Since Malaria is a sub-theme for
poison wood, I thought I should research some of it as Historian. Leah, Ruth May, and
Orleanna all went through it, and although it describes their actions and loss of interest in activities, no one here really knows what it's like to have Malaria. I thought it would give us a better image of some of the scenes in the book. Malaria in humans develops when an infected mosquito pierces a person's skin to take a blood meal,
sporozoitesin the mosquito's saliva enter the bloodstream and migrate to the liver. Within 30 minutes of being introduced into the human host, they infect
hepatocytes, multiplying asexually and
asymptomatically for a period of 6–15 days. During this so-called dormant time in the liver the
sporozoites are often referred to as
hypnozoites. In the liver they differentiate to yield thousands of
merozoites which, following rupture of their host cells, escape into the blood and infect red blood cells, thus beginning the
erythrocytic stage of its life cycle. The parasite escapes from the liver undetected by wrapping itself in the cell membrane of the infected host liver cell.
As you can see, Malaria is hard to detect once you get it, and once you get it, since it is in your bloodstream, it is theoretically impossible to get rid of it.
Also, I thought the Mamba Snake interested everyone, so I also have researched that. Green mambas are found only in Africa. Their neurotoxin is injected into their prey through their fangs.
Dendrotoxin is a strong
convulsant. a
convulsant causes convulsions, which are just involuntary contractions of the muscle, which explains Ruth May's reaction to the bite of the Mamba Snake. I hope this helped people's understanding.