The columbian exchange

This was fairly interesting:
This portrait shows, right to left:

• Louis the Petit Dauphin, died of measles in 1712 along with his wife and eldest son
• Louis XIV, who had smallpox in 1647 and survived to die in 1715
• Louis the Grand Dauphin, died of smallpox in 1711
• The future Louis XV, who only survived the measles epidemic that killed his parents and elder brother because
• the woman on the left of the picture, his governess Madame de Ventadour, locked the royal doctors out of the room

It also had this bit which puzzled me:

The question, "Were New World populations significantly reduced by Old World diseases introduced after 1492?" is currently considered settled by historians, and the answer is "Yes". If this startles you, it *is* a paradigm shift from what you probably grew up learning

Really? What on earth are/were they teaching their kids in the USA about this? I would have regarded it as totally anodyne and accepted wisdom. Though the extent of it did surprise me a bit:

Ninety percent of the population of civilized Mesoamerica and Andean America perished by 1568. Civilized highlanders constituted the vast majority of America's precontact population. Consequently, their sixteenth century epidemiology determined the magnitude of "the worst demographic disaster ... in the history of the world." (emphasis mine)

 Ninety percent? Makes poor old pasteurella pestis look like a piker

Edited to add a link to this hysterical parody site! Completely OT for this post, but .... Go read it
(courtesy of the wonderful Debra Dickerson)