Malaria in 1850

I'm not normally one to refer people to Wikipedia, but this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria

seems to be a good comprehensive introduction to modern malaria, symptoms, etc. You can deduce from it that your officer would have the usual fever and chills, probably in recurrent bouts, and that he would have been treated with quinine if the drug was available in his location. Certainly a relapse with an unusually severe, even fatal, attack would be possible later in his life.

I can't tell you much about other treatments, but you might look for texts describing medical practice in the mid-19th century; or perhaps others can point to some helpful ones.

Good luck!

YOu might find this site useful:

http://www.malariasite.com/malaria/History.htm

and for other medical 'stuff' http://www.intute.ac.uk/medhist/

Assume a British naval officer contracted malaria in the 1840s. Assume further this ultimately meant he had to leave the navy.

What would his symptoms be? The usual intermittent chills and fever, maybe some jaundice.

How would doctors treat him? The usual quinine as pills

How long might he be expected to live (assume a robust constitution)? Well into his 80s.

Assume further than he has retired to a nice estate in Yorkshire, rather than somewhere warm and dry. He still has a long life in front of him. Malaria was more curable then than now.

I'm trying to decide whether this guy should contract malaria or turberculosis. Or something else. He needs to retire, live for a least a couple of years or so while not becoming a total invalid for a least awhile. Something else, and just call it a "tropical fever". There were a bunch of them that we have split out into various parasite infestations, viruses and bacteria ...

"Malta fever" (brucellosis) can kill him slowly with periods of good health alternatiing with invalidism.

A "tropical jaundice" (hepatitis or liver parasite) would also work. He'll be OK, but not vigorous, until his liver fails.