Mosquitoes & Syphilis
We’ve actually mentioned this in the past but it’s worthy of bringing up in this article on the animals that inspired scientists article. Most mosquitoes are capable of carrying malaria but the Marsh Mosquito is the most notable. There are 460 types of this mosquito on the planet but only around 100 carry malaria. Most of those tend to be in African & Asian territories. While malaria is a deadly disease, we’ve been able to control it for a while. Meanwhile, the rise of syphilis which could kill people a lot faster was hard to treat. Before antibiotics like penicillin came around, doctors had to find a way to rid someone of syphilis and they found that malaria-induced fevers could actually work. This concept was used from the 1920s to the 1950s, but many feel that inducing normal fevers would likely have done just as well as this treatment.