The Globalization of Disease

How much of a factor do you think the spreading of disease was in the decimation of indigenous peoples? I'm moving on now to think about the modern atlantic era. So european travellers go over to the america, and the eastern and western hemispheres are reunited. This is a key milestone in globalization, but also in the globalization of disease. The sudden introduction of not just one or twobt an entire array of really, really significant pathagans like small pox and measles and dephtheria and mumps were very much part of the encounter.