Published in: Gerold Wefer, Wolfgang H. Berger,
Karl-Ernst Behre, Eynstein Jansen (ed.), Climatic Development and History of
the
O.S.Knottnerus
Uiterburen 47, 9636 EC, Zuidbroek, The
Phone: +31‑598‑452985
E‑mail: ottoknot@xs4all.nl
Abstract: Malaria may have been introduced
into the
The impacts of ecological changes are discussed,
as well as the effects of widespread malaria on popular health and local
culture. In spite of the high death-rates, popular concern with malaria fevers
diminished during the 17th and 18th centuries. This was due to a medical
fallacy according to which the chronic effects of malaria were diagnosed as
'land-scurvy'. The eradication of malaria in North-Western Europe had more to
do with agricultural changes, hydrological measures and rising standards of
living than with medical progress.
The rise and fall of malaria took place largely
independent of long-term climatic change. Apparently, mean summer temperatures
were only partially affected by general tendencies. Detailed analysis on a ten-year
level might show more pronounced climatic effects.
Local environment, epidemiology and climate
Malaria
as the 'great debilitator'
Introduction and expansion (500-1500)
Repercussions on coastal society
During
many centuries
Medieval
and early modern sources suggest that disease patterns in the coastal marshes
were rather different from the inland districts (Dobson 1997; Haeser 1875-82;
Hirsch 1883-86, vol 1). Inland, we find many indications of ergotism and
chorea, goitre, brucellosis, typhus, tuberculosis, relapsing fevers and
respiratory infections, particularly after crop failures. In coastal areas, on
the other hand, hunger crises hardly occurred, at least since the mid-16th
century, when coastal wealth warranted regular grain supplies from the Baltic.
Soaking terrains, damp atmospheres and chilling winds, however, reinforced many
diseases. Hence, arthritic complaints (gout), asthma and hay fever were common.
During hot summers intestinal infections could spread easily through canals and
ditches, through which drinking water reservoirs were contaminated. Low-lying
fields harboured fascioliasis, leptospirosis, tetanus and probably anthrax.
Intestinal worms were common. Abundant clothing and insufficient hygiene may
have reinforced cutaneous infections, including endemic syphilis and lepra.
Regular commercial contacts made coastal areas more vulnerable to pandemics,
such as influenza, smallpox, sweating disease and bubonic pest, as well as to sexually
transmitted diseases. Additionally many cases of alleged scurvy have been
reported, but this may be attributed to other causes, as we will see below.
Although death rates were dropping on the whole, malnutrition and poverty
related diseases, such as endemic syphilis, typhus and cholera, became more
common after 1750, due to increasing social tensions.
The
most important disease of the coastal marshes, however, must have been malaria.
Though nowadays associated with the (sub)tropics, indigenous malaria has been
present in Northwest Europe from the Early Middle Ages until the 1950s
(Bruce-Chwatt & De Zulueta 1980; Winkle 1997:707-81; Bruce-Chwatts in
Wernsdorfer & McGregor 1988:1-59; Schimitschek & Werner 1985:13-70;
Jantsch 1948; Maisch 1938). As its occurrence is largely dependent on mean
summer temperatures above
The
impact of climatic change on coastal epidemiology has not been determined yet.
We are inclined to think that the medieval climatic optimum fostered the spread
of malaria as well as intestinal infections. Moreover, rising sea levels
associated with higher temperatures must have boosted humidity and salt water
infiltration, thereby creating a more favourable habitat for both types of
diseases. On the other hand, the drop in temperatures during the 14th century
and more pronounced in 16th and 17th centuries should have intensified the
effects of diseases associated with coldness and humidity, whereas malaria and
intestinal infections should have been in retreat.
However,
the rise and fall of malaria took place largely independent of global climatic
fluctuations. This raises questions about the effectiveness of global models
for explaining regional climatic change.
The
coastal marshes of
For
many centuries, the main vector Anopheles
atroparvus has occupied the coastal areas in considerable numbers, as it
was unchecked by competing mosquito species which could not stand the regular
influx of seawater. Its larvae were able to grow up in stagnant pools and
ditches with a salinity of 500 to 2,500 mg/l. In experiments some individuals
are known to have endured a mixture containing almost a third seawater. In
inland areas, on the other hand, the malaria mosquito was pushed aside by A. messae, which prefers bovine blood,
as well as by other species which rarely feed on humans. Only in marshland
areas where cattle was scarce, A. messae
could become an important vector on its own. A. messae is able to transfer malaria at extremely low
temperatures, down to
Malaria
is caused by a parasite that incubates in the human liver, from where the
victim's blood is being infected. Female mosquitoes feeding on humans convey
the disease, as the ingested gametocytes develop into sporozoites, which are
injected into the next host again. The patient is struck by intermittent fever
attacks, which are regulated by the parasite's reproductive cycle. As soon as
the attack starts, the victim is suffering from a shivering cold, which led to
the popular expression that he or she has caught a 'cold'. Hence, intermittent
fever and 'cold fever' were synonymous. The attack proceeds with high
temperatures, lots of sweating and a deep sleep. Before the rise of modern
medicine, the disease was known to become latent after several weeks or months,
although the attacks often returned during the next spring or autumn, or even
after a pause of several years.
