title: Profile of patients treated with malariotherapy in a psychiatric hospital in Porto Alegre, Brazil: a historical note.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Malariotherapy was a treatment to cure neurosyphilis developed in 1917 by Wagner-Jauregg, by inoculating blood infected with malaria in patients with neurosyphilis. The patient had febrile episodes that often cured him of the syphilitic infection. This treatment won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1927 and it was introduced in Hospital Psiquiátrico São Pedro (HPSP) in 1929.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study with collection of historical secondary data. Data were collected from a sample of 19 medical records of patients treated with malariotherapy in HPSP, in 1929 and 1930.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most patients were white men aged from 25 to 40 years. The mean length of hospital stay was 1.4 year and the outcomes at this early application of malariotherapy were mostly negative (63.2% died).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The 19 cases evaluated in this study refer to the first year of application of malariotherapy in HPSP. The statistics available on the total number of dead and cured people over the 10 years this therapy was deployed suggest that the outcomes were better in the subsequent years, possibly due to improvement of technique. As a consequence of this innovative research, which had as its principle reorganizing the central nervous system by using the seizure triggered by malaria fever, other forms of shock therapies were developed, such as insulin therapy, cardiazol shock therapy, and electroconvulsive therapy.
authors.affiliation: Hospital São Lucas, PUCRS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Guilherme Astor
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.affiliation: Associação Gaúcha de História da Medicina, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Maria Helena Itaqui
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Lopes
authors.affiliation: Hospital Psiquiátrico São Pedro, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Edson Medeiros
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Cheuiche
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Pontifícia Universidade do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Luiz Gustavo
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Guilhermano