Identification of the Malaria Parasite On November 6, 1880, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French army physician stationed in Constantine, Algeria, examined a malaria patient's blood under a microscope and observed pigmented bodies with moving, flagella-like structures emerging from them (exflagellating microgametocytes), the first demonstration that a protozoan parasite, not a bacterium, causes a human disease. The finding was initially met with skepticism; wider medical acceptance followed through the 1880s as other observers confirmed it. The parasite genus was later named Plasmodium. Ronald Ross established in 1897 that Anopheles mosquitoes transmit the parasite between hosts, completing the transmission picture Laveran's discovery had opened. Laveran received the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the role of protozoa in disease.
Facts
Discovery Year Discovery Date DiscovererCharles Louis Alphonse Laveran 1 Classification
Type/Classification FAQs
Why do accounts give two different dates for Laveran's discovery of the malaria parasite?
Sources give October 20 and November 6 1880; both fall in 1880 and the sources do not reconcile them.
This entry's description places the observation on November 6, 1880, when Laveran saw pigmented bodies with moving, flagella-like structures in a malaria patient's blood in Constantine, Algeria. Laveran's own report, quoted in the Wikipedia article on him, says that on the 20th of October he first saw elements of apparently parasitic origin among the red blood corpuscles. The two dates may describe different observations, but the sources cited here do not settle it, so both are recorded. Either way the finding was made in 1880, and it was the first demonstration that a protozoan parasite rather than a bacterium causes a human disease.
Connections
Associated With
Source A History of MedicineLois N. Magner
Discovered By
Source A History of MedicineLois N. Magner
Sources
1. A History of Medicine
Lois N. Magner, CRC Pressentity description, Identification of the Malaria Parasite
On November 6, 1880, Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French army physician stationed in Constantine, Algeria, examined a malaria patient's blood under a microscope and observed pigmented bodies with moving, flagella-like structures emerging from them (exflagellating microgametocytes), the first demonstration that a protozoan parasite, not a bacterium, causes a human disease.
- In Category: Discoveries
- Associated With: Malaria
- Discovered By: Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran
2. Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (Wikipedia)
WikipediaMalaria and discovery of malarial parasite sectionQuote, Malaria and discovery of malarial parasite section
On the 20th October last, while examining by microscope the blood of a patient suffering from malarial fever I observed in the midst of the red blood corpuscles the presence of elements which appeared to me to be of parasitic origin.
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