Ronald Ross

Sir Ronald Ross (1857 to 1932) was a British medical doctor who received the 1902 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on malaria. 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 worked in the Indian Medical Service for 25 years, during which he made the discovery, and after resigning he joined the faculty of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, continuing for ten years as Professor and Chairman of Tropical Medicine. In 1926 he became Director-in-Chief of the Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases, established in honour of his work, and he remained there until his death. He was also a polymath who wrote poems and novels, composed songs and was an amateur artist and mathematician.