Ronald Ross: Malariologist and Polymath — A Biography

  • Edwin R. Nye &
  • Mary E. Gibson
Macmillan/St Martin's: 1997316Pp. £45,$59.95.
From life cycles to tricycles: Sir Ronald and Lady Ross, 1929.

On 20 August 1897, Ronald Ross made the critical observations that were to prove that mosquitoes transmit malaria. On that day, in Secunderabad, India, Ross peered down his cracked microscope and saw pigmented swellings (oocysts) embedded in the stomach wall of an Anopheles mosquito that had been fed on a malarious patient. In the stifling atmosphere of a dingy little military hospital, and unable to use the punka (ceiling fan) for fear that his dissected mosquitoes might blow away, Ross recorded his first signs of success.

After several years of frustration, while working on the problem in the Indian Medical Service, he had at last established that malaria parasites, identified by Alphonse Laveran in 1880, spent part of their life cycle in ‘dappled-winged’ (Anopheles ) mosquitoes. The mists of malaria were lifted and the following day Ross celebrated his discovery in verse that included the moving lines: “I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death”.

Ross's breakthrough has often been cited as one of the most dramatic discoveries in medical science, and Ross himself was anxious to remind the world of its significance and to reap its rewards. It is a fitting tribute to Ross that Edwin R. Nye and Mary E. Gibson have produced this elegant and illuminating biography during his discovery's centenary year. Their book is more than an account of a great discovery. It reveals Ross (1857-1932) as a family man, malariologist and polymath who was caring, committed and, above all, determined to receive due recognition and financial reward for his discovery.

Ross emerges from this biography as one of the most active, ambitious and embittered pioneers in the history of tropical medicine. We read of his personal and scientific activities, extensive travels, interactions and quarrels with scientists, politicians and writers, his time at the Liverpool School of Hygiene, his literary and mathematical achievements, and the many accolades he received, including a fellowship of the Royal Society, the Nobel prize for medicine in 1902, a knighthood, and the legacy of the Ross Institute.

The authors have no shortage of material from which to construct their narrative. Much of Ross's story is already known from his Memoirs, which won him the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography in 1923 and were republished in part in 1988 as The Great Malaria Problem and its Solution. Ross's self-portrait is richly reinforced and supplemented by Nye and Gibson's selection of extracts from the unpublished Ross archives.

Ross was so obsessed with the need to keep a record of his personal achievements and to prove his priority in solving the great malaria problem that he requested and managed to obtain copies of letters he had sent to his numerous correspondents.

It is through his writings that the authors describe Ross's bitter disputes with colleagues and authorities, particularly his rift with Patrick Manson, the ‘father of tropical medicine’ who had first encouraged Ross to explore the link between malaria and mosquitoes, and his venom towards the Italian malariologist Giovanni Grassi. It would, however, have been interesting to have included more about the scientific activities and contributions of the Italian malariologists. For although Ross, while stationed in Calcutta in 1898, was able to follow up his initial discovery by showing the life cycle of bird malaria, it was the Italians who, later in the same year, worked out the complete life cycle of human malaria. We will, perhaps, have to await the Grassi centenary in 1998 to get the other side of the story.

The Ross archives played an important role in Ross's political manoeuvrings. In 1928, having unsuccessfully petitioned the British Parliament to reward his research, as it had Edward Jenner a century earlier when he discovered the smallpox vaccine, Ross made his grievance public by selling his personal papers for £2,000, a large sum at the time. He also fuelled a lively correspondence in the scientific literature, entitled “The Rewards of Research and How to Apply For It”. Undoubtedly, this dissatisfied scientist would have been well-satisfied that his biographers have given prominence to his strong personal feelings of pecuniary injustice — an issue as troublesome to scientists today as it was a century ago.

The rewards of Ross's research must, however, be seen in another light. Ross, Grassi and others not only transformed the understanding of malaria but they laid the foundations for the application of work on the practical control of the disease. For the first time in history, it was possible to show that, if the mosquito vector could be eliminated, malaria transmission could be prevented.

Shortly after his discovery, Ross turned his attention with passion and zeal to the prevention of malaria. Although the authors make an excellent job of portraying Ross as malariologist and polymath, they are much less effective in discussing the early schemes of malaria control that were opened up by Ross's pioneering work. They also miss an opportunity to examine Ross's ideas for the prevention of malaria, including the cost, value and feasibility of ‘mosquito brigades’, chemoprophylaxis and bed-nets, in the context of current policy.

The successes and failures of anti-larvae measures immediately following Ross's discovery, especially the contrasting outcomes in Panama and at Mian Mir in what is now Pakistan, not only demonstrated the possibilities and limits of eliminating the mosquito vector but also set in motion a series of dichotomies about how best to control malaria. The legacies of these early debates, which are not developed in this biography, have resurfaced throughout the twentieth century and are still with us. Indeed, it is a sad irony that, 100 years after Ross's brilliant discovery, ways of tackling the great malaria problem remain unresolved.

At the Second Global Meeting of Parasitology held in Hyderabad, India, in August to commemorate the centenary of Ross's discovery, the hope, the frustration and the determination to control malaria were as much in evidence as they had been in the early twentieth century. If one lesson has to be learnt from this history, it is the difficulties of moving forward from the results of scientific discovery.

Ross would have been delighted by the attention he has received in this centenary year. Not only have we welcomed this biography, we have also witnessed the renaming of a road and a hospital in his honour, the renovation of his laboratory in Secunderabad, the unveiling of Ross busts, and his picture projected on postage stamps and T-shirts. But Ross would not have been happy to learn that 300-500 million people are still suffering from malaria 100 years after ‘Mosquito Day’ 1897.

I hope that this biography will be read both for its own merits and as a way of stimulating further interest in Ross's views and vision for the prevention of malaria.