Ronald Ross was the first British Nobel laureate, receiving
the prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission
of malaria. His discovery of the malarial parasite in the gastrointestinal
tract of a mosquito in 1897 proved that the malaria was spread by mosquitos and
laid the foundation for methods to combat the disease. From 1902 to 1912 he was
Professor and Chair of Tropical Medicine at the Liverpool School of Tropical
Medicine.
He was born on 13th May 1857 at the Himalayan hill station of Almora, North-Western Provinces, the eldest of ten
children of General Sir Campbell Claye Grant Ross (1824–1892), then a captain in the 66th regiment of Gurkhas, and Matilda Charlotte, née Elderton. The Ross family had
strong links with India, his great-grandfather was a director of the East India
Company and his grandfather and an uncle served in the Bengal army. Ronald Ross
was sent to England for his schooling in 1865. His own preference for a career
would have been the army or work of an artistic nature but his father insisted
that he enrolled in St Bartholemew’s Hospital medical school in 1874. Never
more than an average student he qualified and spent some time employed as a
ship’s surgeon. In 1881 he returned to India, spending the next seven years in
the Indian Medical Service, his duties being light enough to allow him to pursue
his literary interests and publish a book of verse drama.
Whilst on
furlough in England in 1894, he sought
out Patrick Manson, the leading British expert on tropical diseases,
their discussions providing the spark for his subsequent researches into the
transmission of malaria. After retiring from the Indian Medical Service he joined
the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, newly established by Liverpool
philanthropists, especially Sir Alfred Jones. Under the auspices of the Liverpool school, went on
malaria expeditions to Sierra Leone (1899, 1901) and Lagos (1901). Having
been knighted in 1911, he left Liverpool in 1912, accepting an appointment as
consultant physician to King's College Hospital.
Ronald Ross married Rosa Bessie Bloxam in 1889. They had two daughters and two sons,
the younger son Charles being killed in 1914 in France in the early days of the
First World War. Ross died on 16th September 1932 in London.
When he first
moved to Liverpool Ross lived at 36 Bentley Road L8, later moving to 1 Princes
Park terrace L8.
