2,000 Years of Changing Perspectives on Malaria
2,000 Years of Changing Perspectives on Malaria
In 400 BCE, Hippocrates discussed the aetiology of selected diseases in his treatise "On Airs, Waters, and Places". In ancient times, long before the term malaria was coined, the disease was described variously as "marsh fevers", "agues" (from the Latin febris acuta), "tertian fevers", "quartan fevers", or "intermittent fevers." Most terms originated from the writing of Hippocrates, who described the unhealthiness of the air in certain environments as it related to fatal diseases with quartan fevers:
This disease is habitual to them both in summer and in winter, and in addition they are very subject to dropsies of a most fatal character; and in summer dysenteries, diarrhoeas, and protracted quartan fevers frequently seize them, and these diseases when prolonged dispose such constitutions to dropsies, and thus prove fatal.
Hippocrates
In 400 BCE, Hippocrates discussed the aetiology of selected diseases in his treatise "On Airs, Waters, and Places". In ancient times, long before the term malaria was coined, the disease was described variously as "marsh fevers", "agues" (from the Latin febris acuta), "tertian fevers", "quartan fevers", or "intermittent fevers." Most terms originated from the writing of Hippocrates, who described the unhealthiness of the air in certain environments as it related to fatal diseases with quartan fevers:
This disease is habitual to them both in summer and in winter, and in addition they are very subject to dropsies of a most fatal character; and in summer dysenteries, diarrhoeas, and protracted quartan fevers frequently seize them, and these diseases when prolonged dispose such constitutions to dropsies, and thus prove fatal.