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

is fertile, with better soil than air, it is almost as pestilential as it is fertile); Silius Italicus, Punica 12.371.

¹¹⁷ Brown’s (1984) hypothesis that the distribution and frequency of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (see also Ch. 5. 3 below) in Sardinia can be explained principally in terms of gene flow during the Carthaginian and Roman periods is rejected by Sanna et al.

(1997: 300, 313–14), who assign the principal role to the selective pressure of malaria.

The absence of the sickle-cell trait (haemoglobin S) from Sardinia counts heavily against Brown’s gene-flow hypothesis. [Aristotle,] peri thaumasion akousmaton, 100.838b recorded the Carthaginian devastation of Sardinia.

Ecology of malaria

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assumed that they must have been built before the spread of malaria. He dismissed the idea that the nuraghi might have been a defence against malaria as well. However, it has been frequently been observed that mosquitoes, being weak fliers, are reluctant to fly up to the higher storeys of multi-storey dwellings. At Ostia in the summer of 1900 Sambon observed that ‘in human habitations they usually occupy the kitchens and rooms on the ground floor’.¹¹⁸ The idea that the upper stories of buildings were safer with regard to malaria was in fact widespread both in Italy and elsewhere in pre-modern Europe. North made the following observations on the Roman Campagna in the last century:

It is not uncommon to find houses in the Campagna constructed with all the living rooms on the top floor; and it is a matter of universal opinion that the upper storey of a house is safer and healthier, as far as malaria is concerned, than the lower, and practical expression is given to this belief by the method of construction adopted.¹¹⁹

Similar beliefs were held by the inhabitants of the Pontine Marshes: Any one who visits the Pontine Marshes may see in the open air, at different intervals, platforms erected upon poles four or five metres high on which, in summer, people sleep during the night . . . In fact, what we see done in the Pontine Marshes, by the people who sleep in the open air during the fever season, is repeated, in exactly the same form, in many malarious regions of Greece, and in the jungles of the East Indies.¹²⁰

In Holland, Pringle . . . noted that the wealthy in ‘dry’ houses and apart-ments raised above the ground were least liable to the disease of the marshes and in England ‘persons have maintained themselves in good health during sickly seasons, by inhabiting the upper stories of their house.¹²¹

Herodotus confirms that the idea of the greater safety of the upper storey of a house goes back to antiquity. He states that the inhabitants of some parts of Egypt slept in towers to avoid mosquito bites: The inhabitants have devised various means for protecting themselves from the abundant mosquitoes. Those who live upstream of the marshes ¹¹⁸ Sambon (1901 a: 199).

¹¹⁹ North (1896: 104).

¹²⁰ Tommasi-Crudeli (1892: 136). Celli (1900: 84) observed that the raised sleeping platforms in the Pontine Marshes did not necessarily totally prevent infection, since mosquitoes would make the effort to fly up to them if they were extremely hungry, but they would have reduced the transmission rate.

¹²¹ Dobson (1997: 355).

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Ecology of malaria

have towers in which they sleep, since the mosquitoes are prevented by the winds from flying up to the towers.¹²²

Consequently it is possible that protection from mosquitoes was one of the purposes of the nuraghi, although there cannot be any proof in view of the complete absence of documentary sources from prehistoric Sardinia.¹²³ The earliest human skeletal remains from Sardinia which are affected by porotic hyperostosis date to the Late Neolithic period, c.4000–3200 .¹²⁴ It is possible, but not certain, that this condition was produced by P. falciparum malaria in the skeletons in question. Nevertheless it is very likely that the frequency of malaria on Sardinia did increase substantially in the second half of the first millennium , just as it did on the mainland of Italy.

The first report of a Roman army being destroyed by disease on Sardinia dates to 234 , just four years after the Romans had gained control of the island.¹²⁵ Strabo noted that Sardinia was unhealthy in summer, especially the fertile lowlands from which the Romans wished to export grain to Rome. Since Sardinia, like Sicily, was an important source of grain to feed the population of the city of Rome, there is no doubt that ships returning would have transported both the mosquitoes themselves and people infected with malaria to the city of Rome. Commenting on the difficulty of pacifying the island, he states it was not profitable to maintain army camps continuously in pestilential areas. This was because of the high mortality rate among the Roman soldiers from P. falciparum malaria. This passage shows that the Romans included mortality from diseases in their accounting of the profitability of military enterprises.

The island is unhealthy in summer, especially the fertile regions . . .

generals sent there sometimes resist [sc. raids by the indigenous tribes dwelling in the mountains], but sometimes they give up the task, since it is ¹²² Herodotus 2.95.1: prÏß d† toŸß k*nwpaß åfqÎnouß ƒÎntaß t3de sf≤ ƒsti memhcanhmv-na. toŸß m†n t¤ £nw t0n ‰lvwn ojkvontaß oÈ p»rgoi ∑felvousi, ƒß toŸß ånaba≤nonteß koim0ntai: oÈ g¤r k*nwpeß ËpÏ t0n ånvmwn oÛk oÍo≤ tv ejsi Ëyoı pvtesqai. People who actually lived in the marshes of Egypt used mosquito nets instead, according to Herodotus.

¹²³ For the use of the upper floors of houses for living purposes see Barker and Rasmussen (1998: 156). Tognotti (1996: 73–91) discussed the statistics for mortality from malaria in Sardinia in the nineteenth century; Tognotti (1997).

¹²⁴ Sanna et al. (1997: 296–7).

¹²⁵ Zonaras 8.18.P.I.401a–b, ed. Pinderus (1844), corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae xxx: ƒß d† t¶n Sard° tÏn åstunÏmon Po»plion Korn&lion πpemyan . . . Ø g3r Korn&lioß ka≥ t0n stratiwt0n pollo≥ ËpÏ nÎsou ƒfq3rhsan (they sent the praetor Publius Cornelius to Sardinia . . . Cornelius and many of his soldiers were