From Major Ronald Ross to the Secretary to the Director General, Indian Medical Service, Simla.

  • Ross, Ronald, Sir, 1857-1932.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: From Major Ronald Ross to the Secretary to the Director General, Indian Medical Service, Simla. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    From MAJOR RONALD ROSS, Indian Medical Service, On Special Duty, To THE SECRETARY TO THE DIRECTOR GENERAL, Indian Medical Service, Simla. i C A Q i b * O it*' ,;J.. •*«* I. library bp Dated Calcutta, 16th February iSgg. Sir, I have the honour to address you, on completion of my term of special duty for the investigation of malaria, on the subject of the practical results as regards the prevention of the disease which may be expected to arise from my researches : and I trust that this letter may be submitted to Government if the Director General thinks fit. It has been shewn in my reports to you that the parasites of malaria pass a stage of their existence in certain species of mosquitoes, by the bites of which they are inoculated into the blood of healthy men and birds. These observations have solved the problem—previously thought insolvable—of the mode of life of these parasites in external nature. My results have been accepted by Dr. Laveran, the discoverer of the parasites of malaria; by Dr. Manson, who elaborated the mosquito theory of malaria; by Dr. Nuttall of the Hygienic Institute of Berlin, who has made a special study of the relations between insects and disease; and, I understand, by M. Metchinkoff, Director of the Laboratory of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Lately, moreover, Dr. C. W. Daniels of the Malaria Commission, who has been sent to study with me in Calcutta, has confirmed my observations in a special report to the Royal Society ; while, lastly, Professor Grassi and Drs. Bignami and Bastianelli of Rome have been able, after receiving specimens and copies of my reports from me, to repeat my experiments in detail, and to follow two of the parasites of human malaria through all their stages in a species of mosquito called the Anopheles Claviger. It may, therefore, be finally accepted as a fact that malaria is communicated by the bites of some species of mosquito ; and, to judge from the general laws governing the development of parasitic animals, such as the parasites of malaria, this is very probably the only way in which infection is acquired, in which opinion several distinguished men of science concur with me.