Sir Ronald RossDied 16 Sep 1932 at age 75 (born 13 May 1857). English physician, bacteriologist and mathematician who locatedthe malarial parasite in the gut of the Anopheles mosquito, identifying it as the disease vector.For this discovery he became the first British Nobelist, when he was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. His study of malaria began in 1892. By 1894 he conducted experiments in India to determine the validity of the hypothesis of Alphonse Laveran and Patrick Manson that mosquitoes spread the disease. It took two and a half years' effort before Ross succeeded in elucidating the life-cycle of malarial parasites in mosquitoes. In later work, in West Africa, he also determined the mosquito species carrying the deadly African fever.« |
