Memoirs : with a full account of the great malaria problem and its solution / by Ronald Ross.

  • Ronald Ross
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Memoirs : with a full account of the great malaria problem and its solution / by Ronald Ross. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    545/594 (page 505)
    an Imperial Malaria Conference was held at Simla, where many resolutions were passed, but, I think, nothing essential done. A commission was, however, appointed to report on the alleged experiment which was still being conducted at Mian Mir, with a view to finding whether mosquitoes can really be reduced— whether two and two really make four. Their report appeared next year and was destructively criticised by me and Colonel King in The Lancet, 5 November [90] and 3 December re¬ spectively. It appeared that 44 since 1905 the princely sum of £66 a year was allowed for the work. This, be it remembered, for a difficult country of 8 square miles occupied by 5 regiments and a total population of 16,000 people ! The sum amounts to 1 anna (about Id.) per head of population.” At the same time, I estimated that the disease was costing government four hundred times that amount for the military in the station alone ; and in my book I suggested that the whole 44 experi¬ ment ” was a public hoax. The Report of the Commission was itself simply incompetent. Early in 1911 Lord Crewe, who was now Secretary of State for India, visited my laboratory in Liverpool and agreed to receive memoranda from King and myself on the whole subject of malaria prevention in India ; these, dated respectively 4 and 3 April 1911 were duly despatched and at least moderated the opposition. They were not pub¬ lished. What has happened in India since then I have not attempted to follow. After returning from Mauritius in 1908 I spent most of my time writing my book The Prevention of Malaria [91]. It was issued, with contributions by twenty men who had made special local studies, including Gorgas, Howard, Celli, Savas, E. Sergent, A. Balfour, O. Cruz, and M. Watson, by Mr. Murray in 1910. The second edition, with an additional mathematical section on the 44 Theory of Happenings,” appeared next year. On returning from Greece in 1906 I had the idea of collecting and publishing my Fables (page 48) and giving the proceeds to my fund for the Grecian Anti-malaria League. With the capable assistance of Dr. John Sampson, Librarian of Liverpool University, the book [113] was beautifully printed and bound at my expense, and was brought out early in 1907 and sold by Henry Young & Sons of South Castle Street, Liverpool, at the price of half a crown. A most flattering review of it by no less an authority than Sir Edward Russell (afterwards Lord Russell), editor of The Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury, appeared in that journal of 5 January 1907, and this was followed by an equally pleasant review, which was itself a