Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran was a French army physician. His 1880 discovery of the malaria parasite and other contributions to medical parasitology merited the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He also worked on sleeping sickness, Leishmaniasis and other parasitic human and animal diseases.

Key Concepts:

• The parasite of malaria was discovered in 1880.
  
• Malaria was an important disease in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.