Mosquitoes, Malaria and the Civil War

Not many Americans think about mosquitoes and malaria on Nov. 11, Veterans' Day. But they should. The mosquito played a major adversarial role in our nation's Civil War. Some 30,000 soldiers died of malaria, and more than half of the 2.75 million soldiers who served contracted the disease, statistics show. And that occurred when physicians had not yet linked the Anopheles mosquito with malaria. One of the soldiers who contracted malaria during the 47-day Siege of Vicksburg, launched May...