The genusPlasmodium was created in 1885 by Marchiafava and Celli. Currently over 200 species are recognized. New species continue to be described.[1]
The genus is currently (2006) in need of reorganization as it has been shown that parasites belonging to the genera Haemocystis and Hepatocystis appear to be closely related to Plasmodium. It is likely that other species such as Haemoproteus meleagridis will be included in this genus once it is revised.
The organism itself was first seen by Laveran on November 6th 1880 at a military hospital in Constantine, Algeria, when he discovered a microgametocyte exflagellating. Manson (in 1894) hypothesised that mosquitoes could transmit malaria - an association made considerably earlier in India, possibly as early as 2000BC. This hypothesis was experimentally confirmed independently by the Italian professor Giovanni Battista Grassi and the British physician Ronald Ross both in 1898. Ross demonstrated the existence of Plasmodium in the wall of the midgut and salivary glands of a Culex mosquito. For this discovery he won the Nobel Prize in 1902. Grassi showed that human malaria could only be transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes. It is worth noting, however, that for some species the vector may not be a mosquito.
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