Malaria Letters: The Ross-Laveran Correspondence 1896-1908

It has been estimated that a child dies from malaria somewhere in the world every 30 seconds. New cases of the disease affect more than 100 million people each year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. But, with global warming, the distribution of mosquito vectors is changing and whole populations are at increasing risk. In 1880, the parasitic nature of malaria was first demonstrated by Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran and, within 20 years, the role of mosquitoes in malaria transmission had been worked out by Ronald Ross. This book is the first translation of the two scientists' correspondence. It invites the reader to share in the excitement of a major scientific discovery, and it puts modern science in a broader historical perspective. Malaria Letters asks whether the world has let these two men down, failing to translate their findings into 'straightforward action.'