Malariotherapy:
Malaria itself was used as a treatment for tertiary syphilis in the early twentieth century before the germ theory of disease was universally accepted and before antibiotics were available. Patients were intentionally infected with malaria; the resulting fever killed the heat-sensitive spirochetes, and then quinine could be used to cure the malaria. Unfortunately, malariotherapy killed 15 percent of those treated with it. More recently, Henry Heimlich advocated malariotherapy as a cure for AIDS. Some small studies in China found that it reduced HIV viral loads, but it can’t be recommended. [“The World’s Most Deadly Animal,” Harriet Hall, M. D., Skeptical Inquirer (March/April 2022, paywall)]
