Subject: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 02:08:03 -0400 From: "Randy Appleton" Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms yet. December 1870. By now, 3,600 men have been exposed to AIDS, and their wives. (1) Assuming 50% of them men have wives, and the rate of catching AIDS is 1%, then 48 new cases have arrisen. And of course, the other prostitues that these customers have infected. January 1880. AIDS is rampant. Pretty much every prostitute in Western Europe has AIDS (2), and the disease can now be found in most every port of call frequented by European sailors. January 1890. It's obvious to everyone that something is happening. There are three common theories - Air polution is making people vulnurable to the illness. Notice how air polution has gotten bad, and people are catching more diseases, both at the same time. Notice how city dwelers tend to be more vulnurable than farmers. - It's a new type of illness. Probably something imported from a colony where the natives are immune. Stories of the American Indians dying off from European diseases are much studied. - The End is Neigh. God is punishing the sinners. Notice how sinners and their spouses are much more likly to be effected. January, 1950. World population is down 70% from OTL. More than 20% of the world's population however, is relatively immune to the AIDS virus, or relatively uneffected by it. (3) -Randy (1) That's just one uninfected customer per day per prostitute. And repeat visits count, as long as the customer wasn't infected by the previous visit, since each visit is a new chance to infect. In real life, I bet this number is much higher. (2) If you foolishly assume that each prostitute infects 5 customers, and that each customer infects one more prostitute per year, then in 20 years there are 10 * 5 ^ 10 prostitues infected in 1880. That's 97,656,250 prostitues infected in 1880 alone. (3) Remember that most of the people are dead. It's 20% of the survivors of the crisis that are immune. The rest haven't been exposed, or are gonna die. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 00:42:01 -0700 From: Conrad Hodson Organization: Oregon Public Networking Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Randy Appleton wrote: > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > yet. > > December 1870. By now, 3,600 men have been exposed to AIDS, and their > wives. (1) Assuming 50% of them men have wives, and the rate of catching > AIDS is 1%, then 48 new cases have arrisen. And of course, the other > prostitues that these customers have infected. > > January 1880. AIDS is rampant. Pretty much every prostitute in Western > Europe has AIDS (2), and the disease can now be found in most every port of > call frequented by European sailors. I'm assuming you mean "HIV" here. The distinction is important, because while a few people fall obviously ill within a year or so, even more go ten years or longer before actual impacts on their health. > > January 1890. It's obvious to everyone that something is happening. There > are three common theories > And here is where I disagree with you. I do _not_ think it would be obvious to late 19th Century medicine at all. First of all, most of these people are going to be getting infected in their twenties or later--and average life expectancy was what, late forties? Second, and more important, AIDS (the actual immune dysfunction after it gets going) generally kills by making the victim vulnerable to other diseases. No one in 1890 knows a virus from a vacuum cleaner; pioneer bacteriology is cutting-edge medical research. It takes them till that year to finally agree that _Vibrio_ bacteria actually cause cholera. Consider that Europe and the cities of America are hotbeds of TB right about then. And then look at most of the Third World OTL, where TB is the commonest of all opportunistic infections for people with AIDS, and probably kills more of them than any other. TB is incurable in 1890, and a growing problem. If it grows a little faster--all they'll see through their microscopes are TB bacteria running amok--it won't look that different clinically from a serious case of plain tuberculosis. Consider pneumonia. It killed millions before antibiotics--and the medical doctrine of the day _encouraged_ it, by calling for absolute bed rest for disease victims and recovering trauma and surgical patients. Pneumonia can be caused by viruses, which they won't be able to find; many kinds of bacteria, which they will discover; and even some protozoa, like the _Pneumocystis_ that is ordinarily harmless but can run rampant in the lungs of someone with a bad immune system. They'll spot the _Pneumocystis_ too, but it'll just go on the (long) list of organisms that cause fatal lung infections, _none_ of which they can really treat effectively. If doctors and microbiologists of the day don't know what a virus is, and for that matter don't know what an immune system is, what makes you think that they are going to spot a viral disease that attacks the immune system? They didn't know enough in 1890 about the "baseline" of ordinary infectious disease. AIDS wouldn't look out of the ordinary at all--it would just look as if half a dozen quite ordinary diseases (pneumonia, consumption, "brain fever", dysentery, cancer, etc.) had increased their mortality a moderate amount. Even if AIDS killed a third of the population, those people would lead three-fourths of a normal lifespan, and then die of diseases that (for all their doctor knew) were well-known to their grandparents. And don't even mention pediatric AIDS cases--they'd be invisible against the background of infant and child mortality of that era. I doubt if a widespread AIDS epidemic would have been identifiable in 1940. 1890--they won't even know it's happening. Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 07:58:47 -0400 From: "Robert J. Kolker" Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 Conrad Hodson wrote: > > I doubt if a widespread AIDS epidemic would have been identifiable in > 1940. 1890--they won't even know it's happening. It turned out that in OTL, the pathogen for the Spanish Flue which killed anywhere between 20 and 50 millions, was * never * isolated. It was assumed that a virus caused it because a bacteria was never found. Bob Kolker Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 17:34:00 -0400 From: "Randy Appleton" Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 "Conrad Hodson" wrote in message news:Pine.GSU.4.21.0108130014320.27768-100000@garcia.efn.org... > On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Randy Appleton wrote: > > > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > > yet. > > > > December 1870. By now, 3,600 men have been exposed to AIDS, and their > > wives. (1) Assuming 50% of them men have wives, and the rate of catching > > AIDS is 1%, then 48 new cases have arrisen. And of course, the other > > prostitues that these customers have infected. > > > > January 1880. AIDS is rampant. Pretty much every prostitute in Western > > Europe has AIDS (2), and the disease can now be found in most every port of > > call frequented by European sailors. > > I'm assuming you mean "HIV" here. The distinction is important, because > while a few people fall obviously ill within a year or so, even more go > ten years or longer before actual impacts on their health. Very much so. My bad. Thanks. > > January 1890. It's obvious to everyone that something is happening. There > > are three common theories > > > And here is where I disagree