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

wherefore it must cause a degree of agitation and commotion, and so the illness is called shivering and cold.).

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Ecology of malaria

frequently than any other disease in the magical papyri. The magical papyri use exactly the same terminology for malarial fevers as the mainstream medical authors such as Galen.²⁵ Such evidence suggests that religious or magical explanations of malaria and other diseases were widely adopted in antiquity and indeed afterwards.

The word abracadabra, used in magic, originated as a spell against semitertian fever. ‘Write down on papyrus the word abracadabra |

and repeat it many times, moving down the paper, but each time remove the final letter | from the line so that more and more of the letters of the word are missing, and mark the others, | until there is only one letter in the last line of the diagram at the apex of a cone. | Remember to tie it around one’s neck with a linen thread’

(Quintus Serenus, liber medicinalis).)²⁶

The shift from pagan religions to Christianity probably made no significant difference to popular perceptions of malaria, which was frequently the target of healing miracles in Christian literature. Just to give one set of examples here, Gregory of Tours in his book on the Glory of the Confessors made a series of references to healing miracles involving quartan fever, tertian fever, and fevers without any further specification. His evidence shows that malaria was common and well known in France in the sixth century .²⁷ In the thirteenth century even a pope, Honorius IV (1285–7), is said to ²⁵ Vakaloudi (2000: esp. 185, 196, 206) noted these texts, which are to be found in Daniel and Maltomini (1990) nos. 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 31, 34, and 35. Part of no.

14, a papyrus dating to the fourth century , is reproduced here as an example: tÏn ∞Iw3nnhß toı πcontoß Â≤gou ka≥ puretoı . . . | kaqhmerinÎn, åpÏ pantÎß Â≤gou . . .|

kef]alarg≤aß, kaqhmerinÎn, nukterinÎn . . . | te]tarte&on, Ómitrite&on, ‡dh ‡dh, tacŸ, t[acŸ|

tan Óm0n åq3raton £ggelon . . . | [tÏn ∞Iw3]nnhß åpÏ pantÏß Â≤gou ka≥ p[uretoı| åpÏ t[ß s&meron Ómvra〈ß〉 ka≥ åpÏ £rti Òr[aß ejß tÏn]| [‹]panta crÎnon t[ß Òlhß aÛtoı do[[ß| [ . . .

]sin, ‡dh ‡dh, tacŸ, tac» (. . . Ioannes of the shivering and fever that possess him | quotidian, from all shivering, | . . . headache, quotidian nocturnal fever, | . . . quartan, semitertian, now, now, fast, fast | . . . our immortal angel | . . . Ioannes from all shivering and fever from this day today and from this hour now for the entire time of the rest of his life | . . . now, now, fast, fast.).

²⁶ Quintus Serenus, liber medicinalis 51.935–40, ed. Pépin (1950) ( Hemitritaeo depellendo): inscribes chartae quod dicitur abracadabra | saepius et subter repetes, sed detrahe summam | et magis atque magis desint elementa figuris | singula, quae semper rapies, et cetera † figes† , | donec in angustum redigatur littera conum: | his lino nexis collum redimire memento.

²⁷ Gregory of Tours, Liber de gloria beatorum confessorum, ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina, lxxi., cols. 838 (quartan), 845 (quartan), 890 (quartan), 893 (quartan), 895 (quartan), 904 (tertian).

Of course, as we have already seen, references to periodic fevers are only the tip of the iceberg of malaria in antiquity. Consequently many of the other references made by Gregory to unspecified fevers will also have been cases of malaria. A likely example is col. 847, where the vocabulary is that of malaria ( febricitans), even though no periodicity is mentioned. Cf.

Horden (1992) on malaria in early medieval France.

Ecology of malaria

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have explained malaria in astrological terms. Ultimately Cicero’s more ‘rational’ approach to periodic intermittent fevers was not an improvement on the explanation from religion. The ancient Chinese, whose conception of the nature of the subject of medicine was in some respects fundamentally different, came closer than the ancient Greeks and Romans to understanding the cause of malaria, as well as coming closer to finding an effective treatment for the disease, as has already been seen.²⁸

4. 2 M  

Given the failure of Greek rational thought, it was left to the practical instincts of the Romans to try to make an impact on the situation. Undoubtedly a limited measure of success was enjoyed, at least from time to time. As Scarborough put it, ‘Roman practical acumen allowed a certain amount of experimental understanding of the problems involved’, with regard to the siting of villas in relation to malarial swamps.²⁹ The association of malaria with swamps was common knowledge at least from the time of the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places onwards, if not long before. The Roman agronomists all warned of the dangers of marshes. Cato insisted that a farm had to be situated in a healthy place. Varro said that a farm facing a river was unhealthy in summer.³⁰ The recommendation to face away from the danger area was well founded. Celli noted that in the nineteenth century those inhabitants of the hill town of Sezze (ancient Setia) in Lazio whose houses faced a marsh contracted malaria, while those who lived on the opposite side did not. The population of Sezze experienced different rates of infection not only according to locality of residence, but also according to sex, since it was observed that women who stayed in their homes on the hill were infected less frequently than men who went down to work on the plain below the town.³¹ Malaria penetrated far inland up ²⁸ According to Tomassetti (1910: i. 170) Honorius attributed malaria: ad un movimento della ottava sfera del cielo; Lloyd (1996) on China.

²⁹ Scarborough (1969: 82).

³⁰ Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places 7 and 24; Cato, de agricultura 1.3 ( loco salubri (in a healthy place) ); Varro, RR 1.12.1, sin cogare secundum flumen aedificare, curandum ne adversum