Was it warmer in Virginia in 1781 than it is today, or has our capacity to cope been enhanced? In fact, climate does not determine our well-being. Unfortunately, climate change policies might, and for the worse.
H/T and comment above: Indur Goklany
From: The Washington Post
By J.R. McNeill
Monday, October 18, 2010; 3:57 PM
Major combat operations in the American Revolution ended 229 years ago on Oct. 19, at Yorktown. For that we can thank the fortitude of American forces under George Washington, the siegecraft of French troops of Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the count of Rochambeau – and the relentless bloodthirstiness of female Anopheles quadrimaculatus mosquitoes.
Those tiny amazons conducted covert biological warfare against the British army. Female mosquitoes seek mammalian blood to provide the proteins they need to make eggs. No blood meal, no reproduction. It makes them bold and determined to bite.
Some anopheles mosquitoes carry the malaria parasite, which they can inject into human bloodstreams when taking their meals. In eastern North America, A. quadrimaculatus was the sole important malaria vector. It carried malaria from person to person, and susceptible humans carried it from mosquito to mosquito. In the 18th century, no one suspected that mosquitoes carried diseases.
Malaria, still one of the most deadly infectious diseases in the world, was a widespread scourge in North America until little more than a century ago. The only people resistant to it were either those of African descent – many of whom had inherited genetic traits that blocked malaria from doing its worst – or folks who had already been infected many times, acquiring resistance the hard way. In general, the more bouts you survive, the more resistant you are.
I believe the same was true in London on the Hackney marshes, close to the area where the Olympic stadia and village are being constructed. It was warm enough for malaria bearing insects brought in on sailing ships from the nearby London Docks to over winter. Malaria became a bit of a problem until colder winters and drainage of the marshes for housing put paid to the mosquitos.
The evidence that former times were much warmer than today is overwhelming.
“The only people resistant to it were either those of African descent – many of whom had inherited genetic traits that blocked malaria from doing its worst …”
That trait is sickle-cell, where the entrance of the parasite into a red blood cell causes the cell to twist into a sickle shape. It’s painful to those who have it, and it is fatal to the malaria parasite. Something of a bad news/good news trade-off there.
Mosquitoes do not require tropical heat. 1790’s was during the Little Ice Age so temperatures were cooler than today. Yes mosquitoes were rampant in the Hackney Marshes and the name gives it away- marshes. Mosquitoes like stagnant water which was in abundance there in the 1790’s there. The worlds worst outbreak of malaria was in Siberia about 200 years ago. Siberia is not known for its warmth.
Seems a bit demeaning considering the brits had other colonies across the entire world. You’d have thought they might be used to bugs of all sorts.
John Marshall:
Your comments at October 19, 2010 at 3:12 am are correct.
Malaria (known as the ague) was endemic throughout the British Isles and through all history until the drainage of the agricultuaral revolution removed the marshes which the mosquitoes inhabited.”
Cromwell is thought to have contracted it in Ireland and he died of it.
Paul Reiter’s written presentation to the Select Committee on Economic Affairs covers these matters extensively and is worth reading in its entirety. It can be seen at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we21.htm
The following is an extract from it.
“I wonder how many of your Lordships are aware of the historical significance of the Palace of Westminster? I refer to the history of malaria, not the evolution of government. Are you aware that the entire area now occupied by the Houses of Parliament was once a notoriously malarious swamp? And that until the beginning of the 20th century, “ague” (the original English word for malaria) was a cause of high morbidity and mortality in parts of the British Isles, particularly in tidal marshes such as those at Westminster? And that George Washington followed British Parliamentary precedent by also siting his government buildings in a malarious swamp! I mention this to dispel any misconception you may have that malaria is a “tropical” disease.
6. The ague thirteen times in Shakespeare’s plays. In Shakespeare’s time, William Harvey dissected cadavers of patients in St Thomas’s hospital who had died of the infection. Harvey was the first to describe the changes in the consistency of the blood that result in the fatal complications caused by the infection. At the end of the 17th century, a certain William Talbor was knighted after he cured the King of an ague using a concoction of quinine he had developed in the Essex marshes. He later sold his recipe to Louis XIV, became Chevalier Talbor, and died rich and famous after curing many of the aristocrats of Europe.
7. All this occurred in a period—roughly from the mid-15th century to the early 18th century—that climatologists term the “Little Ice Age”. Temperatures were highly variable, but generally much lower than in the period since. In winter, the sea was often frozen for many miles offshore, the King could hold parties on the frozen Thames, there are six records of Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland, and the Viking settlements in Iceland and Greenland became extinct.