with you. I do _not_ think it would be > obvious to late 19th Century medicine at all. First of all, most of these > people are going to be getting infected in their twenties or later--and > average life expectancy was what, late forties? I agree that they'll never diagnose HIV. They've never even had the concept of VIRUS, and the thought of a disease that lingers 10 years and then helps some *other* disease kill you is not gonna be anywhere near their thought process. However, I do think they would notice the increase mortality. Maybe I've got the time wrong. Does HIV with absolutely no treatment and a horribly dirty personal life really take 10 years on average to show symptoms? If so, then I need to move this date back. But people are gonna die by the MILLIONS, of all sorts of things that didn't kill before (and all sorts of things that did). I can imagine a world where people get HIV by 20, and by 30 they're dead. If everyone starts dying by 30, they would notice. > Consider that Europe and the cities of America are hotbeds of TB right > about then. And then look at most of the Third World OTL, where TB is the > commonest of all opportunistic infections for people with AIDS, and > probably kills more of them than any other. TB is incurable in 1890, and > a growing problem. If it grows a little faster--all they'll see through > their microscopes are TB bacteria running amok--it won't look that > different clinically from a serious case of plain tuberculosis. This is a very good point. The types of infections that people get then will differ from the types they get now, and TB is gonna be high on the list. But the absolute numbers of people dying is going to be so huge, they will discover something is up. What percent of the population do you think will die of AIDS? 50% They're gonna notice that. As you point out, they'll have no idea what caused it. I think my idea that the Europeans believe it's a new set of diseases brought from the colonies, or from air polution, is a reasonable one. Suppose that TB runs rampant through Europe, with a host of other diseases also showing an alarming increase. People are dying of all sorts of diseases at a rate faster than the Black Death years. What do the Europeans do? -Randy P.S. Yes, I've prevented the Franco-Prussian war. See, this world is a better place. :-) Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 20:03:00 +1200 From: Gareth Wilson Organization: University of Canterbury Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 Randy Appleton wrote: > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > yet. Where did they get it from? > > > December 1870. By now, 3,600 men have been exposed to AIDS, and their > wives. (1) Assuming 50% of them men have wives, and the rate of catching > AIDS is 1%, then 48 new cases have arrisen. And of course, the other > prostitues that these customers have infected. I think your infection rate is too high here. It's very difficult for a man to catch AIDS from a woman. OTOH, there's probably a synergistic effect from other STDs. If you want an early AIDS epidemic, well, when did intravenous drugs become popular? -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gareth Wilson Christchurch New Zealand ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 09:46:15 -0700 From: rosignol Organization: very little Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 In article <3B7789B4.DA3E8F28@ext.canterbury.ac.nz>, Gareth Wilson wrote: > Randy Appleton wrote: > > > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > > yet. > > Where did they get it from? A sailor (already infected with some STD that cause sores) involved in the slave trade catches it from a slave (yup, a lot of nastiness on those ships). From there, he goes to Paris... > > December 1870. By now, 3,600 men have been exposed to AIDS, and their > > wives. (1) Assuming 50% of them men have wives, and the rate of catching > > AIDS is 1%, then 48 new cases have arrisen. And of course, the other > > prostitues that these customers have infected. > > I think your infection rate is too high here. It's very difficult for a man > to catch AIDS from a woman. ...but not impossible. Repeated exposure will have it's effects, and he's being quite conservative in terms of how many men visit a prostitute each night, IMO. OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? > OTOH, there's probably a synergistic effect from > other STDs. Yup. Anything that causes sores or causes a change in the, um, amount of lubrication exuded increases the chance of infection. This is a big part of the reason gays are more vulnerable than heteros- the backdoor is a bit drier than the front, so you get more tearing/abrasions. > If you want an early AIDS epidemic, well, when did intravenous drugs > become popular? Dunno. Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? Anyone know when it was? IMO, sex is a more likely vector in that timeframe- most drugs back then were smoked or imbibed. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 15:48:23 +0200 From: Thilo Simper Organization: Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 rosignol wrote: > > In article <3B7789B4.DA3E8F28@ext.canterbury.ac.nz>, > Gareth Wilson wrote: > > [...] > > > > If you want an early AIDS epidemic, well, when did intravenous drugs > > become popular? > > Dunno. Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? > Anyone know when it was? > Heroin was first put on the market in 1898 by Bayer. The substance was know to the medical literature before so no patent was given and they lost their monopoly soon. It was originally supposed to be administered oraly. http://www.spiegel.de/druckversion/0,1588,82519,00.html and here's my try to translate from it: "[...] The sick people simply didn't get the idea of snuffing, smoking or injecting their medicine in high dosis. Europe stayed therefore clean in regard to heroin abdiction for quite a long time. Even in 1920 the term "heroinism" was still unknown to German public health authorities. More quickly got things going with Bayer's best customer the USA. Americans at that time were living in a kind of junkie-republic anyway. Ten percent of all physicians were said to be abdicted to opiates and several hundreds of thousands people injected morphines, countless chinese immigrants smoked opium. From around 1910 on many changed over to heroin. As the hospitals were being filled with heroin abdicteds the medicine was put under stricter statal control and its prescribtion was made harder. Now the heroin business switched to the black market, prices rose as did the crime rate of among those forced to finance their abdiction. For the producers this was a real blessing as the German and other pharma industry made the big money only after the rise of the underground business. At the end of the 1920s the official world demand was two metric tons - but the annual production was up to nine. [...] Following ever stricter international agreements on opiates the heroin business for Bayer and others came to a standstill in 1931. [...]" Cheers Thilo. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 14 Aug 2001 03:37:26 -0700 From: syd_webb@hotmail.com (Sydney Webb) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 rosignol wrote: > In article <3B7789B4.DA3E8F28@ext.canterbury.ac.nz>, > Gareth Wilson wrote: > > > Randy Appleton wrote: > > > > > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > > > yet. > > > > Where did they get it from? > > > A sailor (already infected with some STD that cause sores) involved in > the slave trade catches it from a slave (yup, a lot of nastiness on > those ships). From there, he goes to Paris... A slave ship in 1870? 