In
temperate zones 'benign' tertian fevers caused by Plasmodium vivax were most common. But particularly in areas where
malaria was rampant also quartan fevers induced by P. malariae occurred. The formers were identified by a two-day
reproductive cycle, the latter by a three-day cycle. As a consequence, they
were often referred to as two-day or three-day fever. These shifting
terminologies are to blame for much confusion regarding the interpretation of
historical sources. In addition, quotidian regular fever attacks could be
observed, which used to be considered as a separate disease. Not before the
second half of the nineteenth century was it recognised that quotidian fevers
resulted from multiple infections in the patient's body.
P. vivax
spreads far more easily than P. malariae.
The latter is a rather ineffective agent, as it produces fewer gametocytes that
might infect mosquitoes. Only when vector incidence is high and mean summer
temperatures are above
Apparently,
tropical or 'malignant tertian malaria' with its oscillating fever attacks
rarely occurred in
Compared
to tropical malaria, the effects of tertian or quartan fevers seemed to be
insignificant. Hardly ever did people perish as the direct consequence of an
uncomplicated intermittent fever. Often people felt that the recurrent fever
attacks were, though inconvenient, rather harmless. In the case of young
children and pregnant women, who were most severely afflicted, the virulent
manifestations of the disease were recklessly put down to other causes. In 1889
the medical doctor Wilhelm Olbers Focke from
On
this point, contemporaries must have been wrong: intermittent fevers were only
a transitory phase during the course of the malaria infection. Much more
dangerous were the chronic consequences, such as headaches, painful limbs,
anaemia, hydrops, damage on spleen, liver and kidneys (in case of quartan
malaria), and general exhaustion or cachexia. Chronic anaemia is known to cause
many other disorders, from miscarriages to osteoporosis and porotic
hyperostosis. Moreover, in the long run relatively mild quartan infections
could do much damage as tertian ones, because they were rather long-lived.
Malaria
acted, as Mary Dobson states, "as a great debilitator. It was a disease
which the people of the marshes permanently had to live with until they
succumbed to its frequent attacks or died of secondary causes". Dobson was
able to prove from demographic records that 16th and 17th century death rate in
the
It
was not only due to unfavourable ecological conditions that former marshland
dwellers led an ailing life. Though the mosquito can be blamed for passing
malaria from one individual to the next, humans sustain the disease. As soon as
substantial parts of the human population are infected, the chance that
mosquitoes transmit the disease increases greatly. On the other hand, malaria
will gradually disappear as soon as the infection is contained to a few cases.
In areas where a particular strain of malaria is endemic, almost everybody is
infected. The local population will develop a certain immunity, which, however,
can only been acquired through a brutal selection process which kills many
children under five years old. Moreover, the immunity acquired is specific only
for a distinctive strain. Any one who has endured a tertian infection, can
always catch another quartan or tropical infection. Foreign immigrants,
seasonal workers and travellers who lack immunity will be heavily affected too.
Whenever tropical malaria is endemic, the selection process can be so
effective, that immunity is genetically passed down to the next generation.
Our
literature suggests that until the 19th century the
Though
they are normally associated with tropical malaria (De Zulueta in Bynum &
Fantini 1994:9-10), it may be possible that some genetically based patterns of
immunity, well known to the Mediterranean, were extant in
Three
types of evidence can establish that it was primarily malaria that caused the
raging fevers and enhanced death rates of the coastal marshes. Firstly, the
manifest symptoms of the disease, such as intermittent fevers, anaemia and
splenomegaly, which has been described as 'ague cake', 'side-stitch' or
'tightening of the heart'. Secondly, the geography of the disease, which shows
that enhanced death rates were largely restricted to the brackish coastal zones
in which A. atroparvus mosquitoes
were indigenous. Thirdly, the seasonal pattern of disease, since it escalated
in dry and warm summers when salt water infiltration intensified and when
mosquitoes as well as plasmodiae could multiply more rapidly because of the
high temperatures at hand. At
Once
malaria had exhausted the patient, other diseases often made an end to his or
her life. Epidemics of (para)typhoid, dysentery, viral hepatitis A and
leptospirosis raging during hot summers, as well as common cold virus,
influenza, pneumonia and typhus during wintertime, completed the destructive
work which malaria had started. Measles and smallpox killed many children too.
