Malaria, or Black Water
Fever
Malaria, the disease Father Jack suffers from, is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes. When a patient is bitten by a malaria-infected mosquito, he or she will begin to develop the following the symptoms: sequential chills, fever, and sweating (or "attacks" which would last for several hours, after which the patient will feel much better, but still be extremely weak. If untreated, these attacks become more pronounced and will eventually kill the patient. Because the attacks would come on and then go away, it was common for people (especially in Africa in the 1930s and 1940s where the disease was prevalent) to have a "touch of malaria"). Other symptoms include: headache, nausea and vomiting, muscle pain, anemia, bloody stools, jaundice, convulsion and coma.
