Ross, Ronald (1857-1932)

British physician and bacteriologist, born in India. From 1881 to 1899 he served in the Indian Medical Service, and during 1895-98 identified mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles as being responsible for the spread of malaria. Nobel prize 1902. Ross studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. On retiring from the Indian Medical Service in 1899, he returned to Britain, eventually becoming professor of tropical medicine at Liverpool. During World War I he was consultant on malaria to the War Office, and when the Ross Institute of Tropical Diseases was opened 1926, he became its first director. While on leave in England in 1894, Ross became acquainted with Scottish physician Patrick Manson, who suggested that malaria was spread by a mosquito. Returning to India, Ross collected mosquitoes, identifying the various species and dissecting their internal organs. In 1897 he discovered in an Anopheles mosquito a cyst containing the parasites that had been found in the blood of malarial patients. Later, using caged birds with bird malaria, Ross was able to study the entire life history of the parasite inside a mosquito, and the mode of transmission to the victim.