Google Scholar
Las Casas, Bartolomé de (1957) Historia de las Indias. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas.Google Scholar
Las Casas, Bartolomé de (1958) Opusculos, Cartas y Memoriales. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas.Google Scholar
Madariaga, Salvador de (1940) Vida del Magnifico Señor Don Cristobal Colon. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana.Google Scholar
Morga, Antonio de (1909-10) Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas . . . Nueva Edición . . . por W. E. Retana. Madrid: V. Suarez.Google Scholar
Morison, S. E. (1942) Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Moscoso Puello, Francisco E. (1977-1985) Apuntes para la Historia de la Medicina de la Isla de Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo: Libreria Dominicana.Google Scholar
Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernandez de (1535) Historia General de las Indias. Sevilla.Google Scholar
Riquelme Salar, Jose (1950) Medicos, farmaceuticos y veterinarios en la conqista y civilización de América. Madrid: Imp. de P. Lopez.Google Scholar
Skehel, J. J. (1974) The origin of pandemia influenza viruses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Solorzano Pereira, Juan (1648) Politica Indiana. Madrid: Diego Diaz de la Carrera.Google Scholar
Tio, Aurelio (1966) Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca. Estudio biográfico. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.Google Scholar