Although malaria has been proven to be preventable and treatable, it is still a leading cause of death among African children, at a rate of two children per minute. In Masterson's words, malaria is a social condition that depends on four aspects: the number of people infected, the volume of mosquitoes they bite, the extent to which those mosquitoes procreate, and the extent to which those mosquitoes prefer human blood. In 1939 and 1942, the United States and Germany launched their respective malaria projects to combat the microbes for war purposes. Both nations aimed to formulate a “magic bullet” that would eradicate malaria and prevent soldiers from succumbing to hot fevers. The campaign ushered in a broad battle that intertwined molecular malaria research, ethical questions regarding test subjects, and effective methods to improve public health. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay While chemists at Bayer were trying to create a magic wand to fight malaria, other scientists were trying to understand the mechanism behind malaria infections. They found that malaria species were unique to people and mosquitoes' own geographic regions. According to many biological historians, “trade, particularly the slave trade, allowed these microbes to spread throughout the world” (Masterson, 17). In 1880, Alphonse Laveran, a French army doctor who examined the fresh blood of infected but living soldiers, unknowingly captured the sexual stage of falciparum. Although he was unaware of the explanation at the time, Laveran observed gametocytes, which he noted as “large microbes the size of red blood cells,” which had swam up to the soldier's surface tissues to be ingested by mosquitoes. In 1897, W. G. MacCullum noted the fusion of parasites in the blood of a diseased crow in an egg sac (Masterson, 21, a first-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University, in his paper presented to the British Association for the Advance of Science). suggested that this may be the methodology by which malaria parasites reproduce after being consumed by mosquitoes Julius Wagner von Jauregg was a psychiatrist dedicated to using infectious diseases, particularly malaria, to treat various forms of mental illness. Surrounded by ethical questions, his numerous experiments allowed him to distinguish between P. falciparum and P. vivax. He recognized that falciparum was deadly and advocated the use of vivax for malaria therapy. He also instructed other doctors at the asylum to use infected blood, instead of infected mosquitoes, for the therapy. He explained that mosquitoes introduce sporozoites into the body, which could lead to relapse since P. vivax had a dormant liver stage and can reactivate after a period of time without any precursor symptoms (Masterson, 63). By using infected blood, however, syphilitics are only exposed to a one-time attack of fever. After myriad experiments in the form of basic scientific research, the puzzle of the life cycle of the malaria parasite was slowly being pieced together. As briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph, Jauregg was an ambitious psychiatrist who wanted to cure insanity. Although it was clear that he had the interests of syphilitics in mind, his strategy to cure them through the exploitation of infectious diseases was not in line with ethical guidelines. Jauregg believed that high fevers had the potential to cure dementia. After seeing the symptoms of a malaria infection, he decided to use his esteemed syphilitics as test subjects to explore.