Wagner-Juaregg solved that problem after noting that Treponema pallidum didn’t survive in a test tube at temperatures much above 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Raise the blood temperature of the infected person a few degrees, he realized, and you might cook the bacterium to death. So he began inoculating patients with Plasmodium vivax. He would allow them to cycle through three or four spikes of fever, delivering potent if not terminal setbacks to the Treponema, and then dose them with quinine, bringing the plasmodium under control. “The effect was remarkable;15 the downward progression of
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Killing syphilis with malaria
