Ronald Ross
Bacteriologist
Biography
He was born May 13, 1857 in Almora, India. He was a British bacteriologist. Studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in England. A lot of his career was spent in the Indian Medical Service because of the major health problem, in India, malaria. He started focusing his studies on the cause of malaria in 1890. His research helped the present understanding of how the disease in transmitted by mosquitoes. Died September 16, 1932 in London, United Kingdom.
Achievements
Ross is famous for his discovery of how malaria is transmitted. Ross based his research off of Charles Laveran's, another scientist, observations that the blood of malaria patients contained parasites. In 1894, fellow scientist Sir Patrick Manson suggested that mosquitoes were responsible for transmitting these parasites to humans. August 16, 1897, Ross had ten mosquitoes feed on a malaria patient who had agreed to be volunteer. Ross dissected the mosquitoes after a couple days. When he studied the mosquito's stomach tissue, he found cells too small to be mosquito stomach cells. Inside each cell was a cluster of black granules just like the parasites Laveran found in malaria patients. Ross then concluded that the cause of malaria was mosquitoes. He was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. This discovery was vital for biochemist Manuel Patarroyo when creating the world's first safe and effective malaria vaccine in 1994.
Bibliography
"Ronald Ross." World of Health. Gale, 2007. Biography in Context. Web. 7 Jan. 2016.
"Sir Ronald Ross." Merriam Webster's Biographical Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995.Biography in Context. Web. 7 Jan. 2016.
"The Other Look of COLOMBIA." The Other Look of COLOMBIA. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2016.