Intestinal diseases were fostered by the unfavourable drinking-water conditions
in the coastal marshes, whereas leptospirosis could easily be caught during
hard labour in the soggy fields. The effects of the frequent bubonic plague
epidemics that have harassed
Indeed,
contemporary aetiologies were hardly fit to discriminate between the
pestiferous 'hot fevers' observed and the seemingly 'cold fevers' of malaria.
Intermittent, remittent, bilious, catarrhic and putrid fevers were easily
combined into a general notion of miasmic disease. Moreover, Galenian medical
doctrine tended to classify tertian malaria as a bilious fever, thereby
reckoning it among the intestinal diseases. Quartan fevers, on the other hand,
were categorised as a chronic disease caused by obstipation of the spleen, due
to unhealthy food and lack of exercise (Swellengrebel and Honig 1925-28).
The
history of malaria is intrinsically connected with the occupational history of
the area concerned. Just as clearing the African jungle preceded the spreading
of tropical malaria, so the occupation of the coastal marshes in the later
Bronze and early Iron Age paved the way for the spreading of temperate malaria
strains. In both cases a mosquito species occupied a recently created niche in
the human habitat. A. atroparvus was
only able to survive in the unfavourable coastal environment because of the
hibernation chances it found in byres, pig-sties and human living quarters.
Artificial ponds, natural pools and stagnant river branches provided the
necessary sites for breeding.
Probably
malaria was already present in
To
what extent A. atroparvus populations
were susceptible to different strains of malaria remains unknown. It seems,
however, that the advance of tropical malaria into the western
It
is an open question when malaria became endemic in the
Once
a new strain of malaria had arrived, it could also accommodate to inland
mosquito species. At the same time, other strains may have spread northward
through the river valleys, swamps and flood plains of Central Europe, where summer
temperatures were high enough to sustain the disease. Though the mosquito might
be a poor vector, quartan infections could hold out for many years. In either
case A. messae, which had been a
minor vector in the Mediterranean for long, must be held responsible for its
further expansion.
By
the 8th century, Britain's coastal plains had a bad reputation altogether.
Literary sources such the Vitae of Saint Cuthbert and Saint Guthlac claim that
the "fens and marshes were haunted by the evil seed of Cain" (Newton
1993:143). The distinguished medievalist Hilda Ellis-Davidson actually assumes
that "the monster Grendel in the poem Beowulf symbolised the dangerous
climate of the fens, bringing plague to the king's hall" (1964:18). During
the last years of Cuthbert's life (he died 687) the Lincolnshire marshes were
depopulated by an unidentified epidemic. The abbess Hilda of Whitby died in 680
after six years of fever. An 8th-century translator identified her disease as
'lenctenadl' (spring ailment); therefore we might be sure that spring relapses
from tertian fever were known by then. Hence, the year 673 must be seen as a
minimum date for the arrival of P. vivax
in the North Sea basin (MacArthur 1951).
Anglo-Saxon
medical prescription books largely confirm that malaria was a main cause of
disease. Bald's Leachbook (9th century) is very specific about the symptoms of
malaria. Here the distinction is made between tertian fever, quartan fever and
the frequent relapses in spring mentioned before. But even more attention is
being paid to the chronic consequences of malaria, such as splenomegaly,
side-stitches and severe anaemia, described as 'the halfdead disease'. Other
medical books report about the cold fevers ('þa colan feforas') and the
shiverings ('þe riþaþ'), which accompanied the attack. Apparently, possession
by evil spirits or 'dweorgs' (little people) was to be blamed for it (Cameron
1993). Subsequent Anglo-Norman sources describe the 'febris frigidas' or
'freide fevre'. The modern word 'ague' came into use in the 13th century.
According to the malariologist Bruce-Chwatt, it has been derived from the
French 'fièvre aigue' or Latin 'febris acuta', referring originally "to
any acute febrile disease, and especially to a fever accompanied by a shaking
or shivering fit" (1976:168).
On
the Continent sources begin to flow rather late. Nevertheless, the 9th-century
Old High German expression 'ritto, rito' (Middle Dutch 'ridde, rijde', Old
Norse 'riða, riðusótt') closely parallels the Anglo-Saxon terminology, whereas
it seems to indicate that the shivering patient is being ridden by a demon.
Interestingly enough, a late medieval saint's legend from Scandinavia
identifies tertian fevers as possession by a demonic snake ('vindormr').
Individual cases of possible malaria have been noted more than once. The
founder of the archdiocese of Bremen, Saint Willehad, died of a severe fever in
789, while he was visiting the coastal marshes. According to the chronicler
Saxo Grammaticus king Sven Estridsøn of Denmark passed away in Southern
Jutland, probably autumn 1076, when his heart felt tightened during a
pestiferous fever attack. An early report about a possible malaria epidemic
dates from 988, when diseases were rampant in the Southern Netherlands during a
warm summer after widespread inundations. The Weser and Elbe riverbanks are
said to have been hit by a severe 'pestilence' after a storm surge in 1020
(Meineke & Schier 1995; Knottnerus 1999:32; Buisman 1995-98).
