Why Italy

Till over a century ago the popular view had been that malaria

Summary: Till over a century ago the popular view had been that malaria was caused by bad air mal aria Italian for bad air or contaminated water However only in 1880 the first true sighting of the malarial parasite was made in Algeria by a French Army physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran 1845 1922 while viewing blood slides of infected soldiers under a microscope He showed that patients with malaria carried a protozoan parasite called plasmodium in their blood and doctors began suspecting that mosquitoes spread the parasite causing the malarial infection Laverans discovery was however rejected by the medical community and it was not until 1886 that his discovery was accepted by Italian scientists who were the leaders in the field at the time We may remark here that it was in 1882 that the mosquito transmission hypothesis was first made as a result of the association between the presence of mosquitoes and the occurrence of malaria a case of guilt by association By this discovery the name of Laveran has forever become renowned in the history of malaria

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