'Indentured workers', please. - Syd Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 14 Aug 2001 07:48:59 -0700 From: naraht@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu (Randolph Finder) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 syd_webb@hotmail.com (Sydney Webb) wrote in message news:<922dfdc6.0108140237.1fd512ea@posting.google.com>... > rosignol wrote: > > > In article <3B7789B4.DA3E8F28@ext.canterbury.ac.nz>, > > Gareth Wilson wrote: > > > > A sailor (already infected with some STD that cause sores) involved in > > the slave trade catches it from a slave (yup, a lot of nastiness on > > those ships). From there, he goes to Paris... > > A slave ship in 1870? > > 'Indentured workers', please. Slavery was not outlawed in Brazil until the 1880's. I know that importation of slaves to the US stopped well before the US Civil War, but I don't know when the last of the slave ships to Brazil stopped. Randy Finder > > - Syd Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 10:54:59 -0400 From: "Robert J. Kolker" Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Randolph Finder wrote: > importation of slaves to the US stopped well before the US Civil War, 1808. Bob Kolker Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:11:04 -0500 From: "Doug Hoff" Organization: SBC Internet Services Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 "Randolph Finder" wrote in message news:8386826b.0108140648.80821b7@posting.google.com... > syd_webb@hotmail.com (Sydney Webb) wrote in message news:<922dfdc6.0108140237.1fd512ea@posting.google.com>... > > rosignol wrote: > > > > > In article <3B7789B4.DA3E8F28@ext.canterbury.ac.nz>, > > > Gareth Wilson wrote: > > > > > > > A sailor (already infected with some STD that cause sores) involved in > > > the slave trade catches it from a slave (yup, a lot of nastiness on > > > those ships). From there, he goes to Paris... > > > > A slave ship in 1870? > > > > 'Indentured workers', please. > Slavery was not outlawed in Brazil until the 1880's. I know that > importation of slaves to the US stopped well before the US Civil War, > but I don't know when the last of the slave ships to Brazil stopped. IIRC, there was a trickle of slaves into the US from Cuba well into the 1850s. -- __________ Doug www.althist.com Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 14 Aug 2001 07:38:52 GMT From: cassiusmaxim@aol.com (Emperor) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 >A sailor (already infected with some STD that cause sores) involved in >the slave trade catches it from a slave (yup, a lot of nastiness on >those ships). From there, he goes to Paris... Frighteningly plausible. >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? > Proper women in Victorian times were expected to not enjoy intercourse, even with their husbands. >Dunno. Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? >Anyone know when it was? Morphine was rather popular at the time as a drug. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 15:30:29 -0500 From: Rich Rostrom Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 cassiusmaxim@aol.com (Emperor) wrote: >>OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? >> > >Proper women in Victorian times were expected to not >enjoy intercourse, even with their husbands. Then Victoria herself was "improper". There is extensive testimony that she enjoyed sex a _lot_. Only with Albert, to be sure - but when he died, she slept with his nightgown in her arms for years. After one of her late pregnancies, she was warned by a physician that another pregnancy might kill her - therefore abstinence was in order. Her answer: "No more fun in bed? Awwww..." (or words to that effect). BTW, this was a concern for many married couples. In that era, risking pregnancy could be the equivalent of Russian roulette for an older woman in frail health. Husbands of such women diverted their 'needs' to mistresses or prostitutes, not because they didn't love their wives, but because they _did_. Also, physical separations were longer and more frequent. Men were often away from home for months or years. -- Never consume legumes before transacting whatsoever | Rich Rostrom even in the outermost courtyard of a descendant of | Timur the Terrible. | rrostrom@dummy --- Avram Davidson, _Dr. Bhumbo Singh_ | 21stcentury.net Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 15 Aug 2001 00:21:16 GMT From: dtenner@ameritech.net (David Tenner) Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 Emperor wrote in <20010814033852.03729.00004176@ng- bk1.aol.com>: > >Proper women in Victorian times were expected to not enjoy intercourse, even >with their husbands. Dr. Clelia Mosher did a late-Victorian and post-Victorian sex survey (it started in the 1890s) of 45 married women. The survey was not published until 1980; I believe the historian Carl Degler unearthed it in the Stanford library during the 1970s. Anyway, the Mosher survey apparently indicated that most women enjoyed sex and sought and experienced orgasm in their marital relationships. -- David Tenner dtenner@ameritech.net Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 04:18:32 +1200 From: "Nicholas Smid" Organization: Xtra Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 Emperor wrote in message <20010814033852.03729.00004176@ng-bk1.aol.com>... >>A sailor (already infected with some STD that cause sores) involved in >>the slave trade catches it from a slave (yup, a lot of nastiness on >>those ships). From there, he goes to Paris... > >Frighteningly plausible. > It only takes one carrier on a spree, especuly if he's working the trash end of the market where lesions of the sex orgins are less than rear, he's probably poxed already as would be most of the whores. The result would be a somewhat higher death toll and maybe an earlier introduction of general use of condoms though if Syphalis, before treatment, didn't incorage this I can't see AIDS managing especuly scince as others have pointed out medics of the day wouldn't have a hope of identifing it. >>OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? >> > >Proper women in Victorian times were expected to not enjoy intercourse, even >with their husbands. > I exspect this would have been news to most, granted respectable middle class English fock were ment to pretend so in public. There were certen odd religious cults that favored abstanence but they've always been around, they tend to be self eliminating over time. >>Dunno. Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? >>Anyone know when it was? > >Morphine was rather popular at the time as a drug. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 13 Aug 2001 17:14:54 GMT From: coyu@aol.com (Coyu) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 Rosignol wrote: >> I think your infection rate is too high here. It's very difficult for a man >> to catch AIDS from a woman. > > >...but not impossible. Repeated exposure will have it's effects, and >he's being quite conservative in terms of how many men visit a >prostitute each night, IMO. > >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? Part of the culture. Most large European cities had a sex industry like modern Bangkok. Brothels, streetwalkers, mistresses, les grandes horizontales, you name it. It was an amazingly sleazy era. You should dig up a copy of Arthur Schnitzler's 1890s play _Hands Around_. A circle of ten people from all walks of life, venereally linked. >Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? >Anyone know when it was? 1874. They sold kits with needles at pharmacies. