Definition. Rickets (in children) and osteomalacia (in adults) are two forms of a metabolic bone disease resulting from vitamin D deficiency. Both cause softening and weakening of bones because of defective or inadequate bone mineralization. Rickets. Copyright Â© Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
The flow from west to east: Disease. In terms of diseases, the Columbian Exchange was a wildly unequal affair, and the Americas got the worst of it. The flow of disease from the Americas eastward into Eurasia and Africa was either trivial or consisted of a single important infection.
Under mercantilism colonies provided markets. The Columbian exchange was the global transfer of goods, animals, and plants during the colonization of the Americas. Ships from the Americas brought many items the Europeans, Asians and Africans had never seen before, and viceversa.