8. Despite this remarkably cold period, perhaps the coldest since the last major Ice Age, malaria was what we would today call a “serious public health problem” in many parts of the British Isles, and was endemic, sometimes common throughout Europe as far north as the Baltic and northern Russia. It began to disappear from many regions of Europe, Canada and the United States as a result of multiple changes in agriculture and lifestyle that affected the breeding of the mosquito and its contact with people, but it persisted in less developed regions until the mid 20th century. In fact, the most catastrophic epidemic on record anywhere in the world occurred in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, with a peak incidence of 13 million cases per year, and 600,000 deaths. Transmission was high in many parts of Siberia, and there were 30,000 cases and 10,000 deaths due to falciparum infection (the most deadly malaria parasite) in Archangel, close to the Arctic circle. Malaria persisted in many parts of Europe until the advent of DDT. One of the last malarious countries in Europe was Holland: the WHO finally declared it malaria-free in 1970.
9. I hope I have convinced you that malaria is not an exclusively tropical disease, and is not limited by cold winters! Moreover, although temperature is a factor in its transmission (the parasite cannot develop in the mosquito unless temperatures are above about 15ºC), there are many other factors—most of them not associated with weather or climate—that have a much more significant role. The interaction of these factors is complex, and defies simple analysis. As one prominent malariologist put it: “Everything about malaria is so moulded and altered by local conditions that it becomes a thousand different diseases and epidemiological puzzles. Like chess, it is played with a few pieces, but is capable of an infinite variety of situations””
And that is not the only flaw in the article.
I point out that in the American War of Independence the Americans lost every battle without exception. The British abandoned the War because they concluded that it was not worth the effort so they went and colonised India instead. Malaria had nothing to do with it.
Richard
We let you win that one.
One has only to holiday for a week in the Highlands of Scotland to realise why it is still so empty. No bugger wants to live permanently with those evil Mosquitoes.
The Highlands are beautiful, and I need a good dose of their stunning scenery every couple of years, but live there? No way!
What an interesting story! – and most probably true.
Unfortunately the failure of the Royal Navy to relieve the blockade was the principal cause of the British failure at Yorktown. The final redoubt battle which completed the blockade, was a scene where British led German and Highlander troops were defeated by French led German troops. The Royal Navy that arrived at Yorktown too late was a multinational affair which even included French seamen!
Yorktown was the battle where the Americans beat the British and turned the world upside down. Don’t say it too loudly, but we English and you Americans, didn’t have much say in it though !
If you wish to see some truely staggering evidence of the effect of tropical disease on Europeans then may I suggest you examine the mortality figures for British troops stationed in the West Indies, India and the West coast of Africa during the 18th and 18th century. The figures are genuinely scarry. The west coast of Africa of was not called: The White Man’s Grave ” for nothing !
You gained independence, but it’s not to late to change your minds. We would be more than happy to forgive and forget and allow your wonderful colonies to become a new Province of her Majesties Canada. Think of the advantage! You could learn to drive on the correct side of the road and learn to spell to name but a few. I’ve also noted a close correlation between the Independance of the 13 colonies and the start of global warming. There, here’s your chance to return to the fold and tackle climate change all at the same time! I’m sure a certain hereditary and Lord would be happy to assume the role of her Majesties Governor in the new world.
toodle pip!
“I point out that in the American War of Independence the Americans lost every battle without exception. The British abandoned the War because they concluded that it was not worth the effort so they went and colonised India instead. Malaria had nothing to do with it.”
Richard
I would add that it was considered more profitable to keep the colonies in covert tyrany, rather than overt. Let them think they are free, whilst they are still subject to covert rule from London through maritime legality.
But then this is diverting from the topic of this thread.
Apologies.
No DDT, bad bad bad 🙂
Regardless, I think it’s about time something was done about it.
Yorktown Day today: http://www.yorkcounty.gov/Portals/tourism/10_ytd_sched.pdf Come help us celebrate, parade at 10:30 AM
Weather looks nice 65°F and partly cloudy.
But I thought the general line was that it is a bit of a fallacy that mosqitos are associated with warmth (I’m thinking Siberia).
OT-
That other Battle–
Well in Africa, where about 40 million African children under the age of five have died since the DDT, phony baloney EPA ban, you could make a case each way, hot cold. But it tends towards liberal false science overall.
Richard S Courtney says:
October 19, 2010 at 3:46 am
“………. the Viking settlements in Iceland and Greenland became extinct ……”
Just for the sake of the record, I had not heard that the Icelanders had become extinct , a typo perhaps ?
