SIR DONALD ROSS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 September 1932, Page 3

SIR DONALD ROSS

A NOTABLE. SCIENTIST. (United Press Association—By Electric 'Teiegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, September 16. The, dearth is announced of Sir llon’afld Rbss, ; the famous medical iilan, Who-found' the cause of malaria, and helped remove it.”’ 4 , PRESS TRIBUTES. LONDON, September . 16. , All ljawspapdrs -pa-y a tribute to Ur.’ Ross,' tlie conqueror of Mhlaria,. a's a man who made 'diie-third of the world inhabitable, and they express satisfaction that his declining years were mla-de happier •• by a fund totalling' £5,513. v • ’ Malaria, is caused by a little animal parasite in the blood; it is owe of the most widespread of all diseases, &n<l - in the aggregate is responsible for a great, inany deaths and. for an almost incalculable Amount of waste of human energy, of human life-capital.; during iperiods of illness. \v!as discovered by a Ffonchman, Laveran, and nobody took much notice. Whew Ronald Rosts' discovered that- the parasite was conveyed to man- by the mosquito, and proved it by laborious (and passionate year's of research, tracing the changes in the blood of man and in; thfe body of the mosquito, lie was offered a lectureship at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine at- a Salary of £250 > year, and an unspieoified proportion of the students’ fees, and he accepted the offer, as, otherwise the work would have collapsed. But the existenc e of this; knowledge during the war saved us. thousands of lives and millions cf money, even although is was not used to the limit. ' . i

It was. the work of Ross that made the building of the Paiwama Gannl possible, for the deadly malaria was kept at bay by destroying the mosquitoes. Lon aid Boss cam© of an Anglo-In-dian family with a tradition of service Ho wais born in Indan-, at a hill station in the Himalayas, three days after the Indian Mutiny broke out.. He was one of a family of ten.