Mary E. Gibson

The Great Malaria Problem

On 28 March 1895 Ross started for India on the P & O vessel Ballaarat. This was the beginning of his quest to solve the problem of the transmission of the malarial parasite. To use Ross’ words this was ‘thge great malaria problem’. He left full of evangelical zeal for the task and probably still under the considerable spell of Manson’s personality. Ross the poet and self-taught mathematician had, for the time, been eclipsed by Ross the scientist. He had armed himself with a microscope and used opportunities to examine the blood of fellow passengers and any available patients at hospitals at ports of call.

Sir Ronald Ross and India

Abstract Brief mention is given of the early life of Sir Ronald Ross and an account of the events which led to his discovery of the method of transmission of malaria parasites. His later association with India is also referred to.

Sir Ronald Ross and his contemporaries.

Sir Ronald Ross (Figure 1) left behind him the reputation of being conceited, quick to take offence and greedy for fame and money. He was, to a certain degree, all of those things, but they were not his only characteristics nor his most dominant ones. The Ross Archives at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine give a more rounded and more attractive picture of the man. The bulk of the published material about him gives little information after

The War Office Consultant, 1914–19

With the outbreak of the First World War it became obvious, even to military minds, that the treatment, and prevention, of malaria in the army was important for the running of efficient campaigns in areas of malarial endemicity, such as in the Mediterranean region and in what was then German East Africa. It was natural therefore that Ross with his by then impressive reputation as a practical malariologist should be brought in as a consultant. In July 1908 Ross joined the RAMC Territorial Force and was given the rank of Major (Memoirs, p. 518). As a Territorial officer Ross would expect to be called for active duty in the event of war. By 1913 Ross was elevated to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Not long after the outbreak of the war in December 1914 Ross was appointed to ‘advise the director general in connection with malaria’ (Macpherson et al, 1921–4, i, p. 64) Ross was also consulted at the time of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign as the Peninsula was ‘notoriously malarial’ and his brief was to advise on prevention (Macpherson et al, 1921–4, iv, p. 59), however it seems that no special measures were taken. One could speculate that this front line area was not the milieu in which long-term sanitary programmes were appropriate and probably the simplest approach would be to ensure that troops were given quinine prophylactically.

Ross and the Royal Society of Medicine

When the Royal Society of Medicine was created from an amalgamation of several London medical societies in 1908 Ross was one of its Founder members as he was already a member of the Epidemiological Society which was one of the societies forming the new society (RSM, Archives Box 31, Folder 1813).

Ross and the Indian Medical Service, 1881–94

When Ross went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital to study medicine it had been his father’s intention that he should become a military doctor. In those days it was customary to refer to military doctors as ‘surgeons’. This was a relic of the days when the role of doctors in the army was seen primarily as responsible for the treatment of battle casualties. By the time Ross completed his medical studies the role of the army doctors had certainly expanded, but the term ‘surgeon’ endured for another thirty years.

A Perspective: Ross’ Achievement

The study of the lives of prominent people brings with it speculation as to the ultimate worth of an individual’s achievements. The perspective given by the passage of time will inevitably change. What seems important today may seem less so tomorrow, what seems irrelevant today may blossom into a new significance after an interval of time when new knowledge and understanding realign one’s ideas about the world.

The Diagnostic Microscope

The science of parasitology as it evolved in the nineteenth century hinged on the use of the compound microscope. It was in this century that the instrument developed from what had been a sort of scientific toy into something that revolutionised microbiology, pathology, parasitology and biology in general. While Galileo can be said to have been the first to appreciate the possibility that the microscope could be used to examine small objects his own thoughts were directed to the heavens. It was later savants in the seventeenth century who began to use simple microscopes to describe the minutiae of nature as found in plants, insects and other small invertebrates. Among these were Robert Hooke from England, Marcello Malpighi from Italy, Jan Swammerdam and Antony van Leeuwenhoek from Holland (Singer, 1931, p. 167). Swammerdam was a pioneer in the use of the microscope as an aid to the dissection of insects and in 1669 published a monograph on the subject. Swammerdam died at the age of 43, for many years of his life being troubled with chronic malaria (Hagelin, 1990).

Mosquitos and Malaria

The following chapter is provided for readers unfamiliar with the basic biology of malaria transmission. It is information which can be found in elementary textbooks of biology and, it is hoped, will be of help to non-biologists in following the steps of Ross, and others, who were attempting to sift out the key points of the problem of transmission from the apparent chaos of nature.

The Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually for accomplishments in medicine, science and literature. They are certainly the ultimate accolades that can be conferred for the recognition of distinguished work. The Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel died in San Remo at the age of 63 in 1896 and left his fortune, then worth 33 million Swedish crowns, as a foundation for the prizes that bear his name (Karlsson, 1992, pp. 16–17). Nobel’s upbringing may have had something to do with his international outlook as he spent his childhood in St Petersburg, studied in France and was fluent in Russian, French, German, English and in Swedish. As a scientist his literary interests were well honed, and it is recorded that he was a great admirer of Byron and Shelley.