Malaria
Roger Cooter, John Pickstone in Medicine in the Twentieth Century, 2020
Other types of research led to other kinds of practices, none particularly pleasant for the mosquitoes. Favorites included studies of different species’ flying distances, important for judging how wide an area to cover in malaria control efforts in any particular locality. Researchers captured mosquitoes, tagged them with fluorescent dusts, released and recaptured them sometimes miles away, with native assistants — ‘mosquito boys’ — doing most of the legwork. Native assistants, organized in ‘mosquito brigades,’ also did most of the work involved in the early control campaigns on the model advocated by Ross, oiling ponds and irrigation ditches, sweeping or filling puddles and cleaning up discarded bottles and other trash in which water might collect and provide breeding sites. In some control efforts ‘larvivorous’ fish could be used instead of oil, especially when dealing with mosquito larvae in wells used for drinking water. Later Rockefeller-financed research and eradication efforts focused on mosquitoes, attacking their larvae with poisons like Paris Green, rather than oil, and later the adult mosquitoes with DDT. Many of these studies examined mosquito behavior, habitats and speciation in great detail, before DDT convinced many that complexity could be ignored.
Historical outline
David A Warrell, Herbert M Gilles in Essential Malariology, 2017
During the twentieth century, much research was devoted to malaria control. Larvicides in the form of oil of Paris green were introduced to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes in various types of waters. Wider use of these and other methods of mosquito reduction demonstrated the practicability of controlling malaria and yellow fever in Cuba and the Panama Canal Zone, where two American campaigns organized by General William Crawford Gorgas proved to be outstanding successes. Subsequently, Malcolm Watson in Malaya introduced the concept of ‘naturalistic control’ based on the knowledge of the breeding habits of species of Anopheles involved in the local transmission of the disease.
Chemical Methods of Vector Control
Jacques Derek Charlwood in The Ecology of Malaria Vectors, 2019
The scientific development of insecticides began in 1867 with the formulation and use of the arsenical Paris green. This was used, as a larvicide, to eliminate A. gambiae s.l. that had invaded Brazil (by hitching a ride on the fast mail boats that operated between Dakar and Recife). In the 1920s the structures of many of the botanical insecticides, which had been used since the early 1800s, were elucidated. It was not until 1939, however, that Müller discovered the insecticidal properties of the first synthetic insecticide, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), when he tested it against clothes moths.
Fifty years after the eradication of Malaria in Italy. The long pathway toward this great goal and the current health risks of imported malaria
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2021
Mariano Martini, Andrea Angheben, Niccolò Riccardi, Davide Orsini
After the discovery of the insecticidal action of ‘Paris Green’ against the larvae of the Anopheles mosquito, in 1923 the League of Nations promoted an investigation on malaria endemicity in Europe and the use of quinine. Thus, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York launched a program of cooperation in Italy under the direction of Lewis Wendell Hackett, a public health doctor with previous experience in ancylostomiasis control in Central America. Collaboration with Alberto Missiroli led to the foundation of the Stazione Sperimentale per la Lotta Antimalarica (The Experimental Station for Malaria Control) in Italy, which played a major role in staff training and updating on the most advanced techniques of malariology. In 1925, Paris Green was tested as an anti-larval agent in several malarial zones in central and southern Italy, with good results in small urban centers.
Did poisoning play a role in Napoleon’s death? A systematic review
Published in Clinical Toxicology, 2021
Daniela Marchetti, Francesca Cittadini, Nadia De Giovanni
Useful information can be achieved by segmental analyses of Napoleon’s hair collected in 1821. Table 2 shows that it was performed a few times using cm and/or approximately millimeter (mm) segments [26,29,30,37]. Figure 3 graphically represents As findings by 1 cm segments (we calculated the mean As concentration in case of mm sections) from proximal to distal ends. It shows a relatively uniform As segmental trend without evidence of a sudden increase of the As content. According to the literature [12,46,47] the lack of As >45 ppm in the proximal ends (or any segments) is sufficient to rule out an acute lethal poisoning in the last months of Napoleon’s life. Interestingly, Clemenza [37] and Lugli [26] reported different As concentration in samples belonging to the same tuft of hair. The papers published before 1982 [29,30] excluded a contamination (embalming and/or preservation) while the others [26,37] emphasized the interference of environmental contamination. Indeed, many sources of contamination were available due to its ubiquity in the nineteenth century, being extensively used as rodenticide, preservative, in face and hair powders (Napoleon used hair powder), clothing dyes, even candy wrappers or used as a green pigment (Scheele’s and Paris Green) in wallpaper [8]. Thus, although As was found in several analyses, we retain those segmental hair findings may be consistent either with external contamination and with chronic sublethal intoxication.
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