A friend who does research on malaria once told me it originated in A friend who does research on malaria once told me it originated in Europe, which was a surprise because I'd always thought it was tropical. Apparently it was unknown in tropical areas until European settlers reached there. *************************** Hold the phone! Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disease found only in Africans and their descendants, I believe, that one gets if one inherits 2 genes that cause the shape of their red corpusles to become sickle-like. A single copy of the gene makes one very resistant to Malaria...changing the shape of the cell just enough so the Malaria parasite cannot recognize them and attack. So it is a genetic trait that has evolved to help those exposed to the disease for centuries....malenia...to survive. The deaths from the unfortunate inheritance of 2 genes from the parents apparently, in genetic terms, are acceptable losses. I don't think this kind of thing, this genetic reaction to Malaria, could evolve in the, relatively speaking, short time Europeans have been in Africa. It definitely implies Africans have been dealing with it for a much longer time. >From Wikipedia: Malaria has infected humans for over 50,000 years, and may have been a human _pathogen_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogen) for the entire history of our species._[2]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria#_note-1) Indeed, close relatives of the human malaria parasites remain common in chimpanzees, our closest relatives._[3]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria#_note-2) References to the unique periodic fevers of malaria are found throughout recorded history, beginning in 2700 BC in China._[4]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria#_note-3) The term malaria originates from _Medieval_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages) _Italian_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language) : mala aria — "_bad air_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory_of_disease) "; and the disease was formerly called _ague_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ague) or marsh fever due to its association with swamps.
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