Malaria Around the North Sea: A Survey

Abstract

Malaria may have been introduced into the North Sea Basin in late Antiquity. It has been endemic at least since the 7th century, but its high-days were the Little Ice Age. After 1750 the disease steadily declined until it disappeared in the 1950s. The hot beds of malaria were largely restricted to brackish coastal zones, where the mosquito Anopheles atroparvus could thrive. In these zones death-rates were 25–50 pct higher than in inland areas. This was not caused by tropical malaria, but by the prolonged debilitating effect of tertian and quartan fevers. High summer temperatures as well as storm surges were usually followed by an outbreak of malaria. The impacts of ecological changes are discussed, as well as the effects of widespread malaria on the population’s health and local culture. In spite of the high death-rates, popular concern with malaria fevers diminished during the 17th and 18th centuries. This was due to a medical fallacy according to which the chronic effects of malaria were diagnosed as ‘land-scurvy’. The eradication of malaria in North-Western Europe had more to do with agricultural changes, hydrological measures and rising standards of living than with medical progress. The rise and fall of malaria took place largely independent of long-term climatic change.