M
entions of malaria can be found
in the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian and Egyptian manuscripts
and later in numerous Shakespearean plays. The belief that
mosquitoes transmit disease also is an ancient one.
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Cuneiform script
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Nei Ching
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Charaka |
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Susruta |
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Hippocrates |
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Horace |
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Varro |
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Pericles |
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Celsus |
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Galen |
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Dante |
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Dürer
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Shakespeare |
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One of the oldest scripts, written several thousand years ago in cuneiform script on clay
tablets, attributes malaria to Nergal, the Babylonian god of destruction and
pestilence, pictured as a double-winged, mosquito-like insect. A few centuries
later, the natives told Philistines settling in Canaan, on the eastern shore
of the Mediterranean, of the god Beelzebub, lord of the insects. The evil reputation
of this deity increased through the ages until the early Jews named him "Prince
of the Devils."
The connection between malaria and swamps was known even in antiquity and the
evil spirits or malaria gods were believed to live within the marshes. This
belief is likely the origin of the Greek fable of Hercules and Hydra.
The chinese Nei Ching (The Canon of Medicine), dated 4,700 years ago, apparently refers to repeated paroxysmal fevers associated with enlarged spleens and a tendency to epidemic occurrence, suggesting P.
vivax and P. malariae
infections.
Sumerian and Egyptian texts dating from 3,500 to 4,000 years ago refer
to fevers and splenomegaly, suggestive of malaria. The
Sumerian records apparently make frequent reference to deadly epidemic
fevers, probably due to P. falciparum.
The Vedic (3,500 to 2,800 years ago) and Brahmanic (2,800
to 1,900 years ago) scriptures of Northern India (Indus valley) contain
many references to fevers akin to malaria. They are also said to
make reference to autumnal fevers as the "King of diseases".
The Atharva Veda specifically
details the fact that fevers were particularly common after
excessive rains (mahavarsha) or when there was a great deal
of grass cover (mujavanta). The ancient Hindus were also
aware of the mosquito's harmful potential. In 800 B.C. the sage
Dhanvantari wrote, "Their bite is as painful as that of the
serpents, and causes diseases... [The wound] as if burnt with
caustic or fire, is red, yellow, white, and pink color,
accompanied by fever, pain of limbs, hair standing on end,
pains, vomiting, diarrhea, thirst, heat, giddiness, yawning,
shivering, hiccups, burning sensation, intense cold..." Charaka Samhita, one of
the ancient Indian texts on Ayurvedic medicine which was written
in approximately 300 BC, and the Susruta Samhita, written about
100 BC, refer to diseases where fever is the main symptom.
The Charaka Samhita classifies the fevers into five different
categories, namely continuous fevers (samatah), remittent
fevers (satatah), quotidian fevers (anyedyuskah),
tertian fevers (trtiyakah) and quartan fevers (caturthakah) and Susruta Samhita
even associated fevers with the bites of the insects.
Malaria appeared in the writings of the Greeks from around
500 BC.
Hippocrates, "The Father of Medicine" and probably the
the first malariologist, described the various malaria fevers of man by 400BC.
Hippocratic corpus distinguished the intermittent malarial fever
from the continuous fever of other infectious diseases, and also
noted the daily, every-other-day, and every-third-day
temperature rise. The Hippocratic corpus was the first document
to mention about splenic change in malaria and also it
attributed malaria to ingestion of stagnant water: "Those who drink [stagnant
water] have always large, stiff spleens and hard, thin, hot stomachs, while
their shoulders, collarbones, and faces are emaciated; the fact is that their
flesh dissolves to feed the spleen..." Hippocrates also related the fever to the time of
the year and to where the patients lived.
The recurrence of malaria is a phenomenon that was known to the ancients and first recorded by
Roman Poet Horace (December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC) in his third satire.
A number of Roman writers
attributed malarial diseases to the swamps. In the first century A.D., Marcus Terentius Varro,
the Roman scholar whom Caesar named director of the imperial
library, suggested in his book on agriculture, De Rerum Rusticarum
that swamps breed
"certain animalcula which cannot be seen with the eyes and which we
breathe through the nose and mouth into the body, where they
cause grave maladies."
By the age of Pericles, there were extensive references
to malaria in the literature and depopulation of rural areas
was recorded. By about 30 A.D., Celsus described two types
of tertian fevers and agreed with the views expressed by Varro.
150 years later, Galen, a famed and influential physician in
Rome, recognized the appearance of these fevers with the summer
season and a jaundice in infected people. But he believed that malaria was due to a disorder in the four humors of the
body. According to him, tertian fever was the result of an imbalance of yellow bile; quartan was caused by too much black bile, and quotidian by an excess of phlegm
and a blood abnormality was the cause of continuous fever. Galen
suggested that the normal humoral balance should be restored by bleeding,
purging, or, even better, by both. These tenets were accepted without question
for the next fifteen hundred years.
Dante [1265-1321] wrote this on malaria: "As one who has the shivering of the quartan
so near,/ that he has his nails already pale/ and trembles
all, still keeping the shade,/ such I became when those words
were uttered." (The Inferno) He died of malaria.
Artist Albrecht Dürer, who contracted malaria in 1520 during a trip to the province of
Zeeland in Holland, sought medical advice by sending his physician a sketch
showing the upper half of the his body, with an index finger
pointing to a yellow spot over the spleen, noting that he felt
hurt over that area.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), mentioned ague
(English word for malaria) in eight of his plays. For
example, in The Tempest (Act II, Scene II), the slave Caliban
curses Prosper, his master: "All the infections that the sun
sucks up/ From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
/ By inch-meal a disease!" Later, Caliban is terrified by the
appearance of Stephano, who, mistaking his trembling and
apparent delirium for an attack of malaria, tries to cure the
symptoms with alcohol: "...(he) hath got, as I take it, an
ague . . . he's in his fit now and does not talk after the
wisest. He shall taste of my bottle: if he have never drunk
wine afore it will go near to remove his fit... Open your
mouth: this will shake your shaking . . . if all the wine in
my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague."
Sources:
Also See
History of
Origin of Malaria
Parasite And Its Spread
History of Malaria During
Wars and Upheavals
History of Malaria And Its
Famous Victims
History of
Scientific Discoveries on Malaria
History of
Anti
Malaria treatment
History of Malaria
Control
History of Malaria
And Its Control In India
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