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beccastareyesOkay, so I just reviewed Ōoku, but noted the virology bothered me. Yes, I know the Redface Pox was just a plot contrivance to get a population in Japan that was 80% female. And I'm willing to accept that a disease can selectively kill men. But some other things bothered me.
Okay, so here's what we are told.
Now, the second means that the disease was endemic, which means that it didn't just have the single outbreak*, but has persisted over eighty years in Japan. If it had been just a single outbreak, the population would have plummeted, but the sex ratio would have normalized by now. This means that, assuming it is a smallpox-like virus, you get it once and are immune. Meaning new victims only come about by birth (or immigration) or mutation of the virus.
Now, the problem is that the Redface Pox is very deadly to its victims. If we assume the sex ratio is totally due to it, especially since I'd assume after the first amount of 'every man dies', boys would be sheltered from dangerous activities when possible, it kills over 75%** of its victims. This is a problem, since if it kills quickly, it won't find a new victim to infect before it kills its host. And then the disease dies. I can think of a few alternatives:
1. A long latency period. Basically, the victims can spread the disease for a long period before they show symptoms. Makes it hard to quarantine the sick. Textev is against this from the account of the initial infection.
2. Another population acts as carriers. Basically, the disease actually does infect women or infects animals with less lethality. For women, if all they got was flu-like symptoms (low fever, fatigue, muscle aches) with no pox or increased mortality, then it would probably go unrecognized as the same disease. Or if it otherwise resembled measles or chicken pox or some other, less lethal, disease. This seems unlikely, since reports of women tending the ill men seem to indicate they don't get sick at all.
If the initial outbreak caused Japan to close its limited ports open to foreigners, it would become much harder to infect foreigners, since they mostly would be interacting with (immune) adults. Which explains why the disease is self-contained. OTOH, if the Western merchants did come into contact with a sick child, I can imagine it going over like smallpox among native Americans. (The plus side could be that the long journey means they won't make it home to Europe -- either they get sick and stay in Japan, or they die on-board the boat. It could still spread the disease to other Dutch East Indies colonies or ports, and thus get it off of Japan and its bottleneck. This is a century and more before Perry showed up with his ships and forced Japan to open to the West, after all, so trade was limited.)
I'd also imagine that both the Japanese people would be evolving resistance to the plague (since men who survive it are more likely to have kids) and the virus is evolving to be less likely to kill its hosts (so it can make more little virii which spread the love). So the male-female ratio should slowly creep up until vaccines are invented.
--
* Unless somehow it was a retrovirus and selectively altered the human genome so that male fetuses weren't as viable as female, or men were overall less healthy. Which would be damn hard, since retrovirii tend to just shove in their genetic code wherever the hell they feel like, and putting something in that somehow only affects either the sex chromosomes or something triggered by the switch that turns on male development is about as likely as shuffling a deck of cards back into the order you pulled them out of the box. After cutting them into confetti.
** Over 75% because the sex ratio given was total population, not adult population, meaning it could have included boys who hadn't caught the disease. But that's probably close.
Music choice was intentional.
Okay, so here's what we are told.
- The disease only showed up in men. So whatever else, women didn't show the symptoms.
- Some men could recover, but it was pretty damn lethal. Eighty years after it first emerged in Japan, the sex ratio was one man for every four women.
- It had not spread to Europe. Japan had limited contact with the West at the time, which helped.
Now, the second means that the disease was endemic, which means that it didn't just have the single outbreak*, but has persisted over eighty years in Japan. If it had been just a single outbreak, the population would have plummeted, but the sex ratio would have normalized by now. This means that, assuming it is a smallpox-like virus, you get it once and are immune. Meaning new victims only come about by birth (or immigration) or mutation of the virus.
Now, the problem is that the Redface Pox is very deadly to its victims. If we assume the sex ratio is totally due to it, especially since I'd assume after the first amount of 'every man dies', boys would be sheltered from dangerous activities when possible, it kills over 75%** of its victims. This is a problem, since if it kills quickly, it won't find a new victim to infect before it kills its host. And then the disease dies. I can think of a few alternatives:
1. A long latency period. Basically, the victims can spread the disease for a long period before they show symptoms. Makes it hard to quarantine the sick. Textev is against this from the account of the initial infection.
2. Another population acts as carriers. Basically, the disease actually does infect women or infects animals with less lethality. For women, if all they got was flu-like symptoms (low fever, fatigue, muscle aches) with no pox or increased mortality, then it would probably go unrecognized as the same disease. Or if it otherwise resembled measles or chicken pox or some other, less lethal, disease. This seems unlikely, since reports of women tending the ill men seem to indicate they don't get sick at all.
If the initial outbreak caused Japan to close its limited ports open to foreigners, it would become much harder to infect foreigners, since they mostly would be interacting with (immune) adults. Which explains why the disease is self-contained. OTOH, if the Western merchants did come into contact with a sick child, I can imagine it going over like smallpox among native Americans. (The plus side could be that the long journey means they won't make it home to Europe -- either they get sick and stay in Japan, or they die on-board the boat. It could still spread the disease to other Dutch East Indies colonies or ports, and thus get it off of Japan and its bottleneck. This is a century and more before Perry showed up with his ships and forced Japan to open to the West, after all, so trade was limited.)
I'd also imagine that both the Japanese people would be evolving resistance to the plague (since men who survive it are more likely to have kids) and the virus is evolving to be less likely to kill its hosts (so it can make more little virii which spread the love). So the male-female ratio should slowly creep up until vaccines are invented.
--
* Unless somehow it was a retrovirus and selectively altered the human genome so that male fetuses weren't as viable as female, or men were overall less healthy. Which would be damn hard, since retrovirii tend to just shove in their genetic code wherever the hell they feel like, and putting something in that somehow only affects either the sex chromosomes or something triggered by the switch that turns on male development is about as likely as shuffling a deck of cards back into the order you pulled them out of the box. After cutting them into confetti.
** Over 75% because the sex ratio given was total population, not adult population, meaning it could have included boys who hadn't caught the disease. But that's probably close.
Music choice was intentional.
