Medical Pioneer: Ronald Ross
How one man’s discovery helped fight the world’s deadliest disease – malaria.
In 1897, whilst dissecting a mosquito’s stomach in an experiment in India, Doctor Ronald Ross made a startling discovery. In the mosquito’s gut he found 12 delicate circular cells, which he realised were parasites previously observed in the blood of malaria patients. This discovery confirmed the suspected, but till then unproven, link between malaria and mosquitoes, which transmit the disease through their bite.
After his discovery Ross went on to lead malaria prevention work around the world, including initiating programmes in West Africa, the Suez Canal zone, Greece and Mauritius, where he developed a ground breaking mathematical model to study the distribution and causes of the disease.
Ross was knighted in 1911 and in 1902, he became the first Briton to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
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Watch The Cure on Tuesday: 0930; Wednesday: 0330; Thursday: 1630; Friday: 1930; Saturday: 1430; Sunday: 0430; Monday: 0830 GMT.
