24 SEPTEMBER 1932, Page 3

Sir Ronald Ross No one man by his own efforts

has saved more lives and prevented more sickness than did Sir Ronald Ross, whose death the civilized world is lamenting. The skill and patience with which as a hard-worked member of the Indian Medical Service Ross, between 1881 and 1899, traced the spread of malaria to the Anopheles mosquito were not more remarkable than the persistence and the practical ability with which he compelled the attention of Governments to his discovery, and devised measures for applying it in West Africa and elsewhere. Everyone should know that Ross's work made the tropics safe for the first time for Europeans, so that .West Africa is no longer the " White Man's Grave " and the fever-ridden Panama zone is relatively a health resort. The good that he did is immeasurable, whether in his own conquest of malaria or in the impetus that he gave to the study of tropical medicine, which he taught for many years at Liverpool. Ross, in addition, was an accomplished prose writer and his poetry had dis- tinction. It is a grave reproach to us as a nation that a man to whom humanity owes so infinitely much should reach old age so impoverished that he had to sell his scientific papers and depend for support upon a relief fund collect:d by friends.

* * * *