Licence: In copyright
Credit: The prevention of malaria. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![mosquito curtain ; and Propertius calls these nets foeda (foul or disgraceful). Evidently the ancients felt towards them as do many of our own more manly colonists who prefer annoy- ance and even sickness to disgrace ! But Paulus Silentiarius thought that they were useful for a post-prandial siesta in order to save the slaves the trouble of using a fly-flapper. Varro said that women, lately confined, spent a number of days in them; and Juvenal said that they were used to cover the cradles of the rich and noble. On the 6th February 1905, Sir Henry Blake, Governor of Ceylon, called the attention of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society to the fact that certain ancient Sinhalese writers, who lived certainly more than 1400 years ago, had connected fever with mosquitos. The original authority appears to be Susruta, in the chapter on Insects which forms the last chapter of his book on Poisons. He says that there are five kinds of mosquitos, one of which produces the same symptoms as deadly insects. J. Jolly, however, discussed the subject [1905], and thinks that Susruta was merely referring to the irritation caused by the bites. He attributed malaria, J. Jolly says, to derangement of the humours. Personally, so far as I can judge, I doubt whether these writers ever really connected malaria, even in imagination, with the insects.1 2. Early Modern Times.—Little was added to our know- ledge during the next thousand years; but about 1640 the inestimable boon of Cinchona bark was introduced into Europe. The Countess d'El Cinchon, wife of the Viceroy of Peru, had been cured of fever by means of it in that country, where it had been discovered by the Indians near Loxa (?); and she was wise enough to send it home to Europe. The use of it, after many checks, gradually spread ; and in 1820 Pelletier 1 I can ascertain little about malaria in early days in America; but according to a suggestive paper by O. Effertz, the disease was probably introduced there from Europe, just as the converse happened with syphilis [1909].](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21351600_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
