Although malaria has been proven to be both preventable and curable, it remains one of the leading causes of death among African children, at a rate of two children per minute . In Masterson's words, malaria is a societal disease that depends on four aspects: the number of infected people, the number of biting mosquitoes, the degree to which these mosquitoes procreate, and the preference of these mosquitoes for human blood. In 1939 and 1942, the United States and Germany launched their respective malaria projects to combat microbes for war purposes. Both countries aimed to formulate a “magic bullet” that would eradicate malaria and prevent soldiers from succumbing to burning fevers. The campaign marked the start of a vast battle combining research into molecular malaria, ethical questions about test subjects and effective methods to improve public health. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay While skilled chemists at Bayer attempted to create a silver bullet to combat malaria, other scientists sought to understand the mechanism underlying malaria infections. They found that malaria species were unique to their own geographic regions in terms of population and mosquitoes. According to many historians of biology, “trade, particularly the slave trade, allowed these microbes to spread across the globe” (Masterson, 17). In 1880, Alphonse Laveran, a French military doctor who was examining fresh blood from infected but living soldiers, unknowingly captured the sexual stage of falciparum. Although he did not know the explanation at the time, Laveran witnessed gametocytes, which he noted were "large microbes the size of red blood cells", which had swum up to the surface tissues of the soldier to be ingested by mosquitoes. In 1897, WG MacCullum noticed parasites in the blood of a sick crow merging into an egg sac (Masterson, 21). The first-year Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine student, in his paper presented at the British Association for the Advance of Science, suggested that this could be the methodology by which malaria parasites reproduce after been consumed by mosquitoes. Julius Wagner von Jauregg was a psychiatrist passionate about using infectious diseases, particularly malaria, to cure different forms of mental illness. Surrounded by ethical questions, his numerous experiments allowed him to differentiate P. falciparum and P. vivax. He recognized that falciparum was deadly and advocated the use of vivax for the treatment of malaria. He also asked other doctors at the asylum to use infected blood, rather than infected mosquitoes, for therapy. He explained that mosquitoes introduce sporozoites into the body, which could lead to relapses, because P. vivax had a dormant liver stage and could reactivate after a while without any warning symptoms (Masterson, 63). But by using infected blood, syphilitics are only exposed to a punctual fever attack. After a myriad of experiments in the form of basic scientific research, the puzzle of the life cycle of the malaria parasite was slowly being put together. As briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph, Jauregg was an ambitious psychiatrist who wanted to cure madness. While it was clear that he had the best interests of syphilitics in mind, his strategy of curing them through the exploitation of infectious diseases was not consistent with the.