Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-24473740-20140515123108/@comment-24473740-20140516151633

Lordganon,

thanks for your very detailed reply and explanations.

I am seriously considering what you said about technological progress in the Middle Ages. If I have a major misconception here, I am more interested in becoming enlightened than in continuing my timeline - you seem to have intricate knowledge of the subject, could you point me to a concise overview of how technology advanced throughout the Middle Ages? (Preferrably one available online, but if needs be, I´ll also go to our university´s library.)

I still don`t quite understand why vaccinated Native Americans would die or not develop the required immunity. The genes? Then how come Northern Europeans can be vaccinated against tropical diseases like yellow fever, to which I suppose they don´t have genetical predispositions for immunity? I am not asking why they can be_successfully_immunised, I know the vaccine is live, not dead  I´m just curious why you think it would seriously harm or kill Native Americans.

By the way, at the beginning of OTL 19th century, when dead cowpox vaccines were available, Native Americans in the US were vaccinated against smallpox in a campaign supported by president Thomas Jefferson. The campaign wasn`t such a disaster... Or were these Indians are genetically selected after 200 years of exposure? Or...?

I also know that baby mortality post vaccination was considerably higher than today 150 years ago. I wasn`t planning to leave Mesoamerica completely unscathed, but there`s a long way from there to near-complete extinction.

I now realise that I had read about Spaniard using the Mayan Sacbeob not on wikipedia, but on a website that wikipedia links to:

http://www.bicycleyucatan.com/yucatanroads.html

I really appreciate your critical thoughts and the time you take to clear things up, by the way!