Estonians settled primarily along the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus region, including in Abkhazia, in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Like Estonia itself, the area was part of the Tsarist Empire before World War One.

At the time, malaria, a deadly disease, was not fully understood and while quinine was available, sometimes folk remedies were chosen ahead of it by the Estonian arrivals.

Whereas today, the fact that malaria gets spread by mosquitoes is common knowledge, anti-malarial tablets were some decades off and many Estonians who moved to the Caucasus region over a century ago blamed the deadly disease on damp ground, raw berries or even excessive hard work.

The new overview has been assembled by ERM senior researcher Aivar Jürgenson, who studied settlers' correspondence, memoirs and newspaper articles from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, prior to Estonia's independence. His findings were reported also in the journal Philological Researches.

Soon after the villages of Linda, Estonia, Salme and Sulevi were established by Estonian settlers in Abkhazia in the 1880s, malaria became one of the deadliest enemies for the new residents.

More than half of the arriving emigrants contracted the disease and were taken seriously ill, and nearly 16 percent of the settlements' populations died of malaria.

Because science had not at that time discovered the connection between mosquitoes and malaria, the settlers believed in prevailing theories of the time. According to these, malaria emanated as a poisonous vapor from damp ground and swamps. To combat this, houses began to be built on stilts, so that air might pass beneath the floors. Eucalyptus trees were planted to dry the ground, and swamps were drained. Since this deprived mosquitoes of their breeding grounds, this did serve to curb the incidence of malaria, albeit not for the reasons understood.

Descriptions also revealed the impact malaria had on a central tenet of Estonian national pride: Namely the work ethic. Obviously those suffering from malaria could not work, but the arrivals had also seen local inhabitants as "lazy." When ethnic Estonians started falling ill too, another misguided conclusion emerged – the belief that a person from northerly climes simply could not withstand strenuous labor in a hotter climate.

Only later was it grasped that it was malaria itself that was exhausting people. The folly of eating raw berries and drinking water which had not been boiled first were soon added to the supposed list of causes of malaria.

As well as the attributed causes, the methods used to treat malaria at the time reveal a colorful blend of folk tradition and contemporary medicine. Imported from Estonia was another belief: That malaria was a spirit in the shape of a gray old man that had to be driven away or frightened. For this reason, the malaise was known as "Halltõbi" ("Gray disease").

Supposed cures included rolling around in the straw in a pigsty, or keeping pieces of crosses collected from cemeteries under the left side of the body while sleeping.

The properties of quinine, originally from the New World, were known about by this time, at least to medical professionals, and doctors did start prescribing this plant-based treatment.

However, many Estonian arrivals not only found quinine's bitter taste – familiar to many today in tonic water, which it is a key ingredient of – unpalatable, they also mistakenly believed that the medicine was poisonous, opting to consume locally made wine instead in an effort to cure the disease's ravages.

Malaria still exists and WHO data states in 2024 there were around 282 million malaria cases, and 610,000 deaths as a result of the disease, chiefly in Africa.

Symptoms can be both mild and life-threatening. Mild symptoms include fever, chills and headache. Severe symptoms include fatigue, confusion, seizures, and difficulty breathing. Prophylactic medicines can be taken ahead of visiting a region known to have cases of malaria, and care should be taken to avoid mosquito bites, including by using repellents and netting.

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