topnaman | Malaria blog

Thank you Google Books (also mentioned here). Sir Ronald Ross is quite the entertaining writer – in fact most works of that era are more fun given their first person, narrative styles. A few gems: On gametocytes: Now it is to these gametocytes that an extreme interest attaches, because it is to them, and to [...]

(image credit: gandhiserve.org) What a stirring image! It’s one of my favorite photographs and depicts the potential of science to serve. The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences a medical university in Maharashtra, India devoted to rural health aptly adopted the image in its logo. The image was taken in 1940 in front of the Sevagram [...]

Check out these blasts from the past. Larry Fillion  has assembled an incredible collection of stamps on all things malaria. Nearly 150 ‘countries’ are represented – though some are colonies, others no longer exist, and many have changed names… Most seem to date from 1950s-70s when they were issued in support of the global malaria [...]

Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Man by Gordon Harrison, 1978. Lucid writing, historical depth, and the framing of critical debates in malaria control make this book my favorite recounting of the last 130 years in the malaria world. Actually, this “history of the hostilities since 1880″ no longer covers the immediate events of the past 30 years [...]

The Malaria Blog welcomes guest posts – just send me an email. From James | Parasitesinhumans.org: A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that the famous pharaoh Tutankhamun was killed by malaria. According to their analysis, Tutankhamun was weakened by malaria and Köhler disease II. Tutankhamun ruled Egypt in 1334-1325 BC and [...]

Millions of people owe their lives to Fred Soper. Why isn’t he a hero? Asks Malcolm Gladwell in his essay The Mosquito Killer. The article is an excellent look at the role played by an American physician in initiating the global malaria eradication efforts of the 50s and 60s.  Gladwell has a very accessible writing style, but sometimes his [...]

As a follow-up to the previous post on the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine is a remarkable piece of history on its origins written by Helen Power. The subtitle “institutionalizing medical research in the periphery” summarizes the article and the insights one can expect from reviewing such a process. How are institutions forged? Who decides [...]

The American Journal of Public Health published a terrific account (hat tip: Steven Meshnick) of a bizarre event from the 1950s where: DDT spraying to control malaria allegedly resulted in cats being poisoned in some areas, which led to increased rodent populations and, in turn, the parachuting of cats into the highlands of the island [...]

Tales of malaria fascinate me, how could they not? It is a dangerous, exotic, haphazard, and hopelessly romantic history. No other disease is as entwined with colonialism, war, and agricultural industry. Also, the basics haven’t changed much. Little in the past few decades has altered the underlying rationale and means of practical malaria control. Thus, [...]

Last week in Kolkata I vaguely recalled reading about a school of tropical medicine somewhere in the city. Scouring around one afternoon, I found a majestic old building attached to the Calcutta Medical College. The Calcultta School of Tropical Medicine was started by Sir Leonard Rogers, one of the founders of the Royal Society of [...]