In 1917, Austrian psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg began treating syphilis by injecting patients with malaria-infected blood. The malaria triggered intense fevers, which doctors believed could weaken the syphilis infection, and they could later treat the malaria with quinine. Wagner-Jauregg won the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the treatment, and doctors kept using malariotherapy until penicillin replaced it.
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