Medical Maps and Malaria

Paper Summary:

This paper covers the first medical maps made and includes copies of each map described. The paper describes the disease of malaria and how modern medical mapping is applied to the study of malaria.

Introduction
Medical Maps
Diseases around the World Being Mapped
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds in developing nations. Despite numerous attempts to exterminate it, malaria is one of the few diseases that have been able to continue to spread. During the 1950's, the world health organization stated that Malaria would be eradicated by the use of DDT by the end of the decade. DDT, a miracle insecticide was found in the 1960's to continually decrease in effectiveness. DDT was able to stop large populations of mosquitoes from developing to adulthood. The extermination of mosquitoes, in theory, would destroy the carrier of Malaria, and the disease would die out. DDT was found to have adverse effects in the several environmental areas. The insecticide is soluble in fat. If fish take in the insecticide by consumption of food in an area that has been applied with DDT, then the DDT is concentrated in the fatty tissues of the fish. The fish then can be consumed by a bird, but the bird will most likely consume many fish in one day. This growth in concentration of DDT creates abnormal effects in animals that are high on the food chain. DDT was found to cause the calcium in bird eggs to leech out, making the egg walls very thin, and easily cracked. The cracking of eggs caused the decrease of many bird populations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned its use n December of 1972 because of the adverse effects the DDT caused. The banning of the DDT chemical for broad use in many highly developed countries spurred the development of other ways to stop the spread of malaria. The extermination of mosquitoes became an unviable avenue. After the banning of DDT in the United State, the focus became clear that Malaria must be contained by the use of drugs that would be distributed to people."

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