Antioxidant vitamins, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

In 1850, an article on the origin of epidemic yellow fever and malaria appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. The anonymous author referred to earlier reports that "those who slept under musquito [sic] netting escaped the disease" and that "a gauze screen in a window adds much to the security of . . . the occupant of a chamber, in even the most unsound places." These observations, which now seem prescient, were used to support the theory that epidemics result from infective spores carried by the wind from decaying organic matter; the netting and screens were believed to provide a mechanical barrier to these particles. The true reason screens are protective was not identified until the studies of malaria by Ronald Ross in 1898 and of yellow fever by Walter Reed in 1902.