2700 BCE

The Nei Ching, also known as 'The Chinese Canon of Medicine' written by Huandi (The Yellow Emperor), discusses what the symptoms of Malaria are.

 

1550 BCE

An ancient Egyptian papyrus, known as 'The Papyrus Ebers', talks about fevers and symptoms of malaria, along with a treatment oil from the Balantines Tree as moquito repelant to prevent malaria occuring.

 

500-600 BCE

Old Cuneiform tablets describes fatal 'malaria-like' fevers happening in Mesopotamia, a place in Iraq.

 

400 BCE

A Greek physician, Hippocrates, was the first to realise the connection between infected waters and fevers in surrounding populations near bodies of water.

 

27 BC-68 AD

Romans also understood the amounts of fevers in local populations near swamps and infected marshes and tried to drain out all swamps and infected bodies of water.

 

Italy (The Middle Ages)

In Medieval Italian, people came up with a term for "bad air"- "mal aria" or "aria cattiva”, which gives Malaria its name.

 

France

The French came up with a term "paludisme", which means "rooted in swamp", they are referring to earlier information found about infected swamps affecting local people with diseases. This term "paludisme" is now known as "plasmodium malariae", a parasite that causes malaria in humans.

 

Revolutionary War (1764-1789)

The US congress brought in Cinchona bark from South America to treat soldiers in war that had malaria.

 

Early 17th Century

Spanish travellers learned from Indian tribes that bark from a Cinchona tree could be used as a treatment for malaria. The bark is also known as 'Peruvian bark' and the properties of the bark is used for a malaria medication called 'Quinine'.

 

Cure before Etiology (Mid 17th Century)

"There was an earthquake in Loxa which caused many Cinchona trees to unroot and fall in a small pond making the water too bitter to even drink. However, one day, an Indian was so thirsty and hot with fever quenched his thirst from the small pond of water. In a day or two he was much better.

 

Discovery of the Parasites Causing Malaria (1897)

Ronald Ross found the parasite that is carried in the Anopheles mosquito causing severe malaria. He also started people's knowledge of fighting the malaria by controlling the mosquitos that transmit it.

 

World War 1 (1914-1918)

There was almost 5,000 cases and only 7 deaths in the US Navy and Marines. And more than 100,000 Malaria cases in British and Fench soldiers.

 

World War 2 (1939-1945)

There were 500,000 malaria cases in the US Army. More than 110,000 cases and 90 deaths in the US Navy and Marines.

 

20th Century (1948)

Shortt and Garnham describe Exoerythrocytic stages of malaria parasites in humans. (The stages of plasmodium parasites in the human liver before infecting the red blood cells.)