 |
| Sir Ronald Ross en.wikipedia.org |
The entire humanity owes a lot to one colonial British Medical doctor who made a breakthrough discovery to get to the roots of this dreaded disease -Malaria. His name was Sir Ronald Ross. How many of you know that he did his intense research here on the Indian soil during the colonial period for which he got a Nobel prize in 1902. You must know that this great man achieved this feat despite many odds and poor encouragement from the British Government.
Sir Ronald Ross FRS FRCS (13 May 1857-16 September 1932), was the first British Nobel laureate and the first born outside of Europe. He got the covetous award in Physiology or Medicine in 1902 and for his work on the transmission of malaria. It was he who discovered that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes using a certain biological mechanism and paved the ways to fight the disease. He was associated with the Indian Medical Service for 25 years and during this period, he came up with an epoch-making medical discovery that had a large positive impact on the human population living across the globe.
Ronald Ross, born in Almora, NW India, was the eldest of ten children of Sir Campbell Claye Grant Ross, General in the British Indian Army, and Matilda Charlotte Elderton. He had his early education in England and had a passion for maths, music, and literature. However, on his father's strong advice, he joined St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in London, in 1874. In 1879, after passing the examinations of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, he entered the Indian Medical Service in 1881. Prior to that, he also successfully completed the mandatory Military Medical training that was a requisite for the military-related jobs. Soon, in the following years, he received a Diploma in Public Health from the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons and took a course in bacteriology which was useful to him in the later part of his research work on Malaria.
His medical assignment between September 1881 to 1894 took him to various parts of India. In 1883, while working in Bangalore
 |
| Dr.Ross, his wife & others, Presidency hospital, Calcutta. en.wikipedia.org |
Undaunted, he continued his work on Malaria and in July 1897, he managed to culture 20 adult “brown” mosquitoes from
His transfer to
Ronald Ross revived a Nobel Prize in 1902 for his discovery of the life cycle of
 |
| Grave of Sir Ronald Ross,england en.wikipedia.org |
The amazing aspect is he did his research with the same vigor unmindful of the poor support from the English government.
Dr Ross's discovery was a boon during the construction of the Panama Canal and other development projects in the tropical countries. During the American occupation of Havana, Cuba, regulations were put into effect by the United States Army for the control of yellow fever. Effective screening of houses, drainage systems, sewers, etc helped them eliminate the yellow fever and also malaria.
Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ross
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ross