But it is quite correct that mosquitoes do not need tropical climate to thrive as well , and as you mention Siberia, I have a friend who spent a summer there few years back in time and he told me that it was necessary to put mosquito nets around the beds , and close the windows well shut at night , to avoid “being eaten alive by the buggers” , so I believe they still thrive there in some areas. But on the other hand there have not been any big outbreaks of malaria there since those you talked about in your comments, whatever the reason.
As for the American Independence war , I have no idea of whether malaria had anything to do with it’s outcome or not, but my guess is that you are for most part right when you say it was not thought to be worth the effort , or more precisely stated too costly to pursue, compared to the the possible financial gains that the English ruling class might garner from persisting.
But there was at least one conflict where mosquitoes played a big part in an independence war and that was when the French sent an army to retake the island of Hispaniola ( today’s Haiti + Dominican republic), that had gotten out from under their thumbs few years earlier. They gave up after they had lost 50 thousand soldiers in that venture ( and mostly 18 generals ), mostly caused by yellow fever ,that is also spread through mosquito bites, to which their former slaves were apparently immune.
Richard S Courtney says:{October 19, 2010 at 3:46 am} ” I point out that in the American War of Independence the Americans lost every battle without exception”
Except for the Battle of Trenton, or the Battle of Princeton or the Battle of Saratoga. I would mention the taking of Ft Ticonderoga but it was done without a fight so technically there was no battle. Let’s not forget that the British left Boston under treat from their own cannon taken from Ft Ticonderoga.
Gareth Phillips says: {October 19, 2010 at 4:00 am }
A gallant offer but to coin a phrase from another American in another war: “Nuts!”
As John Marshall, Richard Courtney and David UK say, malaria has very litte to do with temperature. See the youtube clip
“The Distortion of the Malaria Issue by the UN and Al Gore”
from the Great Global Warming Swindle, where malaria expert Paul Reiter talks about the IPCC misinformation on this issue.
I have began to wonder about the potential for the re-introduction of malaria, and perhaps other insect-born diseases, with all of the efforts of wetland conservation, creation, etc. Are we potentially just helping to preserve/create mosquito breeding grounds?
(Horrible pun ahead, you have been warned!)
If so, then that’s a policy that might come back to bite us in the end.
It doesn’t need to be warm in winter for mosquitoes to survive – if it did, much of Canada would be much more bug-free than it is. Winnipeg (AKA Winter-peg, for those who have been there during the winter months, due to the frigid conditions) has more than enough of the little (blood) suckers during the summer. I haven’t heard of any vast migratory swarms of mosquitoes moving to Capistrano in the autumn…
@ur momisugly Ken Hall
You seem to be confusing your mozzies and your midgies!
The bane of all unsuspecting tourists in Scotland is the wee beastie known as the Scottish midge, Culicoides Impuctatus
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/info/Nature/Midges
Whereas the humble Mosquito [ Culex Pipiens ] is not as nasty as the Killer Midge.
There are around thirty species of mosquito found in the UK, they are usually larger than midges, but the midge is vastly more numerous in the Scottish Highlands and Westerly areas.
In order to be fully aware of the evil that can be inflicted by the Scots midge, you’d need to see a caravan or camping park cleared of outside pursuits within minutes of the midge arriving in the early evening. It’s really quite spectacular.
Had we had the midge on our side back in the day…….
Few people are aware that it is less than forty years since the final eradication of malaria in Europe and the United States. Indeed, the disease was common in the period from the 16th to 18th centuries that climatologists term the Little Ice Age [33], and data from burial records around the Thames estuary reveal that mortality in “marsh parishes” of England was comparable to that in areas of transmission in sub-Saharan Africa today [40,41].
Until the mid-19th century, the northern limit of transmission was roughly defined by the present 15°C July isotherm. Denmark and parts of Sweden suffered devastating epidemics until the 1860s. Incidence diminished thereafter and the disease had essentially disappeared around the turn of the 20th Century. The same was true in Finland, except for a brief recrudescence in 1941, during the Russo-Finnish war. Figure 1 shows the distribution of malaria cases in Norway between 1860 and 1920. In England, there was a gradual decrease in transmission until the 1880s, after which it dropped precipitously and became relatively rare, except in a short period following World War I. In Germany, transmission also diminished rapidly. After World War I it was mainly confined to a few marshy localities [36].
http://www.malariajournal.com/content/7/S1/S3
The global warming alarmists use arguments that increased temperatures will cause increases in the spread of mosquitos and hence malaria. The above dispels that as does Richards post above.
You were doing fine on your own until you suddenly decided to start driving on the wrong side of the road! Never mind, we still think you’re our bestest friends.
The British didn’t get into Quinine until later (in India) when they took it with Gin to disguise the bitter taste, they called it Gin and Tonic. It became an acquired taste for a lot of people and it still is.