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18 BCE
The Romans
In 18BC members of this civilisation noticed that this disease always occured near swamps. Hence the name malaria meaning bad air. -
Laveran's Research
When he examined the blood of a patient with a fever he saw "…on the edges of a pigmented spherical body, lifeforms elements which move with great vivacity, displacing the neighboring red blood cells." He had seen the ex flagellation of a male gametocyte in the life cycle of malaria parasites with occurs in the stomach of the Anopheles mosquito. -
Laveran's Research
He looked for parasites in the air, water and soil. When he couldn't find any, it made him suspect that the parasite could be in the body of mosquitoes, which were common in the environment -
Golgi
Studied asexual reproduction of the Plasmodium protozoan in malaria infected blood and identified two species of it -
Laveran's Continued Research
He left the Army in 1896 to work as a volunteer at the Pasteur Institute. There he devoted himself to the study of protozoal infections of animals and humans, especially trypanosomiasis. -
Ronald Ross
Identified the parasite Plasmodium in 1897 as the cause of malaria by carefully dissecting Anopheles mosquitoes and observing their stomach contents -
Giovanni Grassi
Named the female Anopheles mosquito as the vector of the malarial parasite in 1898 -
Developments helped Laveran
After the development of stains with methylene blue, doubt was not possible anymore, and the various species of malaria parasites were identified. -
Celli and Marchiafara
In 1885 these two scientists suggested that malaria is transmitted to other organisms in infected blood