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 18 Aug 2001 18:13:30 -0700 From: sarcastic_jew@yahoo.com (Ivan Hodes) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 > >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? > > Part of the culture. Most large European cities had a sex industry > like modern Bangkok. Brothels, streetwalkers, mistresses, les > grandes horizontales, you name it. I don't know why I want to know more about the sexual practices of late 19th-century urban Europe, but what are "les grandes horizontales"? Ivan Hodes (fighting the instinct to type "New Cadet Hodes" Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 19 Aug 2001 05:21:09 -0700 From: syd_webb@hotmail.com (Sydney Webb) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 sarcastic_jew@yahoo.com (Ivan Hodes) wrote: > I don't know why I want to know more about the sexual practices of > late 19th-century urban Europe, but what are "les grandes > horizontales"? > > Ivan Hodes (fighting the instinct to type "New Cadet Hodes" I don't normally spend that much of my time improving the sexual education of army cadets but because it's Ivan asking... http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu:8080/hyper-lists/classics-l/listserve_archives/log97/9711d/9711d.136.html ObWI: WI Charles II does a 'Henry VIII' and divorces the barren Catherine of Portugal and marries one of his more fertile mistresses? The Duchess of Portsmith, a French agent, might be particularly amusing. In OTL, Chuck was quite sanguine about his lack of legitimate offspring, reasoning that his brother James would ensure an enduring Stuart dynasty on the thrones of England and Scotland. But WI James is killed by the Dutch in the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665? Would the King feel a greater pressure to produce non-bastards? - Syd Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 19 Aug 2001 13:37:57 GMT From: coyu@aol.com (Coyu) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 Ivan Hodes wrote: >> >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? >> >> Part of the culture. Most large European cities had a sex industry >> like modern Bangkok. Brothels, streetwalkers, mistresses, les >> grandes horizontales, you name it. > >I don't know why I want to know more about the sexual practices of >late 19th-century urban Europe, but what are "les grandes >horizontales"? The top tier of courtesans. Like renting supermodels. If you have to ask, you can't afford it. >Ivan Hodes (fighting the instinct to type "New Cadet Hodes" Roger that. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 22 Aug 2001 13:50:02 GMT From: akup@loc.gov (Aaron Kuperman) Organization: Library of Congress Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 But all they're going to die of are TB and Strep, as soon as the immune system fails. No one will think to research AIDS until the 2nd half of the 20th century when antibiotics are invented. Other STD create long lingering non-fatal symptons, but in a pre-antibiotic world, AIDS will kill quickly and silently, and in a way it won't show up since the primary groups likely to get AIDS also were most likely to die of other infectious diseases. Even in OTL, no one dies of AIDS - they die of other diseases that their AIDS-impacted immune systems would have handled. AIDS in anything before 1940 would be largely invisible. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 22 Aug 2001 13:38:15 -0700 From: msimone69@hotmail.com (Mike Simone) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 akup@loc.gov (Aaron Kuperman) wrote in message news:<9li0ir$4eds$1@rs7.loc.gov>... > But they would die of their infections. You won't notice AIDS without > antibiotics. If 95% of a population with infections have AIDS, no one will > care if 90% of the infections are fatal to begin with. A slow working > attack on immune systems would be of minimal impact in a society where > serious infections are fatal anyways. > Would widespread but hidden AIDS hinder the development of antibiotics? If the researchers are killing bacteria in petrie dishes with fungi, but using the fungal extracts doesn't seem to help the live patients, they might assume that antibiotics are a dead end. So to speak. The same problem could hinder the development of vaccines - the recipients never develop immunity to the pathogen, so why keep trying it? Especially if the researchers are using a live vaccine and the recipients are actually dying faster than the controls... Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:50:09 -0700 From: Conrad Hodson Organization: Oregon Public Networking Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 On 22 Aug 2001, Mike Simone wrote: > > Would widespread but hidden AIDS hinder the development of > antibiotics? If the researchers are killing bacteria in petrie dishes > with fungi, but using the fungal extracts doesn't seem to help the > live patients, they might assume that antibiotics are a dead end. So > to speak. Except that by the time antibiotics were recognized in culture dishes, it was also known that "infections" were caused by a multitude of microorganisms. And since even "widespread" AIDS would never be close to universal--HIV just isn't contagious enough--you'd have a situation from the start that's much like the present day. Doctors would _try_ antibiotics without knowing whether they would work on a particular case or not. They'd do this because when the drugs worked, thirty or sixty percent of the time, they worked very well indeed. Today this is done because of drug-resistant bacteria; if AIDS had preceded antibiotics I suspect the main cultural/medical practice effect would have been less of the lunatic optimism of the 50's and 60's. Back then they thought everything was curable or about to become so--and the attitude is still around, despite much evidence to the contrary. The same problem could hinder the development of vaccines - > the recipients never develop immunity to the pathogen, so why keep > trying it? Especially if the researchers are using a live vaccine and > the recipients are actually dying faster than the controls... > Except that PWA's are _not_ dying of measles, smallpox, diphtheria and tetanus! Immune systems are multiply redundant (fortunately!) and it turns out that HIV does most of its damage on the other half, the portion not involved in immunizations and antibodies. What HIV interferes with is the T-cells and their policing up of invaders the antibodies aren't getting. That's why the opportunistic infections are mostly things that were highly obscure before we had an epidemic of widespread immune system damage. I'm not sure how the commonly controlled-by-vaccination diseases hit people who missed the childhood immunizations and then got AIDS. And live-virus immunizations of someone who already has AIDS might be a Real Bad Idea. But enough people, especially kids, will be HIV-free in this scenario that immunizations will still be very much worth developing, and will generally work as well as they do now. Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 16:09:49 -0500 From: "Doug Hoff" Organization: SBC Internet Services Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 "Coyu" wrote in message news:20010813131454.00188.00000576@mb-fj.aol.com... > Rosignol wrote: > > >> I think your infection rate is too high here. It's very difficult for a man > >> to catch AIDS from a woman. > > > > > >...but not impossible. Repeated exposure will have it's effects, and > >he's being quite conservative in terms of how many men visit a > >prostitute each night, IMO. > > > >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? > > Part of the culture. Most large European cities had a sex industry > like modern Bangkok. Brothels, streetwalkers, mistresses, les > grandes horizontales, you name it. It was an amazingly sleazy era. Plus, I imagine there were certain acts that no Decent Victorian Husband would ever ask his Decent Victorian Wife to perform . . . . -- __________ Doug www.althist.com Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 00:59:35 -0700 From: Conrad Hodson Organization: Oregon Public Networking Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 On 13 Aug 2001, Coyu wrote: > > > >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? > > Part of the culture. Most large European cities had a sex industry > like modern Bangkok. Brothels, streetwalkers, mistresses, les > grandes horizontales, you name it. It was an amazingly sleazy era. FWIW--I've known a number of sex workers. A great many (some would say a solid majority) of their clients are married. Being married and having a good sex life do not automatically go together; sex workers were earning a living on making up the difference millenia before anyone so much as invented "money". > > >Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? > >Anyone know when it was? > > 1874. They sold kits with needles at pharmacies. Cheaply and legally, so there's not going to be much of the needle-sharing that spreads disease. If everyone has their own works, injecting drugs is simply not a vector. Recreational drugs, that is. What _would_ be a problem is that hypodermics had been around for about a hundred years, but most doctors only owned one or two of them. There are large areas in the Third World today, (and the former Soviet bloc as well) where the biggest risk for HIV infection is not the local druggies or your lover but your doctor. Just as you see in today's African missionary hospital, where Ebola or Lassa mortality (or new HIV infections) may be worse in the miserably equipped "hospital" than in the primitive backcountry villages. Precisely the same situation occurs in some 1890's town with a dozen doctors and twenty hookers. The doctors may spread more of a disease like HIV (which is rather difficult to catch sexually and horribly easy to catch off a shared needle) than the local cathouse does. Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 13:22:26 -0400 From: "Robert J. Kolker" Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 Coyu wrote: > > 1874. They sold kits with needles at pharmacies. Laudnum was legal in pharmacies until 1906. Bob Kolker Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 10:46:43 -0700 From: rosignol Organization: very little Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 In article <20010813131454.00188.00000576@mb-fj.aol.com>, coyu@aol.com (Coyu) wrote: > Rosignol wrote: > > >> I think your infection rate is too high here. It's very difficult for a man > >> to catch AIDS from a woman. > > > > > >...but not impossible. Repeated exposure will have it's effects, and > >he's being quite conservative in terms of how many men visit a > >prostitute each night, IMO. > > > >OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? > > Part of the culture. Most large European cities had a sex industry > like modern Bangkok. Brothels, streetwalkers, mistresses, les > grandes horizontales, you name it. It was an amazingly sleazy era. By our standards, yeah. I still laugh a bit when I remember the look on a friend's face when I explained the difference between the public facade of the Victorians and what they did the rest of the time... > You should dig up a copy of Arthur Schnitzler's 1890s play > _Hands Around_. A circle of ten people from all walks of life, > venereally linked. Hm. > >Wasn't heroin developed as a possible substitute for morphine? > >Anyone know when it was? > > 1874. They sold kits with needles at pharmacies. So the timing works out after all. Scary. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 14:02:42 -0400 From: "Robert J. Kolker" Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 rosignol wrote: > > OTOH, if you have a wife, why visit a prostitute? And if Mrs gives better headache than head? What then? Bob Kolker Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 13 Aug 2001 04:30:37 -0700 From: korkhova@umdnj.edu (Adamanteus) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 "Randy Appleton" wrote in message news:... > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > yet. Recent research has demonstrated that HIV is a mutant of SIV, which was thought transmitted through eating the meat of a certain chimpanzee (Pan trogolodytes trogolodytes) living in western Congo around 1931/32. The disease then spread throughout the Congo and eventually throughout most of southern Africa through railways that brought carriers into contact with more and more people. It then spread to North America, perhaps in the late 50's or early 60's, via a traveler than may've landed in the Caribbean. Once established in North America, it spread throughout the most vulnerable community of the time, homosexual men, where it mutated into HIV-1 from HIV-2. (Homosexuals may've been more vulnerable due to their "unique" form of sexual practice.) From there, it disseminated through travelers to the rest of the world. To make your AH work, you'd have to have some way to get either more people into Africa, or vastly improve travel, in the 1930's. 1870 is far too early a POD, unless you can install about a million more people into the Western Congo to increase the likelihood of transmission of SIV. The rest of the scenario works, however. There's been some recent findings that showed prostitutes in East Africa bear a mutation which makes them relatively resistant to HIV infection. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 17:23:34 -0400 From: "Randy Appleton" Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 "Adamanteus" wrote in message news:c3d22f5f.0108130330.48652a2c@posting.google.com... > "Randy Appleton" wrote in message news:... > > January, 1870. Ten prostitutes in Paris have AIDS. They show no symptoms > > yet. > To make your AH work, you'd have to have some way to get either more > people into Africa, or vastly improve travel, in the 1930's. 1870 is > far too early a POD, unless you can install about a million more > people into the Western Congo to increase the likelihood of > transmission of SIV. If I understand your post, what I need is one very unlucky sailor to eat a SID-infected money, and then go to Paris. That seems much more likely than machine guns in the American Civil War, or even SeaLi*n. :-) > > The rest of the scenario works, however. Much Thanks > There's been some recent > findings that showed prostitutes in East Africa bear a mutation which > makes them relatively resistant to HIV infection. Yep, and with HIV running rampant and no cure in sight, that's what I expect in this time line also. -Randy Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 15 Aug 2001 05:27:21 -0700 From: korkhova@umdnj.edu (Adamanteus) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 "Randy Appleton" wrote in message news:... > > To make your AH work, you'd have to have some way to get either more > > people into Africa, or vastly improve travel, in the 1930's. 1870 is > > far too