Intergalactic disease among humans

[Tyneras]

Well, aren't most of the humans in the SG universe in small tribes or tiny, primitive cities? Seems like this would be a repeat of Europe's exploration of North America, only it would be Earth as a whole spreading various diseases all over these new worlds.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Well, aren't most of the humans in the SG universe in small tribes or tiny, primitive cities? .

Yes, but they also normally are exposed to gate travellers. Especally true in Pegasus. SG-1 found a few civilizations that had lost contact with gate travel.

There's hyperspace travel too so the "isolation" component is imperfect. It's more like Earth has been the isolated one.

It might even be possible that the Stargate has a "bio-filter" like Trek transporters with the few cases we've seen of disease being isolated failures of the system.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It might even be possible that the Stargate has a "bio-filter" like Trek transporters with the few cases we've seen of disease being isolated failures of the system.

It would make sense for the gate builders to do this, and be a convenient handwave for the show to explain why the Black Death or its equivalent hasn't killed everyone. @:-)

[Dangerious P. Cats]

Stargate has a tendancy to devote the odd episode to issues that would happen every time they contacted a new planet, like translation issues or new diseases. As incongruous as this might be it does mean that the sereis isn't more repetative than already is.

I guess the next question is how well could medicine deal with the spontanious influx of new disease from TLs 8 upwards?