Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===Smallpox===
Epidemics of smallpox were known for causing a significant decrease in the Indigenous population of the New World.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |title=Epidemics and history: disease, power, and imperialism |last=Watts |first=S. J. |date=1997 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=0-585-35620-3 |location=New Haven |oclc=47009810}}</ref> The effects on survivors included [[Acne scarring|pockmarks]] on the skin which left deep scars, commonly causing significant [[disfigurement]]. Some Europeans, who believed the plague of [[syphilis]] in Europe to have come from the Americas, saw smallpox as the European revenge against the Natives.<ref name=":3" /> Africans and Europeans, unlike the native population, often had lifelong immunity, because they had often been exposed to minor forms of the illness such as [[cowpox]] or [[variola minor]] disease in childhood. By the late 16th century, there existed some forms of inoculation and [[variolation]] in Africa and the Middle East. One practice features Arab traders in Africa "buying-off" the disease in which a cloth that had been previously exposed to the sickness was to be tied to another child's arm to increase immunity. Another practice involved taking pus from a smallpox scab and putting it in the cut of a healthy individual in an attempt to have a mild case of the disease in the future rather than the effects becoming fatal.<ref name=":4"/>