Though
the coastal inhabitants had created a niche in the wetlands protecting them
against human predators, their defence against natural enemies was largely
insufficient. From the 11th century onward they even became more vulnerable, as
they began to throw up embankments against the sea, thereby creating a brackish
habitat that generated additional risks. Storm surges were to become more
destructive, whereas the fields were imbued with slugs, mice, leather-jackets (Tipula paludosa), fluke-eggs, mosses and
horsetail (Equisetum arvense). Furthermore
the canals and ditches, being isolated from the sea, supplied new
breeding-places to all kinds of insects, including malaria mosquitoes.
The
inhabitants of the coastal marshes must have acquired a certain degree of
immunity against malaria by then. Apparently, the Frisian warriors who -
according to the sagas - captured Rome at about 1085 were able to endure the
raging fevers that had wrecked earlier attempts. On the other hand, the
crusaders and pilgrims coming back from Rome and Jerusalem must have brought
many novel infections with them (Knottnerus 1999:32; Maisch 1938:53-54; Martens
& Hall 2000). A genuine epidemic of quartan fever is reported by the
chronicle of the abbey of Gembloux, south of Brussels, during the hot summer of
1136 or 1137. The city of Cologne was struck by a quartan epidemic in 1192
(Lersch 1896:84, 91; Keil 1993). A Danish cleric, who suffered from a quartan
fever, is said to have caught it while studying in Paris about 1175. Indeed, it
seems that P. malariae had become endemic
along the moist and relatively warm riverbanks of Rhine, Danube and Rhone, from
where it spread northward. A hundred years later the presence of quartan fevers
or 'shivering disease' is attested as far north as Linköping in Sweden. Only
Iceland kept free from malaria (Meineke & Schier 1995; Møller-Christensen
1959).
Reports
about malaria abound in the Later Middle Ages. In 15th-century East Anglia the
coastal parishes suffered high losses during warm summers. The famous chronicle
of the abbey of Wittewierum (near Groningen) recounts an outbreak of various
fevers during the warm summer of 1237, when the abbey's founder died of a
quartan fever. The infirmaries had been overcrowded and all over Friesland
hardly enough people had been left to nurse the sufferers (Gottfried
1978:129-36; Fraatz 1929:37-39). At the grave of the Frisian abbot Siardus of
Mariengaarde (d. 1230) many sufferers of tertian fever were said to have been
healed. According to a recent survey article, malaria may have had stronger
restrictive effects on medieval population growth than the plague (Keil 1993).
Contemporary
medical compendiums, such as Saint Hildegard of Bingen's Causae et curae,
written in the 1150s, were quite familiar with tertian, quartan and quotidian
fevers. The Danish physician Henrik Harpestræng (d. 1244?) was acquainted with
25 remedies against different fevers, most of them tertian, quartan or
quotidian ones, characterised as shiverings ('rithæ') or chilling sickness
('kaldæ sot') (Meineke & Schier 1995; Møller-Christensen 1959). In Bremen
the patrician Arnoldus Doneldey differentiated in 1382 between cold fevers and
burning fevers, the latter being identified as the newly arrived bubonic
plague. Apparently, the doctors from whom he copied his recipes were very experienced
in treating malaria. They knew duplicated malaria infections and spring
relapses, which were considered not nearly so lethal as autumnal infections,
and they described the rare blackwater fever (haemoglobinuria): a lethal
complication among patients suffering from G6PD deficiency or severe tropical
malaria, expressing itself in bloody urine (cited in Knottnerus 1999:32).
Although
it is possible that these recipes merely reflected the lessons of Salernian
medicine, it is more likely that its authors had learned about malaria from
their own experience (Cameron 1993:54-55). Indeed, malaria has been so common
in the 14th century that a Hamburg Bible translator automatically imagined
Christ not to expel an ordinary fever, but a cold fever ('dat kalde') from a
patient (cited in Knottnerus 1999:33, after Luke 4:38).
Still,
the high-days of malaria were in the Early Modern Age (Reiter 2000; Wernsdorfer
& McGregor 1988:943). Although the general drop in temperatures should have
reduced disease frequencies, increasing human efforts to exploit the coastal
niche had an adverse effect on living conditions. Intensified traffic increased
the risks of contagion, whereas hydraulic innovations fostered waterways and
ditches to salt up. Newly built floodgates, harbours and canals, meant to
facilitate shipping-transport, enabled seawater to seep in more easily.
Moreover, during summertime floodgates were often deliberately opened as to
prevent river-crafts from running aground, while allowing rushing in seawater
to drive up fresh waters into the scorched pastures.
