Malaria therapy
Malarioterapia
- Date
- 1917 · confidence low
- Place
- Vienna, Austria
- Credited to
- Julius Wagner-Jauregg
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Malaria therapy is a medical procedure that deliberately infects the patient with the malaria parasite to induce high fevers (pyrotherapy) to treat another disease; the malaria is then cured with antimalarials such as quinine. It was developed by psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg to treat neurosyphilis, work for which he won the Nobel Prize.
What it led to
- First effective treatment for general paresis (neurosyphilis)
- 1927 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for Wagner-Jauregg
- Development, and later abandonment, of pyrotherapy after penicillin arrived