Malaria—vector-borne death

Abstract

Before WWII, no one thought of malaria as an African disease. Anopheles mosquitoes were worldwide and malaria has been one of the leading causes of death on every continent except Antarctica. The name of the disease shows the lack of recognition that prevailed until the twentieth century. Any fan of Jane Austen remembers Mr. Woodhouse (Emma) lamenting the “bad airs” (mal aria) in London. Potomac Fever now means political intrigue in the US capital, but in the early years of the US, it meant the danger that politicians faced if they stayed in the swampy capital created along the meandering Potomac River by usurping some land from Maryland and Virginia so that the US capital would not be in a state. There were other vector-borne diseases, but malaria was the most common cause of Potomac fever. In his book The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, 1 Timothy Winegard convincingly shows how much of Western Civilization has been shaped by malaria and the fear of swamp fever. Hannibal marched his troops and elephants over the Alps, but he could not attack Rome because of the mosquito infested swamp around the city, so he dared not set up a siege. Alexander the Great withdrew from his planned attack on India because malaria ravaged his troops. In the battle of Vicksburg in the American Civil War, General Grant was able to purchase all the quinine available, so malaria decimated the southern troops.