Malarial mosquitoes helped defeat British in battle that ended Revolutionary War

The Washington Post ^ | 18 Oct 2010 | J.R. McNeill

[Palter]

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.

Malaria was all over the American South but especially prevalent in the warm, humid coastlands from Georgia to Maryland, where the climate suited mosquitoes and there were plenty of people (and other mammals) to bite.

In 1779 the British chose a "southern strategy" in their war against rebellious Americans. Since 1775, they had fought inconclusively, with the British controlling the main ports but unable to hold the countryside.

[vetvetdoug]

FYI the last state in the US to eradicate Malaria was......of course Mississippi.

[colorado tanker]

Interesting article, but McNeill makes a false claim “without mosquitoes there would be no U.S.” Even if it could be proved that mosquitoes helped, claiming success on one factor is a bad argument.

Call me crazy, but the French fleet keeping the British fleet out of the Chesapeake strikes me as tad bit more important.

[driftless2]

Not only that, the writer makes a logical fallacy by assuming that if x didn't happen then y wouldn't occur. That's similar to the people who claim for example that if Jackie Robinson hadn't have been a success, there would be no blacks in baseball. Apparently many people fell for that sort of nonsense. The fact that a number of clubs had been itching for the opportunity to use black players and that integration into baseball and other big league sports was inevitable totally escaped them.

If the British had been able to quell that rebellion, rest assured many more would have followed. There was no way the British government could keep the American colonies from eventually becoming independent.

[colorado tanker]

If the British had been able to quell that rebellion, rest assured many more would have followed. There was no way the British government could keep the American colonies from eventually becoming independent.

Americans have quite the independent streak, don't we? The powers that be are learning that all over again this year. :-))