September 19, 1907] 



NA TURE 



519 



SOME SCIENTIFIC CENTRES. 

 X. — The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 



ON July 9, 1S98, Major Ronald Ross completed the 

 proof that the malaria of birds was transferred 

 by the bite of mosquitoes from infected to healthy 

 birds. In December, 1898, a commission was 

 dispatched by the Colonial Office to British Central 

 Africa to study blackwater fever, to inquire into the 

 truth of Ross's discoveries, and to study the whole 

 question further. 



.About this time. Sir Patrick Manson had been urging 

 the formation of schools of tropical medicine, and the 

 subject had received energetic support from Mr. Cham- 

 berlain. In Liverpool, also, the subject was warmly 

 taken up, and with such practical result that the first 

 tropical school was founded by Sir Alfred Jones, 

 K.C.M.G., in Noveniber, 1S9S. Major Ross was ap- 

 pointed the first lecturer of the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine, and the school was formally opened 

 by Lord Lister on .\pril 21, 1899, and on July i Major 

 Ross delivered his inaugural lecture, directing attention 

 to his scheme for extirpating malaria by attacking the 

 pool-breeding mosquitoes. The further result of this 

 was that at the end of July, 1899, 

 the first (malarial) expedition of 

 the school was dispatched to Sierra 

 Leone, West Africa. This was the 

 first of those expeditions to the 

 tropics which have made the school 

 famous. Since 1899 there has not 

 been a year in which some expedi- 

 tion has not been carrying out re- 

 search in the tropics, and at the 

 present moment there are at work 

 one in Brazil at yellow fever, 

 another in Africa on trypanoso- 

 miasis; and a third is on the point 

 of starting to study blackwater fever 

 in Central .Africa. 



The educative effect of these ex 

 peditions has been immense, and we 

 hardly think it can be doubted that 

 every person interested, not only in 

 West Africa, but in the tropics 

 generally, owes a deep debt to the 

 school. Not only has the direct 

 practical outcome in the saving of 

 life been great, but indirectly also a 

 powerful effect is exercised on the 

 young generation, so that now those 

 going to the tropics do so with a 

 knowledge of what risks they run in respect of malaria, 

 and how to avoid them. 



But, further, the influence of these e.xpeditions and 

 of the reports furnished by them has given an immense 

 impetus to anti-mosquito measures all over the world. 

 The most successful instance and the best known of 

 these measures has been the extinction of malaria 

 at Ismailia, and perhaps it is not too much to claim 

 that the influence of the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine has determined the magnificent success of 

 anti-mosquito measures under Col. Gorgas^ against 

 3'ellow fever at Havana. 



In this connection it is of interest to point out that 

 Major Ross will read a paper at Berlin this autumn 

 summing up the progress of anti-malarial measures in 

 British Possessions all over the world. The gain to 

 the public is, then, we believe, a great one. That the 

 scientific results have been not inconsiderable is 

 evident from the publications of the well-known 

 memoirs of the school. Since 1899, when the first 

 memoir was published, twenty-one memoirs had been 

 published up to igo6, together with a text-book, " The 



NO. 1977, VOL. 76] 



Practical Study of Malaria and Other Blood Para- 

 sites." 



Perhaps the two most striking discoveries recorded 

 in these memoirs were, firstly, that of Dutton, of a 

 human trypanosome in man, T. gambiense, the find- 

 ing of which was the forerunner of that of the same 

 trypanosome as the causative agent of sleeping 

 sickness; and, secondly, Dutton and Todd discovered, 

 independently of Milne and Ross, the spirochaete, S. 

 duttoni, of African tick fever, and they showed that 

 it was transmitted by the tick Ornitbodorus initubata. 



Thus the school can claim a worthy, if not exclusive, 

 share in the elucidation of three of the great diseases 

 of .Africa, viz. malaria, sleeping sickness (trypan- 

 osomiasis, and .African tick fever. Thomas's success- 

 ful experiment in Manaos in infecting chimpanzees 

 with yellow fever by means of mosquitoes is also 

 worthy of mention. 



These expeditions: have cost the school large sums of 

 monev, and have also involved the loss of two valuable 

 lives, viz. those of Dr. Walter Myers and Dr. J. E. 

 Dutton. Myers, who gave promise at Cambridge of a 

 distinguished career, died of yellow fever at Para 

 shortlv after the commencement of his work. Dutton 's 



Prof. Ronald Ross, F.R.S. 



brilliant career was cut short by death while working 

 in the Congo. Two recent developments show that the 

 school is still in vigorous youth, and is not content 

 with its past achievements. We have above alluded to 

 the publication of the memoirs. These memoirs were 

 exclusively devoted to the publications of the results 

 of the various expeditions of the school, and from this 

 cause and from their somewhat expensive price it was 

 thought advisable to change their form and to enlarge 

 their scope. A journal of high standard devoted to 

 tropical medicine and parasitology has long been 

 needed, and it was resolved to admit publications 

 from others than those who were connected with the 

 school. The result has been to establish the " .Annals 

 of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology," which pro- 

 mises to have a successful and useful career before it. 

 The expeditions, as we have already stated, have 

 become a marked feature of the school's activity. They 

 have necessitated the establishment of special research 

 laboratories. For although underlying these expedi- 

 tions is the idea that research into tropical disease is 

 best carried out in the area where the disease is 



