Everything about Ronald Ross totally explained
For the shinty player, see Ronald Ross (shinty player); for the politician, see Ronald Deane Ross.
Sir
Ronald Ross KCB, (
13 May 1857 –
16 September 1932) was a
British physician. He was born in
Almora,
India. He was the eldest son of General Sir
Campbell Claye Grant Ross of the
Indian Army and Matilda Charlotte Elderton. His grandfather was Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Ross.
Early years
At the age of ten, Ronald was sent to England for his education. After completing his early education in two small schools at Ryde, he was sent to a boarding school at Springhill, near Southampton in 1869.
Ronald commenced his study of medicine at
St. Bartholomew's Hospital in
London on October 29, 1875. He passed his final examination in 1880 and qualified as
MRCS and
LSA. He joined the
Indian Medical Service in 1881. His first posting was in
Madras.
Discovery
He studied
malaria between 1881 and 1899. He worked on malaria in
Calcutta at the
Presidency General Hospital. In
1883, Ross was posted as the Acting Garrison Surgeon at
Bangalore during which time he noticed the possibility of controlling mosquitoes by controlling their access to water. In 1897 Ross was posted in
Ootacamund and fell ill with malaria. After this he was transferred to
Secunderabad, he discovered the presence of the malarial parasite within a specific species of mosquito, the
Anopheles. He initially called them
dapple-wings and he was able to find the malaria parasite in a mosquito that he artificially fed on a malaria patient named Hussain Khan. Later using birds that were sick with malaria, he was soon able to ascertain the entire life cycle of the
malarial parasite, including its presence in the mosquito's salivary glands. He demonstrated that malaria is transmitted from infected birds to healthy ones by the bite of a mosquito, a finding that suggested the disease's mode of transmission to humans. In
1902 Ross was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his remarkable work on
malaria.
In
1899 Ross went back to Britain and joined
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a professor of
tropical medicine. In 1901 Ross was elected a Fellow of the
Royal College of Surgeons and also a Fellow of the
Royal Society, of which he became Vice-President from
1911 to
1913. In
1902 he was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable
Order of Bath by
King Edward VII. In
1911 he was elevated to the rank of Knight Commander of the same Order.
During his active career Ross advocated the task of prevention of
malaria in different countries. He carried out surveys and initiated schemes in many places, including
West Africa, the
Suez Canal zone,
Greece,
Mauritius,
Cyprus, and in the areas affected by the
First World War. He also initiated organizations, which have proved to be well established, for the prevention of malaria within the planting industries of
India and
Ceylon. He made many contributions to the epidemiology of malaria and to methods of its survey and assessment, but perhaps his greatest was the development of mathematical models for the study of its
epidemiology, initiated in his report on
Mauritius in
1908, elaborated in his Prevention of malaria in 1911 and further elaborated in a more generalized form in scientific papers published by the
Royal Society in
1915 and
1916. These papers represented a profound mathematical interest which wasn't confined to epidemiology, but led him to make material contributions to both pure and applied mathematics.
Through these works Ross continued his great contribution in the form of the discovery of the transmission of malaria by the mosquito, but he also found time and mental energy for many other pursuits, being poet, playwright, writer and painter. Particularly, his poetic works gained him wide acclamation which was independent of his medical and mathematical standing.
Recognition
Sir Ronald Ross received many honours in addition to the Nobel Prize, and was given Honorary Membership of learned societies of most countries of Europe, and of many other continents. He got an honorary M.D. degree in
Stockholm in 1910 at the centenary celebration of the
Caroline Institute and his 1923 autobiography
Memoirs, Etc. was awarded that year's
James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Whilst his vivacity and single-minded search for truth caused friction with some people, he enjoyed a vast circle of friends in
Europe,
Asia and the
United States who respected him for his personality as well as for his genius.
Ross married Rosa Bessie Bloxam in
1889. They had two sons, Ronald and Charles, and two daughters, Dorothy and Sylvia. His wife died in
1931. Ross survived her until a year later, when he died after a long illness, at the
Ross Institute, London, in 1932.
In
India Sir Ronald Ross is remembered with great respect. Because of his relentless work on malaria, the deadly epidemic which used to claim thousands of lives every year could be successfully controlled. There are roads named after him in many Indian towns and cities. In
Calcutta the road linking
Presidency General Hospital with Kidderpore Road has been renamed after him as Sir Ronald Ross Sarani. Earlier this road was known as Hospital Road.
Further Information
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