History of malaria and brain which are the most constant post-mortem indications of chronic malaria infection. He related the prevalence of malaria in swampy areas to the presence of flies and recommended swamp drainage to prevent it. In the nineteenth century, the first drugs were developed to treat malaria and parasites were first identified as its source. French chemist Pierre Joseph Pelletier and French pharmacist Joseph Bienaimé Caventou separated in 1820 the alkaloids cinchonine and quinine from powdered fever tree bark, allowing for the creation of standardized doses of the active ingredients. Prior to 1820, the bark was simply dried, ground to a
History of malaria used to resist the scourge. Today, artemisinin is present in every remedy applied in treatment of malaria. After introducing artemisinin as a cure administered together with other remedies, the mortality in Africa went down by a half. Malaria researchers have won multiple Nobel Prizes for their achievements, although the disease continues to afflict some 200 million patients each year, killing more than 600,000. Malaria was the most important health hazard encountered by U.S. troops in the South Pacific during World War II, where about 500,000 men were infected. According to Joseph Patrick Byrne, "Sixty thousand American soldiers died of malaria