"Don't Strip-Tease for Anopheles": A history of malaria protocols during World War II*

This study focuses on the American anti-malaria campaign beginning in 1939. Despite the seemingly endless scholarship on World War II in the past seventy years, little has been written on the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal. Through extensive archival research, the breadth of the anti-malaria campaign throughout the Pacific is explored as a positive side effect of the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal in 1942-1943. While most scholars of the Pacific war mention the devastating effects of malaria during the battle for Guadalcanal, few have examined the malaria protocols. Through intensified atabrine discipline, bed nets, mosquito repellant, and an intense cultural war against malaria, the United States military won the war against the anopheles mosquito. Moreover, research and development in the years leading up to war fundamentally changed the way large-scale scientific and medical research is conducted in the United States, including the establishment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. *1 Color Poster No. 44-PA-686; “Don’t Strip-Tease for Anopheles,” Records of the Office of Government Reports, 1932-1947, Record Group 44; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD