Ducks Aid War on Malaria (May, 1945)

Ducks Aid War on Malaria

STRAPPED in a harness that keeps it from ambling away, a laboratory duck becomes a subject for warfare against malaria, under the direction of Dr. Morton Kahn at the Cornell University Medical School, New York City. For two hours the fowl patiently submits to bites of malaria-infected mosquitoes placed with it in a screen cage. If it contracts the malady, observers keep complete ‘charts of its daily progress and relapses. Similar in nature to human malaria, but incapable of being transmitted to man, bird malaria provides a safe and enlightening means for studying the life history of the parasite.