When the Europeans came to the New World, the indigenous people had no immunity to

[raccoon]

many diseases, and consequently were nearly wiped out by those diseases.

I wonder if after these centuries, the indigenous people have acquired some immunity
to those diseases?

[DCKit]

1. Yeah, that's how it works.

Either that, or they're completely wiped out.

The indigenous people I know get colds and flu just like everybody else.

[ret5hd]

2. Well, kinda. They are as immune or not to smallpox as anyone (depends on whether the individual...

was vaccinated).

It's not as if their immune systems were different than the europeans, just that they hadn't been exposed to many things that the europeans were exposed to as children.

[loose wheel]

7. Yep

The air and fluid borne diseases of the European diseases had different organic coatings than the diseases the indigenous populations immune systems were used to dealing with.

STDs were not particularly common in Europe prior to the discovery of the new world. Syphillis is probably among the things brought back from the New World.

[loose wheel]

3. Well sure....

Europeans gave them smallpox and other diseases.

I find it ironic that the Native Americans are never credited for the diseases they gave Europeans.

[libinnyandia]

9. And of course native Americans introduced Europeans to tobacco.

[hedgehog]

4. I think that there is a misunderstanding of this phenomenon.

No infant is born with a genetically acquired immunity to small pox, measles, mumps, etc. However, if the infant's mother survived any of these illnesses, then the infant has some acquired immunity and has a chance of fighting off the disease. Even if the infant dies, all that is lost to the society is the mother's investment of a nine month pregnancy.
Adults tend to suffer more from what we call childhood diseases such as the measles. But the real difference is the loss of skills and manpower. It's terrible when an infant dies, but is devastating when say, the group's best hunter or farmer dies and the group loses not only that person's labor but all their acquired skills and knowledge.

During the American Revolution, European troops came from crowded cities where they had been exposed to endemic small pox since infancy. Most of these troops had already survived small pox, so it wasn't a problem for the British forces. Many of the Americans came from small communities where small pox was unknown. When they gathered in large numbers, small pox swept through the camps. A small pox epidemic was one reason why the Americans were forced to abandon the siege of Quebec. Washington addressed this problem by requiring new recruits to remain outside the camps until they had been vaccinated.

So, small pox was not a problem for the British, and it was for the Americans even though the "Americans" had been on this continent only a few generations!

In point of fact, European-Americans born after about 1970 probably were not vaccinated against small pox and have no immunity. I was vaccinated, but that was years ago and I suspect my immunity has waned. I might survive small pox, but my children would be at risk.

[FarCenter]

5. There are at least two phenomena at work

1. the survivors are those who have a more vigorous immune response to the pathogen and
2. the pathogens which survive are those which sicken but do not kill their hosts until the host has a chance to transmit the disease.

So the survivors become stronger and the disease becomes weaker as they adapt to each other over generations.

[Spike89]

6. Not immunity, but related--alcohol tolerance

Disease resistance, as mentioned, quickly builds up in the population that doesn't die. In essence, surviving many diseases is the same as getting vacinated. Therefore, building immunity in a population is relatively quick.

Much less rapid is building tolerances to substances such as alcohol. Fermented and distilled alcoholic were common in both Europe and Asia for about as far back as we can tell. In the Americas, drinking alcohol wasn't common at all in most groups. Metabolizing alcohol was a problem for many indigenous peoples. I'm curious if that is changing, or has changed.

[4th law of robotics]

8. The ones that survived were either naturally immune

or just extremely lucky.

So I would expect at this point they are about as immune to those infectious diseases as those of european stock.