Things that hospitals would run out of quickly

[Charlie_Tan]

@Nava

Malaria used to be endemic through all swampy parts of Europe, even areas in Sweden.

Being Swedish, I’d like to see a cite for that claim.

Some googling brought up the following:

Malaria was probably an important disease during Roman times; it then receded, only to resurge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In those years, malaria occurred as far north as southern Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.

Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe

And while this paper indeed has the word endemic in the title: Endemic malaria: an 'indoor' disease in northern Europe. Historical data analysed - PMC
I wouldn’t consider roughly a dozen recorded cases per year endemic. The population in Finland grew from 1.2M to 1.8M between 1820 and 1870.

Malaria was mentioned in 542 reports between 1826 and 1870. Sievers [6], who studied malaria in Finland, based his opinion solely on these reports.

The reason I ask, is that throughout my life, I have never even heard of malaria being a factor when considering diseases and other causes for widespread alarm in historic times here. Famine, TBC, STDs, smallpox, measles, cholera (which came to Sweden in nine separate waves during the 19th century), and even typhus, which was much rarer, gets more mentions in historical documents. In our National Encyclopedia of 1912 Malaria is mentioned as previously having had some impact in swampy areas, but that by the 19t century it was virtually gone.

You may be our go-to-gal on cosas españolas, but when you make claims about my country, I’m going to need more than your word for it.

[Charlie_Tan]

@Nava

Malaria used to be endemic through all swampy parts of Europe, even areas in Sweden.

Being Swedish, I’d like to see a cite for that claim.

Some googling brought up the following:

Malaria was probably an important disease during Roman times; it then receded, only to resurge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In those years, malaria occurred as far north as southern Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.

Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe

And while this paper indeed has the word endemic in the title: Endemic malaria: an 'indoor' disease in northern Europe. Historical data analysed - PMC
I wouldn’t consider roughly a dozen recorded cases per year endemic. The population in Finland grew from 1.2M to 1.8M between 1820 and 1870.

Malaria was mentioned in 542 reports between 1826 and 1870. Sievers [6], who studied malaria in Finland, based his opinion solely on these reports.

The reason I ask, is that throughout my life, I have never even heard of malaria being a factor when considering diseases and other causes for widespread alarm in historic times here. Famine, TBC, STDs, smallpox, measles, cholera (which came to Sweden in nine separate waves during the 19th century), and even typhus, which was much rarer, gets more mentions in historical documents. In our National Encyclopedia of 1912 Malaria is mentioned as previously having had some impact in swampy areas, but that by the 19t century it was virtually gone.

You may be our go-to-gal on cosas españolas, but when you make claims about my country, I’m going to need more than your word for it.