Sir Ronald Ross 215 



To solve the problem we have referred to, Sir Ronald 

 Ross toiled for years in India, being encouraged by Sir 

 Patrick Manson at home. A dozen times he nearly aban- 

 doned hope of finding the evidence that he sought. His 

 eyesight nearly failed under the strain. He became 

 so weary that when he found his first clue he did not 

 realize that he was on the verge of success after years 

 of failure.' 



The story of how this remarkable man, whose services 

 to humanity have even now not received just recompense 

 from those enriched by his work, finally detected the 

 means by which the germs of malaria are spread is one 

 of the most romantic in the whole history of scientific 

 research. Had he failed, millions now living in Asia, 

 Africa, and America would be dead. 



Of all tropical diseases the most common is malarial 

 fever. It causes roughly one-third of all the attendances 

 at hospitals in the tropics, and about one-third of the 

 entire population in many hot countries suffers from it 

 every year. Although only about one case in several 

 hundreds proves fatal, yet the disease is so prevalent that 

 the total number of deaths due to it is colossal. It has 

 been officially estimated that in India alone something 

 like 1,300,000 deaths are caused by it in an average year. 

 It has affected Europe as far north as Holland and 

 England. In Greece and around Rome the disease was 

 until recently a curse. Over a vast part of the earth's 

 surface malaria remains a plague which threatens at every 

 turn all who live within the region affected. 



For years scientists and doctors sought the secret of 

 how it was spread. Some declared it to be caused by the 

 night air, others that it came from infected water. 

 Both theories were to be disproved. 



In demonstrating to the world how malaria was spread, 

 and thus how it could be fought, Manson and Ross 

 defeated the tiny flying insect which until the beginning 



