The history of Laveran's discovery of the malaria parasite is well known. The fact that it went unconfirmed for many years reflects poorly on medical research at the time. Pasteur's discoveries had spawned widespread interest in the field of bacteriology in the mid-nineteenth century, and most epidemiologists suspected that a bacterium was responsible for malaria. Laveran's claim to have detected a parasite was greeted with scepticism. Here the author recalls how the medical world finally came to recognize the importance of Laveran's discovery.
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Who was the first to visualize the malaria parasite?
Parasit Vectors
April 2024
Wits Research Institute for Malaria, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Human malaria, an ancient tropical disease, is caused by infection with protozoan parasites belonging to the genus Plasmodium and is transmitted by female mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. Our understanding of human malaria parasites began officially in 1880 with their discovery in the blood of malaria patients by Charles Louis Alphonse Lavéran (1845-1922), a French army officer working in Algeria. A claim for priority was made by Philipp Friedrich Hermann Klencke (1813-1881) in 1843, who wrote a chapter entitled: "Marvellous parallelism between the manifestations of vertigo and the presence of animalcule vacuoles in living blood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF[In the wake of Alphonse Laveran].
Med Trop Sante Int
June 2023
Professeur émérite, Université Paris Cité, 85 boulevard Saint-Germain 75006, Paris, France.
Alphonse Laveran (Nobel Prize 1907) played a pioneering role in discovering the causative agent of malaria, a disease that has existed since time immemorial, and long emblematic of the miasma theory until the end of the 19 century. In 1880, this unknown military doctor discovered the role of a hematazoan in malaria, designated This was the first protozoan to be discovered in an infectious disease, at a time when bacteria were mainly suspected. This major discovery led to the identification of the role of mosquitoes in the spread of malaria by Ronald Ross (Nobel Prize 1902) and Battista Grassi.
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Med Trop Sante Int
June 2023
Service de maladies infectieuses et tropicales, Hôpital d'instruction des armées Bégin, 69 avenue de Paris, 94160 Saint-Mandé, France.
In 2022 as in 1884, the clinical presentation of uncomplicated malaria is unspecific: fever of variable intensity, continuous or rhythmic, chills, flu syndrome, headache, respiratory and digestive disorders. At any time, it can evolve into a severe form (ex-pernicious attack or cerebral malaria) or even lethal. By reading again Alphonse Laveran's book on malarial fevers, we realized to what extent the observations made at that time allowed for a methodical and orderly description of the clinical forms of malaria, very close to what we can still observe today.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF[Laveran, the Pasteurian researcher].
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Conservatrice honoraire du musée Pasteur, 25 Rue du Dr Roux, 75015 Paris, France.
At the end of his professorial mandate at the Val de Grâce hospital, Alphonse Laveran, who was Chief Doctor, was appointed to Lille and then Nantes. These assignments however deprived him of a hospital service where he could carry on his research. In 1896, faced with the inflexibility of his military hierarchy, he applied for early retirement; he was then 50 years old.
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SFMTSI Société francophone de médecine tropicale et santé internationale (ancienne SPE), Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Pavillon Laveran, 47-83 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75651 Paris cedex 13, France.
This article recalls the conditions under which the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The scientific personalities who nominated Alphonse Laveran for the prize from 1901 to 1907 are recalled, among them Ronald Ross, winner in 1902. In 1907, Karl Axel Hampus Mörner submitted Alphonse Laveran for the prize.
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