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.

    551/594 (page 511)
    After the death of Sir Alfred Jones in 1909 Mr. W. H. Lever (now Lord Leverhulme) kindly became the chairman of our School. Possessed of immense business capacity, he is also a Heliconian, as proved by his beautiful houses and pictures ; and has, moreover, shown the world how to solve the housing problem by the example of Port Sunlight—men make houses, but also houses make men ! He added £800 a year to our School income straightaway. Now, in 1912, we had spent thirteen pleasant years in Liver¬ pool and had many friends there. My salary was small, but the ample university vacations allowed us numerous holidays for fishing or sea-bathing—at St. Mary’s Loch and Aberfoyle in Scotland, in Guernsey and the Isle of Man, at Llandulas, Corwen, Capel Curig, and Lake Ogwen in Wales, and at Loch Arrow and Roundstone in Ireland. In 1903 we moved from 26 Devonshire Road to 1 Aigburth Vale, and in 1910 to 1 Princes Park Terrace, overlooking that beautiful park. In June 1910 my former salary of £600 a year was increased to £800 a year (in both cases without share of students’ fees). About the same time a number of careful 44 enumerative studies ” on malaria and trypanosomes were done in Liverpool by those excellent workers Drs. David and John Thomson and Dr. G. C. E. Simpson, and others, under my direction [93] ; and Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence gave us £1,000 for experiments on the effect of extreme cold on such affections. I followed Sir Patrick Manson as President of the Society of Tropical Medicine (London) in 1909, and was Vice-President and Member of Council of the Royal Society in 1911-13 (I had received one of its Royal Medals in 1909). Jones left a large fortune at his death, and some of it was given to the School by his executor. I made an effort to have it employed for founding a Bureau of Tropical Medicine, distinct from teaching; but, as usual, the money went in bricks and mortar—for building new premises for the School. None of it was (at least in my time) given to increase the salaries of the workers. The Colonial Office estab¬ lished the Bureau, in part, under the capable direction of Dr. A. G. Bagshawe. In 1908-10, Colonel J. E. B. Seely, one of our Members of Parliament for Liverpool, was Under- my companions ; but the tables were turned when we reached Russia. There the crowds mistook the respectably dressed members for Russians and main¬ tained dead silence—until I appeared amongst them, when they recognised a true Briton and cheered themselves hoarse ! Thereafter the order always was, “ Ross, wave your top hat, will you ! ” It was, in fact, admitted that my top hat made the alliance between Britain and Russia, and so helped largely to win the war !