Since
the 14th century circumstances were deteriorating all over because of the
salting up of bays, creeks and rivers, such as the Zuyder Sea, the Dollard and
Jade estuaries, which affected the water qualities on the land side of the
dikes. Although the existing dikes were strengthened and large tracts of
salt-marsh were reclaimed from the sea, new embankments provided the mosquitoes
with an even more favourable habitat. In addition, the artificial reclamation
of vast lakes fostered the percolation of brackish ground-water from underlying
salt-water domes. Frequent storm surges and wartime inundations had a
detrimental effect on water qualities too.
Hence,
mosquito populations must have been increasing, thereby boosting the risk of
malaria. Acid waters leaking from the inland bogs might have curtailed the
mosquito scourge, but for agricultural reasons these waters were kept at bay
and - whenever possible - conveyed to the sea as soon as possible.
Additionally, the relocation of settlements from the artificial mounds to the
embanked polderlands must have intensified health risks too. Only the silting
up of inland river-beds due to excessive grazing and forest clearance had an
opposite effect, since the salt water border was driven back seaward. Already
at the closure of the 18th century death rates on the Lower Weser river banks
barely outstripped the inland figures (Hinrichs & al. 1988:21-22).
This
is not the appropriate place for exhibiting a catalogue of malaria reports.
Nevertheless, we may conclude that they were extant in almost every coastal
district (De Baets 1998; Priester 1998:37, 60-66; Dobson in Bynum & Fantini
1994:35-60; Norden 1984:85-95; Brouwer 1983; Schuberg 1927; Lemaire 1922; Wesenberg-Lund
1920-21; Schouten 1920; Trautman 1913; Nuttall & al. 1901; Focke 1889;
Haeser 1875-82; Hirsch 1883-86). Everywhere we find abundant remarks in parish
registers, regional monographs and medical reports, which might prove our
point. Topical expressions, such as Fenland ague, Polder fever, Northern
'stier', Zealand fever, Dutch pip, Holstein marsh sickness or Eiderstedt
stubble fever have terrified medical practitioners for centuries. Strangers
were scared off, whereas newcomers had to fear for their lives.
Moreover,
a 3-
Notwithstanding,
the coastal districts stood at the heart of every major malaria epidemic.
According to an 18th-century physician from Friesland "the autumnal
bilious fevers are our main national disease". Although few patients died,
many fell seriously ill. One of his colleagues stated that the disease was so
well-known that it needed no further description. A medical survey concluded in
1824 that probably no country in Europe, except for Italy, had been so badly
afflicted by malicious intermittent fevers as Holland (Seventer 1969:9).
Similar reports can be cited from almost every corner of the North Sea,
particularly from low-lying islands and peninsulas that were surrounded by the
sea. Regional monographs abounded in the 19th century until there was hardly a
region, which did not have its own malaria literature. The reports were then
collected and incorporated into medical surveys, whereupon they have been
largely forgotten.
The
significance of malaria for the social history of the North Sea coastal marshes
can be summarized into four statements:
Firstly,
the geography of malaria is delineated by enhanced mortality rates. Hence, its
spatial distribution can be largely determined with the help of mortality
statistics. Unfortunately, only scattered figures have been published. As a reasoned
guess, we would expect coastal death rates in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries
to have amounted to at least 30 to 50 per 1,000 as against 20 to 30 per 1,000
for inland districts (table 1). Hence,
every fourth or fifth death was indirectly caused by malaria or related
diseases. To demarcate the importance of malaria as against other typical
wetland diseases, subsequent data on the extent of salination are required.
Incidentally, however, endemic malaria may have been conveyed to fresh water
areas as well. Especially heathland villages bordering on the saltmarsh could
become infected by mosquitoes bred in neighbouring low-lying ponds.
For
the second half of the 18th century enhanced mortality rates have been reported
in a wide range of coastal districts from Furnes to Ribe and beyond (Knottnerus
1999:35). The excessive mortality was sufficient for restricting natural
population growth, therefore causing several marsh regions to become dependent
on immigration. Moreover, the step-by-step concentration of landholding into
the hands of large farmers which can be observed in many marsh districts, was
furthered by the enhanced mortality rates.
Secondly,
the chronology of malaria may coincide with storm surges, high summer
temperatures and summer drought. Therefore, data on epidemics and death rates
must be connected with climatic observations. We may assume that most epidemic
outbreaks after storm surges or during prolonged periods of drought and heath
can be largely explained by malaria. Preliminary findings suggest that this is
indeed the case. Moreover, there are many indications that epidemics in
different coastal districts took a synchronous course. Hence, it seems
justifiable to interpolate our scattered data into prolonged series for the
entire southern North Sea coast, and maybe for the British marshlands as well
(Dobson 1987; Fraatz 1929; Hanssen 1925; Lersch 1896; Creighton 1891-94).
