WAVES OF ILLNESS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 5

WAVES OF ILLNESS

DANGERS OF INFLUENZA

Sir Ronald Ross, Director-in-Chief of the Eoss Institute and Hospital at Putney, London, the eminent authority on tropical diseases, discussing recently the decision of the British Museum trustees to accept his historic collection of scientific manuscripts and correspondence (recently purchased by Lady Houston and offered by her to the museum), revealed that he is now working on and extending a Mathematical Theory of Happenings which demonstrates mathematically the incidence of influenza and other epidemic diseases, reports the "Sunday Times." "We may be able," said Sir Eonald, "without waiting to l'earu just what influenza is, to discover a method of preventing it, just as we prevent yellow fever only by knowing how it is carried. My own theory has always been that influenza and colds generally are carried by sneezing." Sir' Ronald, discussing his "Theory of Happenings,' 1 said: "A 'happening' is an event that happens to a proportion of the public while the uature of the public itself is changing by deathrate and birthrate, by emigration and immigration. You have to estimate what will be the number of people affected in a population at the end of a given time. "The dates of waves of illness may be anticipated. I invented this method some years ago. It is, to give it the right name, a hypothetical method of studying epidemics, and it will assist the work of prevention in such an epidemic as influenza. I am now extending the theory, with the assistance of Dr. Hilda P. Hudson.

"We do not yet know what influenza ■is, but Drs. David and Robert Thompson have published in tho 'Lancet' tho results of important investigations. They have studied one particular type Of bacillus, which consists of hundreds of species."

The decision of the British Museum Trustees to accept the Ross collection has been mainly due to the plea of the Ross Institute that the archives of their director might be housed at Putney. "So far from objecting," Sir Ronald said, "I think it is a great honour that my archives should go to the Museum. Mr. Gilson, Keeper of Manuscripts, has written to me asking that they may be sent for inspection and acceptance. They will bo always accessible to students there, and I am proud that they should be a national possession."

Sir Eonald has a special automatic stamp which is being used to number all the documents in sequence He has also added explanatory notes to many of the. manuscripts, and to'some of the letters from famous scientists concerning the researches which led to his great discovery of the cause of malaria,

The Nizam of Hyderabad's recent gift of £1000 to the Ross Institute was a. direct consequence, Sir Itonald stated, of the anti-malaria mission of his assistant, Sir Malcolm Watson, and Major Stevens, the secretary of the institute, who are. at present advising the Native Governments of India on the prevention of malaria.

"There aro most cheering signs of an awakening in India to the immense importance ot' subduing malaria," he said. The yearly toll of lives claimed by malaria is more than that of the World War. During the last thirty years neglect to take the right measures on the part of the British Government in India has coat many millions of lives. The local authorities, however, arc now beginning to do excellent work. Some of the Indian workers are very capable men. They are of a much finer typo than the old, rather fat, and lazy .Babu. The schemes being laid down for fighting malaria follow in general the lines on which Malcolm Watson practically cleared British Malaya of malaria.

"It is suggested now that Sir Malcolm Watson shall visit Kenya Colony on his way back from India, to iuvesti gate the malaria problem there. During his last .visit to Kenya the Prince of Wales interested himself in the subject, and ho reminded tho local authorlties that as patron of the Ross Institute he hoped that they would be enabled to make use of the knowledge at their disposal, and so remove the chief obstacle to the progress of lvenya.