Mummy's Wrap

Ancient Egyptian Water-related Diseases part 2

Malaria

Yet another parasite related to water is the mosquito. Even in ancient Egypt, the mosquito was a pest that caused not only minor irritations, but also disease and death. Malaria is transmitted to humans and animals by the infected female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles (Halioua: 2005, 121), which delivers an agent, Plasmodium falciparum, that is responsible for the development of malaria within the victim (Halioua: 2005, 64). As was the case with schistosomiasis, the ancient physicians were unaware of the source of the symptoms they were treating (Nunn: 1996, 73). The symptoms include diarrhea, jaundice, fever and vomiting (“Malaria”: 2008). Several mummies from nearly each period in ancient Egyptian history sported the antigen common to Plasmodium falciparum, so one can hypothesize that these mummies were suffering from tertian fever, and were thus suffering from malaria at their deaths (Nunn: 1996, 73) (Halioua: 2005, 64).

Unfortunately, there are no references within the papyri of a treatment for malaria or the symptoms of malaria (Halioua: 2005, 121). Herodotus provides some insight to the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians in relation to the dangers of mosquitoes:

…the people have invented various methods of dealing with them [mosquitoes]; south of the marshes they sleep at night on raised structures, which is a great benefit to them because the mosquitoes are prevented by the wind from flying

high; in the marsh-country itself they do not have these towers, but everyone, instead, provides himself with a net, which during the day he uses for fishing, and at night fixes up round his bed, and creeps in under it before he goes to sleep (Halioua: 2005, 122-123).

One interesting theory surrounding malaria is associated with the Ten Plagues of Egypt. Mosquitoes were a plague that barely caused the Egyptians to react, the reason being that such swarms were probably very common in ancient Egypt (Halioua: 2005, 200). It is possible, however, that the plague of the death of “every first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast” (Exodus 13:15) was malaria or a similar disease. Many cases have been brought forth in respect to this particular plague and, while other candidates vie for the title of the tenth plague, none can be pinpointed as the actual plague due to lack of information from the Bible (Halioua: 2005, 203).

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This entry was posted by Page Strong on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 at 17:56 and is filed under Ancient Egypt, Everyday Life, Herbals, medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.