Thirdly,
the social topography of malaria implies that its impact on the poor was more
pronounced than on the well-to-do. Malaria is known to be transmitted more
effectively when people are insufficiently dressed, sheltered and nourished.
Not only were members of poor families more frequently exposed to mosquito
bites, also their general health condition made them more susceptible to the
infection. Once fallen ill, their chances of recovery were lower because they
could not afford medical treatment. Moreover, they were not able to compensate
for the loss of income and working-day's. There have even been sporadic reports
of poor people who tried to avoid the risk by tarring their legs before working
into the submersed fields. But such preventive measures seem to have been quite
exceptional, at least in the 18th and 19th centuries when most adult males
owned boots and shoes.
Extremely
susceptible to malaria were the tens of thousands of seasonal workers from
inland districts who did much of the mowing, digging and reaping in the coastal
marshes. Though they did not have the immunity of the indigenous population,
they often slept in outdoor shelters or tents, drinking infected ditch-water
and eating rancid bacon. Eighteenth-century estimations claim that a quarter to
a third of them had caught an intermittent fever before returning to their
villages. In several Westphalian districts special sick-transports have been
organized to take them home (Knottnerus 1999:36).
Fourthly,
the cultural reflection upon malaria risks led to various preventive measures and
curative remedies. But these did not always reduce actual exposure. In Britain
as well as on the Continent most people were convinced that living near the
sea-shore was hazardous. In accordance with current medical doctrine the
medieval fear of the sea was transposed into a novel concern for miasmatic
emanations. Early-modern man did not know about the role played by mosquitoes
in transmitting malaria. Instead he believed that his disorders were caused by
the hazes ascending from salt-marshes, swamps and ditches. Particularly in
Germany and Denmark people thought they were better off in their heated
parlors. It is questionable whether such a preventive strategy was effective at
all. Mosquitoes may actually have preferred the stuffy living quarters, whereas
they were scared off by the open fire places which were common in Holland and
Britain (Knottnerus 1997:163-64).
Some
traditional remedies may have been quite effective. Tobacco smoke for instance
must have acted as a powerful mosquito repellent. In the coastal districts
smoking a pipe was quite fashionable in the 17th and 18th century, not only
among men, rich as well as poor, but also among married women (Knottnerus
1997:155). Several traditional drugs had antiseptic properties, such as
pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), already
mentioned in Anglo-Saxon sources. Others might serve as a mosquito repellant
(yarrow, achillea millefolium), they
may have prevented renal failure (bogbean or 'fever herb', Menyanthes trifoliata) or they actually helped against diarrhea
(creeping cinquefoil, Potentilla reptans).
The painter Albrecht Dürer, who catched a malaria fever in Zealand in the
1520s, took swallowwort (Chelidoneum
majus) as a medicine. Distinct members of the Artemisia family, particularly wormwood (A. absinthum) and sea wormwood (A.
maritima), have been used against malaria too. Possibly, they contain small
doses of artemissinin as their Chinese counterpart A. annua does. Sea wormwood is proven to be effective against liver
damage (Dobson 1998; Tunón 1995; Janbaz & Gilani 1995; Cameron 1993:117-29;
Winkle 1997:755, 1292).
Nonetheless,
many remedies reverted to magic. Magical spells were common, as were the holy
trees on which a fever could be tied. Some of these trees held out until the
20th century. Specific kill or cure remedies and bitter-tasting medicines were
preferred because of their supposed capacities to expel evil. Expressions such
as Flemish 'Noordsche stier' (Northern tribute), Frisian 'tjinst' (bond,
bondage) and North Frisian 'thwung' (coercion) suggest that malaria fevers have
been associated with possession by evil spirits until fairly recently.
Obviously, people identified the haze as the agent of disease. Originally these
expressions may have meant that the patient was paying tribute to the evil powers
from the Northern seas (Knottnerus 1997:148, 155, 170; De Baets 1998).
Most
of the remedies concerned were favoured because of their supposed ability to
drive out the chills associated with malaria fevers. Liquor and wine were
consumed in large quantities. Tropical products, such as tobacco, coffee and
tea, were said to prevent illness. In the 19th-century Fenlands opium was used
to comfort ailing children (Dobson 1980:370). Another drug which was said to
avert fever was the sweet-flag (Acorus
calamus), often used in liquor or a kind of tea. After being imported from
Turkey in the sixteenth century, its proliferation in the coastal marshes may
have been encouraged by medical beliefs. Purgatives were popular as well: in
Holland the well-known Haarlemmer Oil, a forceful mixture of linseed-oil and
turpentine, was considered as one of the most effective remedies against
intermittent fevers and diarrhea (Knottnerus 1999:37).
