Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy, Robert Sallares [reading a book TXT] 📗

A. sacharovi is now thought to have been eradicated from Italy, and A. labranchiae from Spain. Coluzzi and Sabatini (1995) give information on current distributions in Italy. Proft et al. (1999) and Romi et al.

(2000) described the latest, PCR-based techniques for mosquito identification; Russell (1943: 56–61).

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4. Fontana di Trevi, Rome’s most famous fountain, was completed in its modern form in 1762 by Niccolo Salvi. According to a late-eighteenth century author, the water from the Trevi fountain was excellent for breeding mosquitoes.

noxiis paludum effluviis eorumque remediis, published in 1717 and based on research in the Roman Campagna, as a possible alternative to the prevailing miasmatic theory that malaria was caused by bad air arising from marshes. Lancisi attempted to observe the life cycle of mosquitoes in an experimental fashion. He correctly noticed that they reproduce very quickly and attain very high population densities in wetland environments, and considered the comments of classical authors on mosquitoes.⁴ Mosquitoes could equally well reproduce very fast inside a building in the city of Rome in a glass of water from the famous Trevi fountain, as the anonymous author of a late eighteenth century discourse on mal’aria observed.⁵ However, the miasmatic theory of ‘bad air’ prevailed until Laveran’s discoveries in 1880.⁶

⁴ Lancisi (1717: 56–60); Pietro Paolo da Sangallo (1679) had already considered the life cycle of mosquitoes.

⁵ Anon. (1793: 61): due giorni bastano nei tempi di gran caldo, perchè in Roma la vantata acqua di Trevi medesima conservata dentro un bicchiere di vetro pulitissimo in una camera custodita produca i vermi, dai quali poco dopo escono le zanzare.

⁶ Puccinotti (1826) attempted to modify the miasmatic theory by arguing that intermittent fevers were caused by miasma palustre in association with squilibrii periodici di temperatura.

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5. Artemisia absinthium, Roman wormwood, a plant lethal to mosquitoes.

In antiquity, mosquitoes were certainly regarded as troublesome pests. To try to keep them away a series of measures were employed. In many ways these presage some of the techniques (e.g. the spraying of DDT as a long-lasting residual insecticide on the interior walls of dwellings) employed in the eradication campaigns of the World Health Organization in the 1950s and 1960s. Several different plants were recommended as herbal fumigants, or for smearing on the skin as insect repellents.⁷ Modern research has ⁷ Beavis (1988: 229–38), on references to mosquitoes in ancient authors, cited Pliny NH

20.71.184 (Roman coriander as a fumigant kills culices), 22.74.157 (smoke of burnt wild lupins 48

Ecology of malaria

shown that some of these plants do indeed have the desired properties. A good example is Roman wormwood ( Artemisia absinthium) and related Artemisia species, whose properties are described extensively by Pliny the Elder and other ancient authors. Pliny states that both the smoke of burnt wormwood and rubbing the body with absinth extracts in oil deter mosquitoes ( culices). Angelo Celli mentioned experiments which found that Roman wormwood incapacitated mosquitoes in a closed chamber within six hours and killed them within twenty-four hours.⁸ Extracts from the related species Artemisia annua were used in China in traditional herbal remedies against malaria itself. Derivatives of the drug artemisinin ( qinghaosu) obtained from this plant are now being investigated and may become a major weapon against strains of P. falciparum which have become resistant to other drugs, although developing resistance to artemisinin is already being reported in scientific literature. However, no such drugs were available in Europe until quinine was brought from South America in the bark of the cinchona tree after Columbus.⁹ Besides Roman wormwood, the use of mosquito nets is also mentioned in classical sources.¹⁰ Thus some of the anti-mosquito measures described in ancient sources might in fact have had some degree of efficacy, if they had been applied on a sufficiently regular basis.

kills culices), 23.61.114 (smoke of rind of wild pomegranates kills culices), and 27.28.52, Dioscorides, MM 3.23.4, and Galen 11.798–807K on wormwood. Note also the long chapter in the Geoponica 13.11, ed. Beckh (1895): per≥ kwn*pwn. Beavis expressed the view that no one in antiquity was aware of the connection between mosquitoes and malaria.

⁸ Lodi (1986: 341–2) described the cultivation of Artemisia absinthium in Italy. It also grows wild on wasteland and roadsides in Lazio. Theophrastus, HP 7.9.5 described the stalks and leaves of åy≤nqion as good to eat, albeit bitter. However, it is now known that prolonged ingestion causes hallucinations, tremors, and other symptoms of toxic effects on the central nervous system (Leporatti et al. (1996: 517) ); Chiej (1984: no. 41) for the use of the related species Artemisia abrotanum as an insect repellent when rubbed on skin; Celli (1900: 143).

Theophrastus, HP 9.15.1 described Latium and Tuscany as lands rich in medicinal plants.

Galen, 14.30–31K also noted that there were many medicinal plants growing near Rome, but said that many of the inhabitants of Rome did not know anything about them.

⁹ Qinghaosu (artemisinin) has been used in China in connection with fevers since at least 

340 (Dobson (1998) ); P. F. Russell (1955: 5, 78–9). Hirsch (1883: 209) noted that there was intense malaria in tropical and subtropical parts of China in the nineteenth century, including Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao. Malagón et al. (1997) suggested that other Artemisia species in other parts of the world might also contain antimalarial drugs, cf. Tan et al (1998); Reed et al. (2000) on drug resistance.

¹⁰ Herodotus 2.95.2 (with the comments of Jöchle (1999: 504)), Varro, RR 2.10.8, Horace, Epodes 9.16, Propertius 3.11.45, and Greek Anthology 9.764–6, ed. Paton (1917–18), on mosquito nets (Latin conopia).

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However, the fact remains that there is no evidence that the connection between mosquito bites and malaria infection was understood in classical antiquity. In this respect the ancient Greeks and Romans probably lagged