Sir Rubert Boyce. 



vn 



and strengthened. It was broken only by Sir Alfred's untimely death in 

 1909. By them in conjunction was founded the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine, now famous the world over. They launched its pioneer work of 

 combatting the diseases of the Tropics. Boyce organised the scientific and 

 technical part of the scheme ; he also collected a large part of the funds. 

 In a country where there are few or no governmental subventions the 

 only course open is the familiar way of all the public charities. Boyce 

 sometimes told his friends that when he died the word " cash " would be 

 found written across his heart. But his indefatigable hunt for funds was 

 pursued with considerable sense of humour. It often became a game wherein 

 no one was more amused than the wealthy and generous man who, meaning 

 to be close fisted, found he had subscribed handsomely. As time went on 

 the care of the new school and consequently the exploration — one might 

 almost say the exploitation — of tropical disease in general became the 

 interest most absorbing Boyce. His history becomes largely a history of the 

 school itself. An initial question had been the appointment of a Director. 

 To the disappointment of sundry local hopes there was for Boyce's mind but 

 one man possible, Major (now Professor Sir) Bonald Eoss, then on his way 

 home from India, discoverer of the mosquito-borne nature of malaria. Eoss 

 was secured, and the Directorship soon became, through Sir Alfred's 

 generosity, an endowed University Chair. In 1901 commenced the series of 

 expeditions sent by the School to tropical countries to investigate the diseases 

 in their habitat there. In the first six years of its existence the School 

 despatched no fewer than seventeen expeditions. Costly in life and money as 

 these were, they were also rich in theoretical and practical results. Boyce 

 pushed their prosecution with an unfailing optimism. In 1905 he himself 

 went to the yellow fever outbreaks in New Orleans and British Honduras. 



It was in September, 1906, that, in a period of strenuous work exceptional 

 even for him, at Harrogate, where he wished to establish a sanatorium 

 for patients from the tropics, Boyce was struck down by a paralytic seizure 

 affecting his left side. He faced the disaster with a courage truly heroic. 

 He never regained complete power in his arm and leg, but after twelve 

 months he partially resumed work at the University. He evidenced some 

 lack of emotional control, but his vivacity was unabated and his desire to be 

 doing just as keen as ever. Partially cut off from other work he devoted 

 himself unsparingly to the campaign, by that time become international, 

 for securing a cleaner health bill for the Tropics. Invalid though he was, he 

 visited the West Indies to report at the instance of the Government on 

 yellow fever in 1909. West Africa for the same purpose he visited in the 

 following year. Not content with official reports of these expeditions he 

 set to work to impress the importance of tropical preventive medicine on the 

 general public. The result was the publication in two short years of 

 the books ' Mosquito or Man ' and ' Health Progress and Administration in 

 the West Indies.' Written in a clear style and addressed to the general 

 reader, these set forth the bearing of recent biological discoveries on human 



