Philomathia: malaria and my third world disease story

I'm reading a book about malaria and it's pretty interesting. I like this micro-history trend. The pathogen is eukaryotic and started out probably as a protozoan floating in an African pond and at some point decided to hitch a ride on mosquito larvae, Anopheles in particular as only their physiology seems to support it and then only about 60 something out of the over 200 species of Anopheles. My rating of the book is going to be influenced by how well these questions are answered:

• When was prophylaxis developed and how does it work? Update: chapter 5
• How did the Carolinas become habitable? Apparently, and not surprisingly, they were hotbeds of malaria in colonial days to the point where Germans said it was impossible to live there but it seems certainly by civil war times they had lots of residents.
• Is she going to talk about the new work on malaria vaccines? Update: Yes, chapter 7.
• I'd like to know why the Scottish colony on Panama got its ass whipped but the Spaniards had enough mojo left to attack it. I know that one won't be answered as she has already told the story. But, the Spanish were sick too. Is it shear numbers? Update: resolved in the chapter on quinine. The Spanish tried to keep that native remedy quiet.
• Geographical imprecision makes me fucking insane. You can't introduce a story about the British in West Africa and not even mention the country. There are lots of countries formerly colonized by lots of greedy Europeans in West Africa. The one she is talking about, I believe, is Sierra Leone since she mentions Freetown. On an unrelated note, of course a site about the former British Empire would have a .uk URL.

When I went to Syria, I opted to take an anti-malarial even though it's not an issue in Damascus but it is up near Aleppo. I might have wanted to go to Aleppo (and I had the chance and didn't and that was regrettable.) But more to the point, I did NOT want to get sick over there. I think I took Chloroquine-yep, I just looked it up and those bright pinkish purple pills look familiar. I had to take it once a week for every week I was there or something like that. It was especially cool to take it as I remembered it being a plot point in a MASH episode.

I also took an oral vaccine for typhoid (I always get this mixed up with typhus--typhoid is the one that is a type of Salmonella.) And the Hepatitis A vaccine. And, I got sick anyways with some kind of diarrhea from Hell which I had for at least half my time in country. Know what it's like to shit your pants in 110 degree heat miles from a flush toilet? I do! My poor roommate though had amoebic dysentery, although we didn't know that till we got back home and she went to her doctor. Apparently you keep that variety forever, like fruitcake. I had to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night where she was misdiagnosed as having an upset stomach and told to eat boiled potatoes (she could barely walk because the cramps were so bad so I was skeptical at the time. What was cool though is our Yemeni housemate insisted on coming with us and hailed a cabdriver he knew to take us to the hospital.)

Anyways, I got sick but I didn't get Hep A or Typhoid. Now, what struck me as curious (if not brain damaged) is there was a woman in our group who wasn't from OSU but was studying Arabic on her own from Texas. She was some kind of religious whatever. Nice lady though. Her independent study really showed when she spoke Arabic. Know what Arabic with a thick Texas accent sounds like? I do! We were discussing our medical preparations for the trip one day and she said she went to some kind of naturopath (alarm bells going off yet?) who advised her NOT to get the Hepatitis A vaccine because there were problems with it. I was sick and hot and sleep deprived and covered with dust most of the time which made me much less likely to hold my tongue so I said, "Really? Cause I have a problem getting fucking Hepatitis in a third world country." As far as I know, she didn't get sick. Although she did suffer some kind of bedbug or flea attack at the house she was staying at.

My poor roommate had such a germ fetish before we went to Syria. She wouldn't eat off of her plate if you grabbed food off of it (not that I did that personally but our male classmates would do it just to see her reaction.) When she found out she had dysentery, she called me and informed me she had "ate poop." And, yeah she kinda did. But I probably did too.