What is the history of malaria as a disease?
We know that malaria was endemic in the American East, Southeast and even in the Washington, D.C. area during the Civil War, for example. There were a lot of casualties in the Civil War due to malaria; predominantly they were due to a species known as Plasmodium vivax. And malaria existed in the U.S. until probably the 1930’s. I think most people attribute the elimination of malaria from the U.S. to the actions of Public Works departments and cleaning up the water. Does malaria date back to the American Revolution? During the Civil War, living and serving in the Washington, D.C. area I think was considered hardship duty, because of the hot, humid conditions that favored malaria transmission, and in fact a lot of the people living in the area came down with malaria. At the time of the American Revolution, we really didn’t understand what malaria was. I mean the parasite hadn’t yet been identified, we didn’t know much of anything about it. When did malaria shift into developed countries,
