Malaria and the Mosquito

What happened

For millennia malaria's cause was a mystery — its very name means 'bad air.' On 20 August 1897, working in India, the British doctor Ronald Ross found malaria parasites inside a mosquito that had fed on an infected patient, proving that the disease is spread by mosquito bites. He won the Nobel Prize in 1902.

Why it matters

Ross's discovery — alongside Walter Reed's work on yellow fever — showed that insects could transmit disease, opening the way to fight malaria and other scourges by controlling the mosquitoes that carry them.

Sources

• The Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1902: Ronald Ross · Reputable source