malaria Quick reference
Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (3 ed.)
...malaria [M18th] Before people understood that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, they attributed the disease to an unwholesome condition of the atmosphere in marshy districts. It was particularly prevalent in Italy, and especially near Rome. In a letter of 1740 the writer and statesman Horace Walpole wrote of ‘A horrid thing called the mal’aria, that comes to Rome every summer and kills one’. Italian mal’aria is a contraction of mala aria ‘bad air’. Malady [ME] comes from a similar source, being from Lain male ‘ill’ and habitus ‘having (as a...
malaria Quick reference
A Dictionary of Public Health (2 ed.)
...malaria A severe mosquito-borne protozoan infection of the blood and blood-forming organs causing recurrent bouts of high fever due to the destruction of red blood corpuscles by plasmodia , malaria parasites. It is one of the world's greatest public health problems, affecting more than 200 million people and killing about 2 million every year, including more than 1 million children. Its long-term effects include hemolytic anemia, and it has devastating effects on other organs and tissues. It is now mainly a tropical and subtropical disease, but historically...
malaria Quick reference
A Dictionary of Biology (8 ed.)
...malaria A disease caused by the parasitic protozoan Plasmodium , which requires two hosts, the bloodsucking female Anopheles mosquito and a human, in order to complete its complex life cycle. Symptoms of fever and anaemia in humans are caused by invasion and destruction of the red blood cells during an asexual phase of the life cycle. See apicomplexa . https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/malaria/index.html Coverage of all aspects of malaria, from the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and...
Malaria. Reference library
Margaret Humphreys
The Oxford Companion to United States History
...Malaria also played an important role on the early frontier, since the principal form of transportation, river travel, dictated prolonged exposure to wetland areas. By the twentieth century malaria, for a variety of environmental reasons, had retreated largely to the southern states. British physician Ronald Ross's discovery in 1897 that the anopheles mosquito transmitted malaria prompted southern towns in the early twentieth century to the destruction of mosquito larvae. A similar strategy of eradication eliminated the scourge of malaria from the ...
Malaria Reference library
James L. A. WEBB Jr.
Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History (2 ed.)
...Evolutionary and historical aspects of the burden of malaria. Clinical Microbiology Reviews , 15 (4), 564–594. De Zulueta, J. (1987). Changes in the geographical distribution of malaria throughout history. Parassitologia , 29 , 193–205. Harrison, G. (1978). Mosquitoes, malaria, and man . New York: E. P. Dutton. Humphreys, M. (2001). Malaria: Poverty, race, and public health in the United States . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Litsios, S. (1996). The tomorrow of malaria . Wellington, New Zealand: Pacific Press. Poser, C. M. ,...
Malaria Reference library
Margaret Humphreys
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology
...day labor, that labor lived in town (where malaria had already been controlled). As a result, large populations were removed from the one-mile flight zone around many malaria breeding sites, breaking the chain of malaria transmission. World War II and New Tools for the Malaria Wars. By the time the United States entered the world war late in 1941 , malaria had disappeared as a major problem in the American South. Yet military and civilian public-health leaders feared an upsurge in the disease. They saw malaria as a disease of mysterious cycles, of peaks and...
malaria Reference library
Charles G. Roland
The Oxford Companion to Canadian History
...that almost no one, including herself, escaped the disease. Malaria hindered combatants on both sides during the War of 1812 and ravaged the men constructing the Rideau Canal from Kingston to Ottawa ( 1826–32 ). The latter constituted the northernmost occurrence of malaria in Canada. Because cultivation of land eliminated marshes that were mosquito breeding-grounds, malaria had largely disappeared by the 1850s. Occasional localized outbreaks occurred in Ontario into the 20th century. Now, malaria occurs only among travellers returning from malarial...
malaria Reference library
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity
...long periods developed as a result thalassaemia, a type of anaemia that is antagonistic to the disease. In recent years malaria has been identified on human remains excavated in a 5th-century villa in central Italy . Dionysios Stathakopoulos M. D. Grmek , Diseases in the Ancient Greek World (1989). R. Sallares , Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy (2002). D. Soren , ‘Can Archaeologists Excavate Evidence of Malaria?’, World Archaeology 35/2 (2003),...
malaria n. Quick reference
A Dictionary of Nursing (8 ed.)
...in anaemia. When the next batch of parasites is released symptoms reappear. The interval between fever attacks varies in different types of malaria. Preventive and curative treatment relies on such drugs as chloroquine and proguanil. benign m. malaria caused by P. vivax , P. malariae , or P. ovale , with intervals of 2–3 days between fever attacks. falciparum (or malignant ) m. the most severe form of malaria, in which the interval between fever attacks varies from a few hours to 2...
