The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962
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At the outset of the twentieth century, malaria was Italy’s major public health problem. It was the cause of low productivity, poverty, and economic backwardness, while it also stunted literacy, limited political participation, and undermined the army. In this book Frank Snowden recounts how Italy became the world center for the development of malariology as a medical discipline and launched the first national campaign to eradicate the disease. Snowden traces the early advances, the setbacks of world wars and Fascist dictatorship, and the final victory against malaria after World War II. He shows how the medical and teaching professions helped educate people in their own self-defense and in the process expanded trade unionism, women’s consciousness, and civil liberties. He also discusses the antimalarial effort under Mussolini’s regime and reveals the shocking details of the German army’s intentional release of malaria among Italian civilians—the first and only known example of bioterror in twentieth-century Europe. Comprehensive and enlightening, this history offers important lessons for today’s global malaria emergency.
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Interesting, if relatively straightforward work on the history of malaria in Italy. Begins with debates over the origins of the disease, on the shortcomings of quinine as an all-in-one solution, the interconnection between the battle against malaria and social/gender/education history as well as the impact of war on fighting the disease. Chapter on fascism and malaria, with the holistic approach taken then. Follows with chapter on wartime biological warfare of Germans using malaria, and questions narrative of DDT as almost solely responsible for eliminating the disease in the early postwar. Ends with caution for current policy makers who attempt a single-solution approach (nets, for example) and emphasizes the success in history of an approach which combines social reforms with a range of other approaches.
