page_title: Ronald Ross
section_title: Discovery of malaria transmission in birds
hierarchical_section_title: Ronald Ross / Career / India / Discovery of malaria transmission in birds
caption_attribution_description: Sir R. Ross on the steps of laboratory in Calcutta, 1898. With Mrs Ross, Mahomed Bux and laboratory assistants in the foreground, cages for malarial birds. Wellcome Images Keywords: India; Malaria; Ronald Ross
context_page_description: Sir Ronald Ross KCB KCMG FRS FRCS was a British medical doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission of malaria, becoming the first British Nobel laureate, and the first born outside Europe. His discovery of the malarial parasite in the gastrointestinal tract of a mosquito in 1897 proved that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, and laid the foundation for the method of combating the disease. He was a polymath, writing a number of poems, published several novels, and composed songs. He was also an amateur artist and natural mathematician. He worked in the Indian Medical Service for 25 years. It was during his service that he made the groundbreaking medical discovery. After resigning from his service in India, he joined the faculty of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and continued as Professor and Chairman of Tropical Medicine of the institute for 10 years. In 1926 he became Director-in-Chief of the Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases, which was established in honour of his works. He remained there until his death.
context_section_description: In September 1897, Ross was transferred to Bombay, from where he was subsequently sent to a malaria-free Kherwara in Rajputana (now Rajasthan). Frustrated of lack of work he threatened to resign from service as he felt that it was a death blow to his pursuit. It was only on the representation of Patrick Manson, that the government arranged for his continued service in Calcutta on a "special duty". On 17 February 1898 he arrived in Calcutta (now Kolkata), to work in the Presidency General Hospital. He immediately carried out research in malaria and Visceral leishmaniasis (also known as kala azar), for which he was assigned. He was given the use of Surgeon-Lieutenant-General Cunningham's laboratory for his research. He had no success with malarial patients because they were always immediately given medication. He built a bungalow with a laboratory at Mahanad village, where he would stay from time to time to collect mosquitoes in and around the village. He employed Mahomed (or Muhammed) Bux, Purboona (who deserted him after the first payday), and Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay as laboratory assistants. As Calcutta was not a malarious place, Manson persuaded him to use birds, as being used by other scientists such as Vasily Danilewsky in Russia and William George MacCallum in America. Ross complied but with a complaint that he "did not need to be in India to study bird malaria". By March he began to see results on bird parasites, very closely related to the human malarial parasites. Using more convenient model of birds (infected sparrows), by July 1898 he established the importance of culex mosquitoes as intermediate hosts in avian malaria. On 4 July he discovered that the salivary gland was the storage sites of malarial parasites in the mosquito. By 8 July he was convinced that the parasites are released from the salivary gland during biting. He later demonstrated the transmission of malarial parasite from mosquitoes (in this case Culex species) to healthy sparrows from an infected one, thus, establishing the complete life cycle of malarial parasite.
  In September 1898 he went to southern Assam in (northeast India) to study an epidemic of Visceral leishmaniasis. He was invited to work there by Dr Graham Col Ville Ramsay, the second Medical Officer of the Labac Tea Estate Hospital. (His microscope and medicals tools are still preserved, and his sketches of mosquitoes are still on display at the hospital.) However, he utterly failed as he believed that the kala-azar parasite (Leishmania donovani, the very scientific name he later gave in 1903) was transmitted by a mosquito, which he refers to as Anopheles rossi. (It is now known that kala azar is transmitted by sandflies.)
caption: Ross, Mrs Ross, Mahomed Bux, and two other assistants at Cunningham's laboratory of Presidency Hospital in Calcutta
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