Malaria Reference library
Encyclopedia of Africa
...a human victim. Symptoms of malaria include erratic fever, chills, and muscle pains as well as intestinal cramps and diarrhea. Jaundice and anemia may also develop. Plasmodium falciparum may cause kidney failure, coma, and death. A majority of the 300 million annual cases of malaria, including 90 percent of the disease’s million fatalities, occur in Africa. In 2003 , the World Bank estimated that malaria costs Africa more than $12 billion each year and reduces annual growth in African nations by 1.3 percent. Malaria has probably infected people since...
malaria Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Parasitic disease resulting from infection with one of four species of Plasmodium protozoa . Transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito, it is characterized by sudden fever and enlargement of the spleen. Attacks of fever, chills, and sweating recur as new generations of parasites develop in the blood. The original antimalarial drug, quinine , gave way to synthetics such as chloroquine. Malaria is one of the most widespread diseases, claiming two million lives a...
malaria Reference library
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military
... n. an intermittent and remittent fever caused by a protozoan parasite that invades the red blood cells. The parasite is transmitted by mosquitoes in many tropical and subtropical regions. malarial adj. mid 18th cent.: from Italian, from mal'aria , contracted form of mala aria ‘bad air.’ The term originally denoted the unwholesome atmosphere caused by the exhalations of marshes, to which the disease was formerly...
malaria Quick reference
A Dictionary of Genetics (8 ed.)
... a disease caused by species of protozoa belonging to the genus Plasmodium ( q.v. ) and transmitted by female mosquitoes belonging to the genus Anopheles ( q.v. ). Malaria is the single most critical infectious disease of humankind. There are about 200,000,000 people infected by the parasite, and 2,000,000 die annually. Mortality rates are greatest in Africa, below the Sahara desert, where 90% of the deaths occur in children less than 5 years old. Malaria is the strongest known force in recent history for evolutionary selection within the human genome....
malaria Quick reference
A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (3 ed.)
... ( marsh fever ) An infectious disease that is caused by a parasite ( Plasmodium ) transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes. Once common throughout Europe but eliminated by improved health care and destruction of the vector , it is now confined to the tropics. Symptoms include recurring chills, fever, and sweating, and it can be...
malaria n. Quick reference
Concise Medical Dictionary (10 ed.)
...red cells results in anaemia. When the next batch of parasites is released symptoms reappear. The interval between fever attacks varies in different types of malaria: in quartan malaria (or fever ), caused by P. malariae , it is three days; in tertian malaria ( P. ovale or P. vivax ) it is two days (these two types are known as benign malarias ). In malignant (or falciparum ) malaria (caused by P. falciparum ) – the most severe kind – the interval between attacks varies from a few hours to two days ( see also blackwater fever ). Preventive...
Malaria Reference library
James L. A. Webb
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World
...once again a global campaign against malaria. They were also emboldened by the wartime discovery that DDT was a highly effective insecticide. Eradication and Control. In 1955 the World Health Organization launched an ambitious program for the global eradication of malaria. After years of antimalarial Malaria Control. Spraying DDT to kill mosquitos, 1958. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention work across much of the globe—with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, which had never been targeted for malaria eradication—in 1978 the global campaign...
Malaria Reference library
Encyclopedia of Evolution
...Escalante, A. A. , A. A. Lal , and F. J. Ayala . “ Genetic Polymorphism and Natural Selection in the Malaria Parasite Plasmodium falciparum. ” Genetics 149 (1998): 189–202. Garnham, P. C. C. Malaria Parasites and Other Haemosporidia . Oxford, 1966. Huff, C. G. “ Studies on the Evolution of Some Disease-producing Organisms. ” Quarterly Review of Biology 13 (1938): 196–206. Maxwell, R. “ Some Evolutionary Possibilities in the History of the Malaria Parasites. ” Indian Journal of Malariology 9 (1955): 247–253. Margulis, L. , H. McKhann , and L....
malaria terminology Quick reference
A Dictionary of Public Health (2 ed.)
...malaria terminology The common types of malaria are named on the basis of their periodicity, severity, and the specific plasmodium parasite responsible. Thus, benign and malignant tertian, quartan, falciparum, and cerebral malaria are identified. The prevention and control of malaria have generated enough terms to fill a substantial glossary. For example, drug-resistant malaria is classified as RI, RII, or RIII in terms of the extent of parasitemia after specified time intervals from beginning treatment. Periodicity is classified as quartan if the fever...
Roll Back Malaria Quick reference
A Dictionary of Public Health (2 ed.)
...Roll Back Malaria A WHO campaign to control, and where possible eliminate, malaria from endemic regions. It relies mainly on preventing access of mosquitoes to susceptible persons by the use of bed-nets, environmental control, and larvicides. See http://www.who.int/malaria/en/ . ...
malaria and war Reference library
Mark Harrison
The Oxford Companion to Medicine (3 ed.)
...places of malaria-bearing mosquitoes. At the same time, malaria has often had a dramatic impact upon military campaigns and, in recent times, it has even been used as weapon of war. The most deadly form of malaria is that caused by the Plasmodium falciparum group of parasites, once thought to be a single species, but now known to be at least five subspecies. Probably originating in West Africa — where it is still the most common form of malaria — falciparum is now distributed widely throughout the tropical world. Another species of malaria parasite...
