‘A’ is for Artemesia; ‘M’ is for Mugwort. ‘A’ is for Anopheles mosquito; ‘M’ is for Malaria.

The symptoms of malaria are engendered by a parasite that invades the female Anopheles mosquito through the blood she sucks when she bites an infected creature. Male Anopheles don’t drink blood. She generously passes on the parasite when she bites another creature.

Artemesia vulgaris is Mugwort. It’s a tall plant, with a white downiness on the underside of its pinate leaves, that grows as comfortably in the wild as it does under cultivation. Its very close relative, Artemesia verlotiorum, is native to China and is slightly shorter with darker leaves and a more aromatic nature. Both vulgaris and verlotiorum have been used in the past to treat malaria, but China has also used Mugwort for a greater variety of remedies and for longer than Europe. Moxa - the herb that acupuncturists and acupressurists use - is dried Mugwort, compressed into sticks, or pyramids, or just attached to the end of acuneedles as flock. All are ignited to heat up, (‘tonify’), acupoints.

A relative to Mugwort is Wormwood, Artemesia absinthium - that’s right, the one that’s used to make the ‘infamous’ French licquer, Absinth.

Tanzania is one of the African states that’s taking on the Anopheles mosquito and re-creating ways to deal with malaria. The nuns of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, in the town of Arusha in the district of Ngarantoni of Tanzania are growing Artemesia among their vegetables. It appears to have become a crop in other gardens as well, because it is being harvested, dried and processed in a local factory to extract the ‘active ingredient’, artemesin. The extract is then shipped to China, where it is blended with chemical additives before being shipped back to Tanzania in tablet form: carbon footprint, how are ye? It’s use? To treat malaria.

A tea made from the leaves - about 30 gms, (one ounce) to half a litre (one pint) of boiling water is also effective, taken in half-to-one cupful doses, three times a day. The tincture is also useful if five to fifteen drops are taken, in hot water, three times a day. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO), is discouraging the use of Mugwort as a simple (i.e. on its own), but not because it isn’t effective. They just don’t believe that people are capable of sticking to the required dose (more is NOT better), because overuse can be damaging.

Prevention is, of course, a major part of the campaign against malaria in Tanzania. Some ‘western’ nations, (in all of which the use of DDT is banned for use), is manufacturing the DDT which the Tanzanian government has licenced for use to spray the insides of people’s houses. It is not licenced for use out of doors. DDT is highly efficient at killing, or repelling, Anopheles mosquitoes, but only for a limited time, because the rapidly reproducing insects develop an immunity to it. People, however, don’t. It acts on us as a neurotoxin, which will affect susceptible people by giving them breathing difficulties and headaches, for starters. They will then go on to manifest allergies to other commonly used substances that have a root in the petro-chemical industry. These include, after-shave, deodorant, the fungicide in domestic paint, (not so in ecological paints), other pesticides, Vapona, perfumed domestic cleaning agents and polishes, scented candles, the fumes from kerosene, petrol and diesel, sheep-dip, etc. etc. This has led to the name of the condition: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). It’s a condition that cannot be reversed. With pro-biotics and an appropriate organic diet and avoidance of the allergens, it can be kept from worsening.

Wormwood also grows in Tanzania. It is used, there and in Europe, as an anti-parasitic against fleas and tics and lice and, internally, for intestinal worms. In Tanzania it has been traditionally used against white ants that invade any space where there’s wood and make life miserable.

I wish the Tanzanian authorities would use Artemesia absinthium instead of DDT, to preserve the health of the people. It would certainly do the job that DDT is expected to do and it would not result in resistance developing in the mosquitoes, because natural substances, used in a natural state, seldom do. The cultivation of both forms of Artemesia could form the basis, not only as a mosquito killer and a treatment for malaria, but also for an increase in income for rural families, who might devote a section of their gardens, or farms to their cultivation. We might do the same, if, as predicted, malaria becomes endemic to Ireland.