The History of Malaria in the United States: How It Spread, How It Was Treated, and Public Responses
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MOJ Anatomy & Physiology Opinion Open Access The history of malaria in the United States: how it spread, how it was treated, and public responses Opinion Volume 2 Issue 3 - 2016 Perspiring, coughing, and aching, he falls to the ground in a pool Anuraag Bukkuri of vomit. He feels nauseated and is sweating profusely. He feels his University of Minnesota, USA life slowly seep away from his body. His family surrounds him during his last moments. A few minutes later, the jaundiced man is on the Correspondence: Anuraag Bukkuri, University of Minnesota, USA, Email [email protected] floor; no sign of life remains in him. Every member of his remaining family bursts into tears. This was the second one this week. This is Received: March 10, 2016 | Published: April 28, 2016 malaria. Situations like the one described above were not uncommon in the history of the United States. In fact, this debilitating disease has been prevalent in the United States since the seventeenth century, and cases Although the transmission of malaria has greatly diminished have been documented since the time of the ancient Egyptians (c. over the past few centuries (only 1,500 cases per year in the United 1550 BC). The map below shows the current distribution of malaria States, with the vast majority coming from travelers and immigrants around the world. As shown, the areas plagued most by malaria are from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia), malaria was an immense sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and North-Central South America, in problem throughout much of the history of the United States. that order (Figure 1). Figure 1 Occurrence of malaria transmission. Before embarking on our analysis of the effect that malaria has found evidence of the disease in Chinese medical parchments from had on American society, we must gain a rudimentary idea of malaria as early as 3000 BCE. Due to recent biological innovations in the itself. Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of various past century, the processes behind the spread of malaria and various organisms in the Animalia kingdom that is caused by parasitic genetic adaptations to it have been determined more accurately. protozoans belonging to the genus Plasmodium. There are four Recent studies confirm the great antiquity of the disease and the likely main species of Plasmodium that infect humans: vivax, falciparum, transmission of the malaria parasite from monkeys to humans. Since malaria, and ovale. The former two are the most common and will the highest density of Simian monkeys is in South Asia, it is likely be the primary focus of this study. Out of the four strains of malarial that malaria may have moved into humans in Thailand or India.1 Also, parasites, falciparum is the most severe, often leading to death while the prevalence of genetic traits for the resistance to malaria serves the other three remain relatively mild. as evidence that the disease prevailed in the human population long enough for traits to be amplified by natural selection. For example, Although it has proven to be quite difficult to determine the origins sickle cell anemia is a disease which, as many scientists believe, of malaria (because malaria leaves no mark on bones), historians have Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com MOJ Anat Physiol. 2016;2(3):82‒87. 82 © 2016 Bukkuri. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Copyright: The history of malaria in the United States: how it spread, how it was treated, and public responses ©2016 Bukkuri 83 developed as a resistance to malaria. In sickle cell anemia, due to a American revolution: 1765-1783 lack of hemoglobin, red blood cells are modified into the shape of a During the American Revolution, medical knowledge of malaria sickle. Because malaria specifically affects normal red blood cells, one was quite limited; thus, the treatments that were provided often did with sickle cell anemia has fewer normal red blood cells for malaria to not work. However, in the late eighteenth century, scientists made affect. Hence, it is rare for one with sickle cell anemia to also contract observations about the disease and its transmission patterns that would malaria. This shows that malaria was around long enough for the later prove to be crucial in medical advancements for the treatment of human population to develop genetic resistances against it, like sickle malaria. cell anemia. Public health reactions and treatments of malaria were mostly Malaria is defined as a “febrile disease arising as a reaction of based off of the public’s perception of what caused malaria--thus, the body to invasion by parasites of the genus Plasmodium”.2 This many of them were ineffective, perhaps even adversely affecting the disease is caused by the anopheles mosquito; however, although these patient. Because it was believed that malaria was caused by “bad air”, mosquitos are relatively common in certain regions, the passing of hence the name mal-aria (bad-air), most public health actions focused malaria from the mosquito to the human can be a complicated process. on avoiding or purifying bad air. For example, people were advised In order for the transmission to occur successfully, the anopheles to avoid swamps at all costs and get fresh air often. They were also mosquito must be infected by a human host, who, in turn must be advised to burn frankincense (to improve immune system function) infected by another anopheles, with the circular transmission dependent and to avoid wearing dead peoples’ clothes. on both. It is important to note that only the female mosquito bites in order to get blood to develop her eggs; the male, on the other hand, Because it was not actually known what caused malaria, most simply “spends his time sipping nectar and looking for sex”.3 Once the treatments were not very useful; however, there was one treatment blood is sucked from the malaria patient, it travels to the insect’s gut, that was so successful that it would be the primary form of treatment from which it travels to the mosquito’s salivary glands. From here, for centuries to come--quinine. Although physicians attempted curing it is injected into another human when the mosquito takes its next their patients in a multitude of different ways including making their meal. The blood then travels to its host’s liver, where it multiplies, patients eat spiders, drink their own urine, draining large amounts of attacks red blood cells, changes and multiplies again, and emerges their blood, and even tying one’s head to a tree trunk and yanking their ready to be picked up by the next feeding mosquito. This incubation hair out (as to leave the disease on the tree with their hair), none of period, in most cases, varies from 7 to 30days, with the shorter periods them were as successful as quinine. coming from the falciparum strain of malaria and the longer periods coming from the vivax strain of malaria. Although most individuals Even before the birth of the United States as a nation, it was already will acquire immunity to malaria once contracting it, these immunities plagued by the disease now known as malaria. But in America’s tend to be species and strain specific--reason malaria has been so early history, did malaria truly have such an adverse effect as one debilitating throughout the course of American history. would expect? Perhaps, it was malaria that greatly helped the United States win the American Revolution. As environmental historian J.R. In order to begin to understand the intensity with which malaria McNeill once wrote, “Those tiny amazons [mosquitos] conducted affected its victims, one must first understand the physiological covert biological warfare against the British army”.5 Although many symptoms associated with malaria. The normal malaria attack cycle examples of this exist, perhaps the clearest example can be seen in the lasts for approximately 6-10 hours. It consists of primary three stages- devastation of Cornwallis’s army in the late eighteenth century. -a cold stage, hot stage, and a sweating stage. During the cold stage, the patient may experience sensations of coldness and shivering. The In 1779, British commander Henry Clinton developed what he hot stage is characteristic of fevers, headaches, and vomiting. In cases called the “southern strategy”--one in which he planned to send his with young children, seizures may occur as well. Finally, during the forces to occupy South Carolina. By doing this, he presumed would sweating stage, the individual’s temperature returns back to normal. put him in a militaristically advantageous position. However, one Tiredness is often experienced shortly after the sweating stage (CDC: thing he overlooked was the presence of malaria. As German natural “Disease”).4 historian Johann David Shoepf wrote in the early 1780s, “Carolina was in the spring a paradise, in the summer a hell, and in the autumn The two most common types of malaria, and the ones that this a hospital”. study will concentrate most on, are vivax and falciparum, both of which became prevalent in the United States. Vivax is classified as a As a result, as was the norm in the South, Carolina became vernal fever--a fever that appears in the spring, while falciparum is an infested with malaria--a disease which broke out every spring, aestivoautumnal fever--one that appears in the summer and fall. The especially among new arrivals from Europe who lacked protection cycle of the tertian fever vivax repeats every 48hours. This strain of against the parasite. The rice-growing in the South further aggravated malaria is generally tolerant of cold; historians believe that it reached the problem, providing ample habitat for the mosquitoes to thrive.