Saturday, October 23, 2010

Thank God i have never gotten Malaria!!!


Malaria

Infectious disease characterised by chills and fever and caused by the bite of an infected anopheles mosquito.This word comes from the mediaeval Italian mal (=bad) and aria (=air), describing the miasma from the swamps around Rome. This 'bad air' was believed to be the cause of the fever that often developed in those who spent time around the swamps. In fact the illness, now known as malaria, was due to certain protozoans present in the mosquitos that bred around these swamps, and which caused recurring feverish symptoms in those they bit. I found this etymology, to be kind of funny...Ho and by the way, The word "etymology" derives from Greek (etumologíā);), meaning "true sense", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study"; from λόγος (lógos), meaning "speech, account, reason. Just thought it would be cool to checkout the etymology of etymology.

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