Ledger's cinchona seeds: a composite of field experience, chance, and intuition.

Following a short historical review of the facts which lead to the discovery of the specific action of the cinchona bark, an analysis is made of the obstacles encountered for more than two centuries by scientific expeditions to the identification, among the maze of natural hybrids, of the varieties of cinchona producing large amounts of quinine, and to obtain the best seed to establish plantations in other continents. Charles Ledger, a British general tradesman, was able to achieve that thanks to his alert spirit of observation, his (and that of his Bolivian servant Manuel) long experience of the Andes, and the chance that brought them to fall upon a group of exceptional cinchonas which had grown on an impervious slope of the Andes. Eventually the seeds were collected and Ledger offered them to the British and Dutch governments. Whereas the British failed to recognise their importance, the Dutch did not. They created extensive plantations in Java from which the world's demand for quinine was met, and the Dutch detained the practical monopoly of its production.

The Garki project : research on the epidemiology and control of malaria in the Sudan savanna of West Africa / by L. Molineaux and G. Gramiccia / Le projet Garki : recherches sur l' épidémiologie du paludisme et la lutteantipaludique dans la savane soudanienne de l' Afrique occidentale

Presents and assesses the results of a major longitudinal study on the epidemiology and control of malaria in the Sudan Savanna. The study was designed to collect baseline data on the epidemiology and dynamics of transmission, evaluate the effects of different types of intervention, and develop and test a mathematical model of malaria transmission. Results are presented in chapters covering control operations, entomology, parasitology, immunology, blood genetics, demography, clinical findings, and the testing of the mathematical model. The book concludes with practical advice for the future of malaria control

Sulfalene with pyrimethamine and chloroquine with pyrimethamine in single-dose treatment of Plasmodium falciparum infections. A trial in a rural population in northern Nigeria.

A comparative trial was carried out in northern Nigeria of the ability of the drug combinations chloroquine-pyrimethamine and sulfalene-pyrimethamine to clear the peripheral blood stream of asexual forms of P. falciparum within 7 days. The reappearance of asexual P. falciparum forms within the 70-day follow-up period and the occurrence of vomiting during the 2-3 hours following administration of the drugs were also recorded. The purpose of the trial was to choose the more suitable of the two drug combinations for repeated mass administration in the intervention phase of a collaborative field research project in the epidemiology and control of malaria in the African savannah. No differences were observed between the two drug combinations from a parasitological point of view. However, the sulfalene-pyrimethamine combination was found easier to administer and occasioned fewer records of vomiting. It was therefore recommended for use in the project.