QUESTION What is malaria and when was it diagnosed? ANSWER Malaria is a disease caused by a single-celled parasite of the genus Plasmodium. Five types of malaria infect humans: P. falciparum, P. ovale, P. vivax, P. malariae and P. knowlesi. It was first observed in the blood of a patient who had died of malaria in 1880 by Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French physician working in … [Read more...]
Discovery of Malaria
QUESTION How was malaria discovered? ANSWER Malaria has long been known to human populations from across the world. In fact, the first mention of the symptoms of malaria comes from an ancient Chinese manuscript from 2700 BCE! However, the actual cause and mechanism of transmission of the disease was only discovered in the 19th century. It was Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French … [Read more...]
Which doctor first linked Anopheles to cases of malaria?
QUESTION: Which doctor first found that Anopheles mosquitoes transmitted malaria? ANSWER: The first person to show conclusively that malaria could be transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes was Ronald Ross (later knighted in 1911 for his services to medicine). Working in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta (Sir Ronald was born in India and joined the Indian Medical Services in 1881 … [Read more...]