Researched
Mosquitoes Spread Malaria (Ross)
On 20 August 1897 Ronald Ross found malaria parasites in the stomach of an Anopheles mosquito, proving that mosquitoes spread the disease and showing how to fight it.
Open in the interactive tree →Alphonse Laveran had seen the parasite inside red blood cells in Algeria in 1880, but how people caught it was unknown. Ross, an army surgeon in Secunderabad, India, found it in an Anopheles mosquito in August 1897 and in 1898 traced bird malaria in Culex mosquitoes, while Giovanni Grassi's group worked out the full life cycle of the human malaria parasites in Anopheles. Ross won the 1902 Nobel Prize, and the discovery is the basis of fighting malaria by draining breeding sites, spraying and bed nets, all aimed at the mosquito.
Prerequisites
- Microscope1665The parasite was found by looking at blood and mosquito guts under the microscope.
- Germ Theory1861Malaria was understood to be caused by a living parasite.
Unlocks
- Eradicating MalariaopenBed nets, spraying and drainage all aim at the Anopheles mosquito that Ross identified.
Sources
More in Medicine · Industrial Age
- Smallpox Inoculation1721
- Vaccination1796
- Stethoscope1816
- Anesthesia1846
- Epidemiology1854
- Cellular Pathology (Virchow)1858
- Sewers and Clean Water1858
- Germ Theory1861