Health and disease in unacculturated Amerindian populations

The stereotype of uncontacted tribal populations is that they must reproduce at near capacity to maintain or slightly increase their numbers. This paper argues that the health of minimally contacted Amerindians, as judged by the results of physical examinations and life tables for the Yanomama of Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil, is relatively good, with population control a feature of the Indian culture. It is further argued that the usual deterioration in health with contacts with western culture probably does not result so much from special innate susceptibilities to certain epidemic diseases and to the diets and 'stresses' of civilization as from the epidemiological characteristics of newly contacted peoples.