Click the links below to read and view the sources. Then respond to the discussion question. Your response must be at least 300 words and include specific examples, quotations, and paraphrases from bo

Source # 1: Excerpt s from Two Accounts of the Epidemic in Mexico City in 1576 In 1576, a mysterious disease that they had never previously experienced struck the Native people. They called it co coliztli , the Nahuatl [Aztec] word for pestilence . Neither the concept nor the word existed in the native language prior to the arrival of t he Spaniards. Fray [Father] Juan de Torquemada : In the year 1576 a great mortality and pestilence that lasted for more than a year overcame the Indians. It was so big that it ruined and destroyed almost the entire land. The place we know as New Spain was left almost empty. It was a thing of great bewilderment to see the people die. Many were dead and others almost dead, and nobody had the health or strength to help the diseases or bury the dead. In the cities and large towns, big ditches were dug, and from morning to sunset the priests did nothing else but carry the dead bodies and throw them into the ditches without any of the solemnity usually reserved for the dead, because the time did not allow otherwise. At night they covered the ditches with dirt . . . It lasted for one and a half years, and with great excess in the number of deaths. After the murderous epidemic, the viceroy Martin Enriquez wanted to know the number of missing people in New Spain. After searching in towns and neighborhoods it was f ound that the number of deaths was more than two million. Dr. Francisco Hernández, Physician -in Chief of New Spain, described the terrible symptoms of the disease: The fevers were contagious, burning, and continuous, all of them pestilential, in most par t lethal. The tongue was dry and black. Enormous thirst … Pulse was frequent, fast, small, and weak — sometimes even null. The eyes and the whole body were yellow. This stage was followed by delirium and seizures. Then, hard and painful nodules appeared beh ind one or both ears alo ng with headache . . . Blood flowed from the ears and in many cases blood truly gushed from the nose. Of t hose with recurring disease, almost none was saved. Many were saved if the flux of blood through the nose was stopped in time; the rest died. Those attacked by dysentery were usually saved if they complied with the medication. This epidemic attacked mainly young people and seldom the elder ones. Even if old people were affected they were able to overcome th e disease and save their lives. . . The disease attacked primarily regio ns populated by Indians. . . . SOURCE : Evidence 11: "Cocoliztli" Digital History Reader Module 01: Demographic Catastrophe — What Happened to the Native Population After 1492?