Ronald Ross

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Ronald Ross : biography

13 May 1857 – 16 September 1932

During his active career Ross advocated the task of prevention of malaria in different countries. He carried out surveys and initiated schemes in many places, including West Africa, the Suez Canal zone, Greece, Mauritius, Cyprus, and in the areas affected by the First World War. He also initiated organisations, which have proved to be well established, for the prevention of malaria within the planting industries of India and Sri Lanka, and declared 20 August World Mosquito Day. He made many contributions to the epidemiology of malaria and to methods of its survey and assessment. Perhaps his greatest was the development of mathematical models for the study of its epidemiology, initiated in his report on Mauritius in 1908, elaborated in his Prevention of malaria in 1911 and further elaborated in a more generalised form in scientific papers published by the Royal Society in 1915 and 1916. These papers represented a profound mathematical interest which was not confined to epidemiology, but led him to make material contributions to both pure and applied mathematics.

Through these works Ross continued his great contribution in the form of the discovery of the transmission of malaria by the mosquito. He also found time and mental energy for many other pursuits, being a poet, playwright, writer and painter. Particularly, his poetic works gained him wide acclaim which was independent of his medical and mathematical standing.

Family

Ross married Rosa Bessie Bloxam in 1889. They had two sons, Ronald and Charles, and two daughters, Dorothy and Sylvia. His wife died in 1931. Ross died a year later after a long illness and asthma attack, at Bath House. He was buried at the nearby Putney Vale Cemetery.

Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases

The Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases was founded and in 1926 established at Bath House, a grand house with keeper’s lodge and large grounds adjacent to Tibbet’s Corner at Putney Heath. The hospital was opened by the then Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. It was later incorporated into the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Keppel Street. Bath House was later demolished and mansion flats built on the property. In memory of its history and owner the block was named Ross Court. Within the grounds an older dwelling, Ross Cottage, remains.