fever 'n' ague
Yesterday, I learned that my mother had malaria ("fever 'n' ague") as a child. She's been my mother for fifty years and I never knew that. She remembers the chills and fever and feeling awful, and she remembers taking bitter quinine as treatment for it.

Malaria is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. Only female mosquitoes can transmit the disease, and they must have been infected through a blood meal taken from an infected person. Malaria is caused by a parasite; four kinds of malaria parasites can infect humans: Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae.

Once transmitted to a person, the parasites travel to the liver, where they grow and multiply. During this "incubation period," the infected person has no symptoms. After as few as eight days or as long as several months, the parasites leave the liver cells and enter red blood cells. Once in the cells, they continue to grow and multiply. After they mature, the infected red blood cells rupture, freeing the parasites to attack and enter other red blood cells. Toxins released when the red cells burst are what cause the typical fever, chills, and flu-like malaria symptoms.

For most people, symptoms begin ten days to four weeks after infection, although a person may feel ill as early as seven days or as late as an entire year later. Two kinds of malaria, P. vivax and P. ovale, can relapse. In P. vivax and P. ovale infections, some parasites can remain dormant in the liver for several months up to about four years after a person is bitten by an infected mosquito. When these parasites come out of hibernation and begin invading red blood cells, the person will become sick.

The Ingallses (and my mother) took quinine to treat malaria. Quinine destroys the Plasmodium parasite when taken internally. Quinine is a drug made from the dried bark of the Cinchona tree, specifically Cinchona officinalis and several other species in the genus Cinchona.

The potent ingredient in the bark is the alkaloid quinine. It wasn't until 1820 that quinine was isolated from the bark of the Cinchona tree, although it had been used to treat malaria for hundreds of years prior to that time. Aside from the treatment of malaria, quinine has also been used to treat leg cramps, as a flavoring, and it provides the bitter taste in tonic water. In fact, "gin and tonic" was originally (and successfully!) consumed in the past to prevent attacks of malaria.

Quinine is rarely prescribed for the treatment of malaria today, as it has been replaced by synthetic drugs. But when studying Little House on the Prairie in the classroom, make sure you have a bottle of tonic water so that children can taste the bitterness of quinine. Save the gin for after school.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:15 AM