early a POD, unless you can install about a million more > > people into the Western Congo to increase the likelihood of > > transmission of SIV. > > If I understand your post, what I need is one very unlucky sailor to eat a > SID-infected money, and then go to Paris. That seems much more likely than > machine guns in the American Civil War, or even SeaLi*n. :-) I don't know if 1 sailor is enough. The eating of "bushmeat"(monkey meat) was a common practice in Africa for centuries. It may've required centuries of exposure to that population of SIV infected monkeys before SIV sufficiently mutated into HIV. The reason for the spread of HIV is not, contrary to popular suspicions, sexual promiscuity, as that has been around for centuries. The reason is the population boom of modern times combined with travel. Both allowed for easier transmission of the disease from its remote location to more carriers. You could try increasing the influx of people into the Congo by suggesting a diamond rush, similar to that of South Africa. I don't know if there's as much diamonds there, though. > > The rest of the scenario works, however. > > Much Thanks > > There's been some recent > > findings that showed prostitutes in East Africa bear a mutation which > > makes them relatively resistant to HIV infection. > > Yep, and with HIV running rampant and no cure in sight, that's what I expect > in this time line also. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:01:55 -0700 From: Conrad Hodson Organization: Oregon Public Networking Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 On 15 Aug 2001, Adamanteus wrote: > "Randy Appleton" wrote in message news:... > > > > To make your AH work, you'd have to have some way to get either more > > > people into Africa, or vastly improve travel, in the 1930's. 1870 is > > > far too early a POD, unless you can install about a million more > > > people into the Western Congo to increase the likelihood of > > > transmission of SIV. > > I don't know if 1 sailor is enough. The eating of "bushmeat"(monkey > meat) was a common practice in Africa for centuries. It may've > required centuries of exposure to that population of SIV infected > monkeys before SIV sufficiently mutated into HIV. The reason for the > spread of HIV is not, contrary to popular suspicions, sexual > promiscuity, as that has been around for centuries. The reason is the > population boom of modern times combined with travel. Both allowed > for easier transmission of the disease from its remote location to > more carriers. There are _estimates_ based on estimated rates of mutation that make fair guesses about the dates when current HIV strains made the jump to the human species from other primates. As you indicate, using monkeys (or especially chimps) as food goes back indefinitely in Africa and is still done today in many areas. However, one misconception is worth mentioning: eating monkey meat is the last way you're going to see a virus as fragile as HIV passed. It's the _preparation_ that's risky. Bushmeat hunters typically live in the jungle, but have an association with a particular village or small town. With no refrigeration available, the traditional way is for this guy to camp and hunt, drying/smoking the meat to preserve it and packing it off to market when he has as much as he can carry. You can't live and work in the forest without scuffing up your hands, and you can't butcher an animal without getting fresh blood on your hands. A second point: accepting the estimates of a transfer to humans of the _current_ version of HIV as falling in the midsection of the 20th Century somewhere (very authoritative estimates have ranged from the 1930's to the 1960's!) means little or nothing in terms of this ATL. The world is full of retroviruses that attack the immune system; almost every group of mammals seems to have corresponding viruses. In particular, many species of African primates seem to have them. (This is why the conspiracy theories about AIDS being some kind of recombinant germ warfare bug are so loony, BTW.) But in light of this biological background, there is no reason whatever to think that HIV or similar primate viruses haven't transferred to humans repeatedly, for thousands or tens of thousands of years. You have to consider the conditions that have prevailed in backcountry Africa until just the last half-century or so. When life expectancy is 35 or so, a disease like AIDS just doesn't have the demographic impact it has in a population where almost everyone expects to make it to old age. With the barriers to travel that prevailed across most all of sub-Saharan Africa until the last century, the villages where bushmeat hunting was important might be very isolated. If one village happened to get infected with an HIV-type virus in 1441, that village might go into a slow decline and even die out--but that happened anyway here and there. In an environment with chronic severe malaria, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, sleeping sickness, meningitis, and subject to occasional outbreaks of _really_ deadly animal transfes like Lassa fever and Ebola, there's an excellent chance that the average person with HIV dies of something else before they succeed in passing HIV to another human. If the customs or circumstances of that village (sexual customs, blood brotherhood, genital mutilation, whatever) do promote HIV spread, the added disease burden may very well kill off the village before much of anything spreads to outsiders. We're talking about a disease that just isn't very contagious, after all. So there should be no surprise if occasional HIV cases show up in 1950 or 1930. Most of them were sparks that failed to fall on tinder. "Tinder" in this case being globalization (in this case taking the form of roadbuilding into remote areas, so an infected village doesn't just decline in isolation anymore, and a worldwide trade in blood products). Or the widespread sharing of needles, whether by underequipped doctors or drug addicts. Or of interlocked communities with very high levels of sexual interconnection--there have always been people as sexually active as the gay commmunity of the 1970's, but such sexual, medical and IDU interconnections were and always have been tinder. The vast increase in trade and travel has just made sparks carry a lot further in recent years. Scatter sparks widely enough, some of them eventually find some of the tinder. In past centuries, the world's tinder was divided up into smaller clumps, so even if a bit flared here or there it might have only local consequences. In fact, consider this scenario: the first HIV (an earlier transfer from primates in Senegal, say.) A hunter infects his girlfriend in this village, and she infects her husband eventually. Nobody's actually sick yet--that'll take years more. But the woman dies in childbirth, the bushmeat hunter becomes the hunted and feeds a leopard, and the husband gets grabbed by slave raiders. The husband has the dubious honor of introducing HIV to the American continent--via the Middle Passage and a Charleston auction block in 1723. Of course, new-caught African slaves in those days had an American life expectancy of less than five years, and not many slave women were brought in. The African dies of dysentery the year after he's captured and sold; he has very few sexual opportunities in his short and miserable life. The only woman he passes it to dies in childbirth herself, and the only guy _she_ passed it to lived on another plantation and was fatally shot by patrollers while sneaking back to his cabin. End of non-epidemic. HIV or its close cousins could have been introduced a dozen times before really taking off, and the further back in history the more likely an outbreak would be to just rise and fall in isolation. Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 18 Aug 2001 05:32:16 -0700 From: korkhova@umdnj.edu (Adamanteus) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Conrad Hodson wrote in message news:... > On 15 Aug 2001, Adamanteus wrote: > > > "Randy Appleton" wrote in message news:... > > > > > > To make your AH work, you'd have to have some way to get either more > > > > people into Africa, or vastly improve travel, in the 1930's. 1870 is > > > > far too early a POD, unless you can install about a million more > > > > people into the Western Congo to increase the likelihood of > > > > transmission of SIV. > > > > I don't know if 1 sailor is enough. The eating of "bushmeat"(monkey > > meat) was a common practice in Africa for centuries. It may've > > required centuries of exposure to that population of SIV infected > > monkeys before SIV sufficiently mutated into HIV. The reason for the > > spread of HIV is not, contrary to popular suspicions, sexual > > promiscuity, as that has been around for centuries. The reason is the > > population boom of modern times combined with travel. Both allowed > > for easier transmission of the disease from its remote location to > > more carriers. > > There are _estimates_ based on estimated rates of mutation that make > fair guesses about the dates when current HIV strains made the jump to the > human species from other primates. As you indicate, using monkeys (or > especially chimps) as food goes back indefinitely in Africa and is still > done today in many areas. However, one misconception is worth > mentioning: eating monkey meat is the last way you're going to see a virus > as fragile as HIV passed. It's the _preparation_ that's risky. Bushmeat > hunters typically live in the jungle, but have an association with a > particular village or small town. With no refrigeration available, the > traditional way is for this guy to camp and hunt, drying/smoking the meat > to preserve it and packing it off to market when he has as much as he can > carry. You can't live and work in the forest without scuffing up your > hands, and you can't butcher an animal without getting fresh blood on your > hands. > > A second point: accepting the estimates of a transfer to humans of the > _current_ version of HIV as falling in the midsection of the 20th Century > somewhere (very authoritative estimates have ranged from the 1930's to the > 1960's!) means little or nothing in terms of this ATL. The world is full > of retroviruses that attack the immune system; almost every group of > mammals seems to have corresponding viruses. In particular, many > species of African primates seem to have them. (This is why the > conspiracy theories about AIDS being some kind of recombinant germ warfare > bug are so loony, BTW.) All your points are correct, and very interesting. I suppose that HIV could've been introduced in the past, and no one knew it because it didn't become an epidemic. I would imagine that if it could've become epidemic, it would've, in the past. Regarding this ATL: Perhaps one way to increase the dissemination of HIV in the 19th century would be to invent air travel earlier. Perhaps the airship gets an earlier start. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 15 Aug 2001 16:37:57 GMT From: kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 In article , rappleto@nmu.edu (Randy Appleton) wrote: > However, I do think they would notice the increase mortality. I either missed or can't find Conrad's post. And with 2,500 or so messages in this group and indifferent threading it is easier to comment to yours. Average life expectancy figures usually include infant and childhood mortality. Thus a life expectancy of forty years, does not mean that was what an adult could expect. Conrad may have been quoting adult life expectancy but if not HIV should have made a significant difference. By the way life expectancy in Britain bottomed out about 1850. This was the result of increasing urbanisation overloading existing sewage and waste disposal methods. The major killers were cholera, typhus and typhoid, with TB coming in fourth. From the 1850s on modern sewage systems eliminated cholera and reduced the incidence of the other three. Life expectancy actually started to rise. The symptoms of TB are highly variable and the AIDS would probably have been diagnosed as a new variation. Ken Young kenney@cix.co.uk Maternity is a matter of fact Paternity is a matter of opinion Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:28:27 -0700 From: Conrad Hodson Organization: Oregon Public Networking Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 On 15 Aug 2001 kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote: > In article , rappleto@nmu.edu > (Randy Appleton) wrote: > > > However, I do think they would notice the increase mortality. > > I either missed or can't find Conrad's post. And with 2,500 or so > messages in this group and indifferent threading it is easier to > comment to yours. > > Average life expectancy figures usually include infant and childhood > mortality. Thus a life expectancy of forty years, does not mean that > was what an adult could expect. Conrad may have been quoting adult > life expectancy but if not HIV should have made a significant > difference. You're right about the actuarial point. My own point (in the post you couldn't locate) was just that _enough_ people died in what we would think of as early middle age to _camouflage_ a disease as slow-acting as AIDS. Especially since the "causes of death" would be divided into so many (as far as any lay person or doctor of the day would know) unrelated categories. AIDS-related opportunistic infections are what actually kill people under these conditions, and what would a doctor or even one of the rare new breed of public health statisticians see? A few cases of pneumonia here, a rise in consumption there. The fact that the pneumonia was _Pneumocystis_ wouldn't signify; they couldn't cure the bacteria kinds either. Ditto the TB. Toxoplasmosis and AIDS dementia would be "brain fever"--a plain-English term for "encephalitis"--which they had no good treatment for. AIDS was basically recognized in the early 1980's because people were dying of conditions that ordinarily responded to treatment, or never caused illness in the first place. In an era when _ordinary_ TB, pneumonia, etc. are essentially untreatable, AIDS fails to raise that particular warning flag. And it can literally kill millions without raising a fuss if it does so in ways that mimic diseases that are already, routinely, killing millions. Even a Koch or a Gorgas is unlikely to find a common element, with the microbiology of the day. Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 16 Aug 2001 07:49:57 -0700 From: prosa123@yahoo.com (Peter Rosa) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 Conrad Hodson wrote in message news:... > AIDS was basically recognized in the early 1980's because people were > dying of conditions that ordinarily responded to treatment, or never > caused illness in the first place. In an era when _ordinary_ TB, > pneumonia, etc. are essentially untreatable, AIDS fails to raise that > particular warning flag. And it can literally kill millions without > raising a fuss if it does so in ways that mimic diseases that are already, > routinely, killing millions. Even a Koch or a Gorgas is unlikely to find > a common element, with the microbiology of the day. One of the things that alerted the medical community to the presence of AIDS in the early 1980's was a big rise in the number of cases of Kaposi's Sarcoma. Until then, KS was a very rare disease and found almost exclusively in old men. But then a significant number of much younger men started getting it, and before long someone realized that most of these men were gay. I don't know when KS was first recognized as a separate form of skin cancer, but it may very well have been in Victorian times given its very distinctive purple lesions. Whether the science of epidemiology was sufficiently developed back then to recognize the increase in KS is the big question. But it doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. -- Peter Rosa prosa123@yahoo.com R32R38@aol.com Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 20:35:27 -0700 From: Conrad Hodson Organization: Oregon Public Networking Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 On 16 Aug 2001, Peter Rosa wrote: > > One of the things that alerted the medical community to the presence > of AIDS in the early 1980's was a big rise in the number of cases of > Kaposi's Sarcoma. Until then, KS was a very rare disease and found > almost exclusively in old men. But then a significant number of much > younger men started getting it, and before long someone realized that > most of these men were gay. > I don't know when KS was first recognized as a separate form of skin > cancer, but it may very well have been in Victorian times given its > very distinctive purple lesions. Whether the science of epidemiology > was sufficiently developed back then to recognize the increase in KS > is the big question. But it doesn't seem beyond the realm of > possibility. KS is certainly distinctive enough to be spotted as a new disease by Victorian doctors. The one problem is, it appears now that it's just another opportunistic infection--IIRC a previously obscure herpes virus. Co-infection is necessary; apparently without AIDS immune suppression the virus doesn't get anywhere, or only affects very old people (who's immune systems often falter). KS seemed to spread with HIV in parts of Central Africa, and it managed to get into the US gay population and spread there as well, which is how it became one of the ailments that alert doctors might begin to wonder about. But it's not any kind of automatic consequence of HIV infection; there are whole communities of AIDS sufferers who show little or no KS incidence. My understanding is that this includes needle-sharers; if so that suggests that while HIV spreads via blood contact, this other virus doesn't. While one obscure virus could make it out of Africa to the coast and be carried away to a new continent by a sailor or new-caught slave in almost any century, it would be quite a coincidence for two of them to do so in the 19th Century in a pattern that mimicked our late 20th Century OTL so closely. It might happen, but I wouldn't count on it as any kind of warning signal. Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 17 Aug 2001 15:59:58 GMT From: akup@loc.gov (Aaron Kuperman) Organization: Library of Congress Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 They would have died on an infectious disease long before the symptons were displayed. Just take any situation where you really needed antibiotics, and assume a good chance that it would have been fatal especially to someone with a weakened immune system. No one would notice the AIDS. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:16:48 -0400 From: "Randy Appleton" Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 "Conrad Hodson" wrote in message news:Pine.GSU.4.21.0108151313090.16098-100000@garcia.efn.org... > You're right about the actuarial point. My own point (in the post you > couldn't locate) was just that _enough_ people died in what we would think > of as early middle age to _camouflage_ a disease as slow-acting as AIDS. I'm unclear. Are you saying 1) The Europeans don't know something big is up. 2) They know something big is up, but are clueless, confused, or wrong as to what it might be. If you're saying #2, then I'm in screaming agreement. Suppose that HIV does hit Europe in 1870. Right now the population of the EU is about 420 million people, and the world 6 billion. What do you think it would be after this POD? I'm gonna *guess* 150 million and 2 billion, and say they discovered HIV and the links to AIDS in the year 1972. I'm assuming that HIV hits the poorer economies even harder than Europe. I do understand that Europe gets it first and therefore longest. I assume these effects balance out. America does relatively the best, being somewhat prudish, rich, and not where the disease starts. -Randy Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 16 Aug 2001 17:04:52 GMT From: akup@loc.gov (Aaron Kuperman) Organization: Library of Congress Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 Before antibiotics it might be hard to notice. Life expectancies were lower and AIDS has a long period before it is noticable. Once the immune system weakens, the people would die of conventional diseases before anyone notices something wrong. Even today, AIDS is found primarily among groups that are tolerant of sexual promiscuity. 150 years ago there was less tolerance of of "free sex" so it would spread more slowly. When you preclude blood transfusions to help spread AIDS, groups who practice sexual non-promiscuity are largely immune. This assumes that current scholarly opinion is correct in concluding that HIV causes AIDS, which is merely a leading paradigm. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 02:33:11 GMT From: "Allan MAc Donald" Organization: MPowered-Subscriber Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 "Aaron Kuperman" wrote in message news:9lgufk$3nrs$1@rs7.loc.gov... > Before antibiotics it might be hard to notice. Life expectancies were > lower and AIDS has a long period before it is noticable. Once the immune > system weakens, the people would die of conventional diseases before > anyone notices something wrong. > > Even today, AIDS is found primarily among groups that are tolerant of > sexual promiscuity. 150 years ago there was less tolerance of of "free > sex" ROFL. You dont know much about that period no? They didnt really practice what they preached. so it would spread more slowly. When you preclude blood transfusions > to help spread AIDS, groups who practice sexual non-promiscuity are > largely immune. any soldier who went to war and was injured having to go to a medic would probably get it. as sanitary conditions in such cirumcstance were near non existant. So one wounded man could possibly infect tons more. > > This assumes that current scholarly opinion is correct in concluding that > HIV causes AIDS, which is merely a leading paradigm. Lets not get into that shall we? -- -- 333---the diet coke of evil. Half the evil all the flavour. Subject: Re: AIDS in 1870 Date: 17 Aug 2001 02:46:51 GMT From: akup@loc.gov (Aaron Kuperman) Organization: Library of Congress Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 , 3 But they would die of their infections. You won't notice AIDS without antibiotics. If 95% of a population with infections have AIDS, no one will care if 90% of the infections are fatal to begin with. A slow working attack on immune systems would be of minimal impact in a society where serious infections are fatal anyways.