Medical
progress did not always lead to appropriate answers. Though Peruvian bark or
Cinchona has been widely used in coastal medicine since the end of the 17th
century, the medical profession had many reservations. The drug was introduced
by Spanish Jesuits in the 1639 and became known in Britain, Belgium and Holland
in the 1650s. Soon afterwards medical practitioners began to prescribe it
against all kinds of intermittent fevers (Dobson 1998; Wernsdorfer &
McGregor 1988:16-19). In 18th-century Holland Cinchona was processed into
several popular theriaca and sold in local shops as a panacea. Medical science,
however, especially in Germany, turned away from Cinchona, as the usual doses
were often too small to be effective, whereas many other diseases falsely
diagnosed as malaria did not respond at all. Moreover, its bitter taste and its
supposedly hot properties did not fit into the Galenian system. As an official
drug, it only made a comeback after the 1820s, as the cheaper and more
concentrated derivative quinine became available in drugstores and grocery
shops. Since the 1860s many households kept their own stocks of quinine
(Swellengrebel and De Buck 1938:11, 26-27; Schouten 1920:12; Roth 1906:60, 80;
Focke 1889:12-13, 19).
Indeed,
it is striking to see how medical science slowly went astray, as it was
searching for more adequate solutions. Since mid-17th century many physicians
began to downplay the risk of intermittent fevers. Instead, they became more
concerned with a novel disease called 'land scurvy'. In spite of its name, land
scurvy had hardly anything to do with the vitamin deficiencies among urban
populations, which had been observed in the 16th century. Rather its symptoms,
such as anaemia, hydrops and splenomegaly, largely coincided with the
protracted effects of malaria. Case histories often began with a complicated
quartan fever which triggered many other complaints not necessarily connected
with malaria. As R. Elwyn Hughes rightly observed, "scurvy or 'the
scorbute' suddenly became a convenient nosological safety net for the not
inconsiderable diagnostic failures of the period" (Hughes 1990:57;
Knottnerus 1997:157-59).
Thus,
land scurvy came to be seen as the archetypical scourge of all coastal
districts. It was said to be endemic in Britain, Holland and Northern Germany
as well as in Scandinavia. According to Thomas Bartholinus' De medicina Danorum domestica (1666),
scurvy and fever were the only two diseases which mattered in Denmark. Scurvy
was above all a moral condition: its sufferers were not treated as victims but
as individuals who had exposed themselves to the disease. The inhabitants of
the prosperous coastal districts were said to be inflicted because of their
immodest life-style. Moreover, nobody was entirely free from the affliction. In
fact, the theory of scurvy was closely bound up with religious revival
movements which gained ground in Britain and Holland. German physicians, on the
other hand, argued that scurvy was an epidemic disease which affected any
foreigner visiting the coastal districts. They suspected the Dutch had
introduced it from abroad (Knottnerus 1997:164). Both views reflected the
actual situation, in which the coastal population was accustomed to malaria,
whereas newcomers fell ill.
The
retreat of malaria has not yet been sufficiently explained. During the 18th
century mortality rates in some regions were falling rapidly, whereas in others
they remained largely the same. Particularly in Southeast England and the
western districts bordering the Wadden Sea (Friesland, Groningen and East
Friesland) population growth started early. But in Holland, Zealand and many
German districts figures remained stagnant until the 19th century, whereas
mortality rates were high up to the 1850s (Dobson 1998:81-159; Knottnerus
1997:38; Norden 1984). Moreover, in the German Lower Rhineland as well as in the
Baltic unprecedented outbreaks of malaria took place during the first half of
19th century (Jaenson & al. 1986; Anderson 1980; Kortenhaus 1928;
Wesenberg-Lund 1920-21:172). In general, tertian fevers got a more epidemic
character instead of remaining endemic, whereas quartan fevers tended to become
rare. As malaria outbreaks became more uncommon, seasonal peaks shifted from
late summer to early spring (Swellengrebel and De Buck 1938; Seventer 1969).
There
are at least five possible explanations for the retreat of malaria (Seventer
1969; Schuberg 1927:361-72; Focke 1889:17-25).
1.
Medical progress: the massive use of Cinchona in Britain and the Netherlands
may have mitigated disease transmission allready in the 18th century. The
subsequent introduction of quinine in the 1820s then made a further reduction
possible.
2.
Agricultural innovations: The introduction of the potato and the subsequent
expansion of pig-breeding by cotters and agricultural labourers during the
second half of the 18th century had a health-improving effect. Potato-growing
not only improved general health by providing a nutritious diet to humans and
their livestock. The supplement of vitamin C may also have been important to
reduce the effects of anaemia (Green and Danubio 1997:223-24; Cameron
1993:17-18, 182). Moreover, pig-breeding has diminished the risk of mosquito
bites, as A. atroparvus prefers to
feed on pigs (Jetten & Takken 1994:49-50). The 19th-century shift from
traditional hairy swines to naked Chinese pigs must have reduced mosquito risks
even more. Finally, the 20th-century introduction of modern byres and pig-sties
led to a spectacular fall in mosquito populations.
