[The contemporary scientific context of A. Laveran's discovery]

The history of Laveran's discovery of the malaria parasite is well known. The fact that it went unconfirmed for many years reflects poorly on medical research at the time. Pasteur's discoveries had spawned widespread interest in the field of bacteriology in the mid-nineteenth century, and most epidemiologists suspected that a bacterium was responsible for malaria. Laveran's claim to have detected a parasite was greeted with scepticism. Here the author recalls how the medical world finally came to recognize the importance of Laveran's discovery.