MILLION LIVES SAVED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21332, 5 November 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

MILLION LIVES SAVED

SCOURGE OF MALARIA ROSS AND MOSQUITOES ILL-REWARDED DISCOVERY Sir Ronald Ross, who has died at, (lie age of 75, became famous in connection willi the discovery that malaria is transmitted through the agency of mosquitoes. A son of General Sir Campbell Cluye Grant Ross, Sir Ronald, whose investigations eventually won for him the K.C.B. and K.C.M.G., in addition to many other honours, was trained at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and entered the Indian Medical Service. ITo specialised in the study of malaria, and discovered the life history of malaria parasites in mosquitoes. Sir Ronald blazed a trail of discovery which has made habitable areas aggregating in size to a-tliird of tlio world, says the Daily Express. A million lives saved from an insidious disease is tho record of his genius. Yet ho had to fight against the apathy of governments and the scoffing of unbelieving science for many years until action was taken to rid tropical countries of the scourge of this disease. Help and encouragement were given by Sir Patrick Maiison to find tho cause of malaria, and after two years' untiring work, when Sir Ronald's efforts were, crowned with success, the publication of his researches was met with indifference and opposition. The tremendous fight which followed lasted all his life. Slowly and surely the accuracy of Ross' diagnosis became recognised. In India, Malaya, Africa, Egypt, Panama, Palestine and Syria the methods

evolved by Ross to eradicate tile malaria scourge were applied with success. But lie was a disappointed man. in spile of the great benefits his discovery had brought to civilisation, lie knew such straitened circumstances that»in 1929 lie was compelled to sell for £2OOO the archives containing the story of his work, and a public subscription was raised to provide for his old age. Lady Houston bought these valuable records for the nation. They wore presented to the British Museum, and are now in the Ross Institute, the research centre on Putney Heath which Sir Ronald founded to continue his work on tropical diseases. Before this, Sir Ronald had petitioned Parliament for some reward for his work, as Jenncr did after his discovery of the principle of , vaccination. Jonner got £30,000, but Ross, though backed by medical and scientific organisations, got nolhing. Sir Ronald was also a poet of distinction. On August 20, 1897 —now remembered as " Mosquito Day " —when he first probed the secret of malaria, he sat in his tent and wrote these prophetic lines: Keeking his secret deeds "With tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, 0 million-murdering: Death, 1 know this little tliinjr A myriad men will save. . . . For tlie last five years or more Ross was paralysed, and had to be wheeled about in a bath chair, yet every day he

would go to the Ross Institute, and superintend the work of his laboratory. Sir Ronald's wife died in 1931. Their elder son, Lieutenant Ronald Campbell Ross, was killed in France early in the war in 1914.