3.
Improved water management: Reduced water-levels and the replacement of
field-drains by draining-pipes have reduced the number of breeding-places for
mosquitoes (Schouten 1920:49). The introduction of Americal river-weed (Elodea canadensis) since the 1870s, the
eutrofication of surface water and the subsequent spread of duck-weed (Lemna gibba) may have had a supplementary
effect (Seventer 1969:40; Focke 1889:23-24). Heightened dikes, larger canals
and more effective sluices have reduced salt-water leakage and inundation
risks, thereby destroying the natural habitat of A. atroparvus. The introduction of DTT has reduced the remaining
populations even more.
4.
Rising standards of living: The living conditions for cotters and farmhands
have gradually improved during the 19th and 20th centuries: better and dryer
housing, adequate clothing and sufficient fuel. These may have reduced the
effectiveness of existing mosquito vectors. Traditional farm-buildings in which
human living quarters, byres and pig-sties were found together under the same
roof, have largely disappeared.
5.
Parasitical evolution: Possible genetic variations in the virility of existing
malaria-strains might have reduced malaria risks. Nowadays, even in heavily
afflicted Indian communities, P. vivax
is not a lethal disease. It may be, however, that its effects would be more
detrimental, if had it not been accompanied by P. falciparum (cf. Wernsdorfer & McGregor 1988:715).
We
are inclined to the conclusion that the combined agricultural and hydrological
innovations were decisive. In many districts where drainage efforts were
delayed malaria was active for much longer. The Western provinces of the
Netherlands, for instance, had higher death-rates than the North until the
1870s. The same holds true for Germany, where hydrological measures and housing
improvements had to wait much longer. But other factors should not be ruled
out, as they helped to change the balance between humans and mosquitoes to the
latter's disadvantage. Apparently, all the causes combined have pushed the risk
of contagion below a certain threshold, under which the disease could not be
transmitted successfully. The existing degree of communal immunity may have
acted as a supplementary warrant against reintroduction of the disease (Dobson
1980:385).
Is
long-term climatic change relevant for explaining the history of malaria in
Western Europe? As we have indicated, on the long range human interventions may
have been more important than temperature fluctuations. Moreover, malaria
incidence is largely dependent on summer temperatures. To a substantial extent
the impact of global temperature fluctuations on Western European summer
temperatures is muted by the shifting balance between continental and maritime
climates (cf. Buisman 1995-98, vol 3:738). Regional differences in mean summer
temperatures, ranging from
Indeed,
the rise and fall of tertian malaria in Western Europe does not seem to
correspond with temperature changes. Only the arrival of quartan malaria may
have coincided with the medieval climatic optimum. Nevertheless, we might get
another picture if we concentrate on 25-year periods or even decades. Here the
peaks of malaria incidence seem to coincide with periods of high summer
temperatures. Critical periods, such as the 1550s, the 1720s and the 1820s all
have been characterized by warm summers, even when the winters were cold.
Finally, we must consider the frequency of warmer summers: as soon as
intermediate periods lasted long enough (at least four years), the chain of transmission
could be interrupted. As a consequence, the next outbreak of tertian malaria
might become epidemic. This mechanism may have been responsible for the
epidemics of the 1820s.
Will
malaria return in Western Europe as a result of rising temperatures? Most
epidemiologists agree that this is highly improbable. Even if A. atroparvus populations will expand
spectacularly, due to global warming and rising sea levels, the accessibility
of medical services in 21th-century society are such, that infections will not
remain unnoticed for long (Reiter 2000; Jetten & Takken 1994:55-58).
This
paper has also been presented at the Third European Social Science History
Conference, Amsterdam, April 12-15, 2000. I am thankful to Wiet Koren for his
comments.
Sources: Norden 1984; Hinrichs et al. 1988; Lorenzen-Schmidt 1987.
|
Years |
Pastoral sea marsh (Butjadingen) (n) = number of parishes |
Arable sea marsh (Marne, Dithmarschen) |
Heathlands (Bockhorn, Oldenburg) |
|
1648-1652 |
42 (2) |
- |
- |
|
1660-1664 |
34 (3) |
- |
- |
|
1673-1677 |
55 (4) |
35-45 |
- |
|
1700-1704 |
48 (6) |
30-40 |
21 |
|
1726-1730 |
101 (1) |
40-45 |
- |
|
1767-1771 |
44 (9) |
42 |
22 |
|
1791-1795 |
45 (9) |
36 |
22 |
|
1814-1818 |
21 (7) |
20-25 |
25 |
|
1826-1830 |
51 (9) |
40 |
32 |
|
1835-1839 |
30 (9) |
21 |
29 |
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