Today scientists know malaria as one of the oldest diseases in the world, making plasmodium one of the most significant organisms in the world. Its symptoms were first describe by the ancient Chinese, and not long after the ancient Greeks recognized the disease as well. In fact, the ancient Chinese even prescribed a herb for treating it symptoms, so effective that it continues to be used today as an antimalarial drug. Soon after, the Spanish discovered that a bark of a tree, today called quinine, was also an effective remedy, and to this day continues to be an extremely potent antimalarial drug.
Although the symptoms of malaria were known, it was not known until 1880 what caused it. A French doctor, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran noticed parasites in a blood smear of a patient who had just died of malaria. For this discovery, Laveran was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Similarly, Italian scientist Camillo Golgi, famous for discovering the Golgi apparatus, studied the cycles of plasmodium in 1886 and deduced that since there were different cycles, there must have been different species of plasmodium, namely Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae. Golgi was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Medicine, for his works with Plasmodium and other biology related discoveries.
Malaria continued to ravage nations and people throughout the 20th century. Although malaria has been effectively eradicated from the developed world, poor countries have not had great strides in removing it from society. There is hope however. New medication is constantly coming out to counter the constantly adapting plasmodium. We also have the means to study the DNA makeup of plasmodium today, allowing us to see exactly why plasmodium infects people, and may play a key role in eradicating it from society.
Only time will tell of what happens to malaria and plasmodium. Maybe someday in the near future they will both disappear.
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