[LauraleeBraswell]

The spread of disease among Native American peoples was completely intentioned

European settlers carried with them diseases that they themselves were Immune to. Native Americans had never come into contact with foreigners did not have these natural immunities to European Disease.


I was actually thinking about the smallpox blanket myth the other day (when I didn't know it was a myth) and I wondered how it was possible for the US army to know that diseases spread this way. Pre modern medicine The 1830s. If you think about how many people died from infection and disease - and Doctors knew little about Sterilization.

[AnAmericanMother]

It was known as early as the 1600s that pus and scabs from smallpox victims would infect others.

In other words, they knew . . . they just didn't know WHY.

[untenured]

I was actually thinking about the smallpox blanket myth the other day (when I didn't know it was a myth) and I wondered how it was possible for the US army to know that diseases spread this way.

Well, that's not quite right either. While the precise details of viral transmission weren't known, it was known that you could get sick from close proximity to other infected people and their garments, blankets, etc. But the idea that there was any wide effort to do this to American Indians with smallpox-infected cloth is AFAIK not well-supported.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

and I wondered how it was possible for the US army to know that diseases spread this way.

It was known. You find methods for dealing with the positions and housing of people with leprosy for example as far back as the Torah.

They did not know why but with diseases that spread from physical contact either direct or indirect they did know how they spread.

The puzzlers were the diseases that did not do so.