Globalization and disease Eurasian diseases to the Americas was that many more native peoples were killed by disease and germs than by the colonists' use of guns or other weapons. Scholars estimate that over a period of four centuries, epidemic diseases wiped out as much as 90 percent of the American indigenous populations. In Europe during the age of exploration, diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis (TB) had already been introduced centuries before through trade with Asia and Africa. People had developed some antibodies to these and other diseases from the Eurasian continent. When the Europeans traveled to new lands, they carried
Mexican–American War campaigns May, and, on August 1, 1848, the last American soldier departed for home. All the casualties among American soldiers in the Mexican–American War amounted to 1,192 killed in action, 529 died of wounds, 362 suffered accidental death and 11,155 soldiers died from disease. Disease claimed a toll seven times greater than that of Mexican weapons. Yellow fever epidemics, "La Vomito", exacted a terrible toll. In addition, diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid claimed lives amid the poor sanitation common to the army camps of this period. The casualties caused by disease in the Mexican Army have never been estimated but were probably