Malaria in Catania/Sicily: Local Manifestations and International Scientific Cooperation During a Pandemic in the 1920s

This article examines how international scientific cooperation addressed the malaria pandemic in the 1920s, focusing on the local context of Catania, Sicily, and a study trip to Sicily by the League of Nations Malaria Commission. In 1925, the Rockefeller Foundation established a field laboratory in San Giuseppe La Rena on the outskirts of Catania, and Italy became a key site for international scientific collaboration. Drawing on League of Nations archives and contemporary publications, the article demonstrates that integrating local and international perspectives proved to be a major challenge. Malaria varied greatly in its manifestations and underlying causes depending on local conditions, making targeted local interventions more effective than broadly-based international comparative approaches. The Malaria Commission sought to synthesize diverse regional problems and control strategies across Europe to develop general assessments and recommendations. However, it ultimately failed to translate these findings into concrete influence on local policy; at least in the case of Catania, as this study shows, the impact remained limited.