Ronald Ross's Signed Memoirs Recounts Discovery of Malaria in Mosquitos and Preventing the Spread of the Disease Worldwide

Ronald Ross Malaria

First Edition

[Medicine][Malaria] Ross, Ronald. Memoirs (1923), signed first edition reflecting on the creation of modern tropical medicine authored by the physician whose 1897 demonstration of the malarial parasite within the mosquito established vector transmission and transformed global public health. Published in 1923, two decades after Ross became the first British recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1902, this autobiography recounts the discovery of mosquito-borne malaria in the late Victorian and Edwardian era British Empire. Ross’s work reoriented medical research toward preventive entomology and environmental intervention, profoundly shaping anti-malarial campaigns in India, Africa, and Ceylon. The present copy is augmented by a signed 1926 typed letter on Ross's letterhead tipped to the front flyleaf.
Ross, Ronald. Memoirs. London: John Murray, 1923. First edition. Typed letter signed “Ronald Ross,” dated March 25, 1926, tipped to the front flyleaf on Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases letterhead. In the letter, written shortly after his return to England from Ceylon, Ross references his recent journey and laments, “I am afraid that I could not manage to collect my verses during the Journey to Ceylon, because as usual there was so much doing on boardship that it was scarcely possible to do consecutive work of any kind….” The correspondence relates to his efforts to encourage the organization of malaria prevention initiatives within the planting industries of Ceylon, where British medical authorities viewed malaria as both a public health crisis and an impediment to economic productivity. The volume includes ten illustrated plates, comprising photographs and scientific illustrations, and recounts Ross’s experimental confirmation of mosquito transmission as well as subsequent anti-malarial advocacy. A lengthy contemporary pencil gift inscription on the front free endpaper references Ross’s poetry and his “great mosquito discovery,” and an ex-libris bookplate is affixed to the pastedown.

Octavo. 547 pages. Illustrated with ten plates. Original burgundy cloth boards. Some foxing to edges; textblock generally clean and tight; minimal shelf wear; tipped-in letter well preserved; pencil inscription and bookplate as noted. Overall very good. A first edition memoir and substantive signed letter dating to Ross’s late-career international advisory work, a layered document of scientific discovery and the development of tropical medicine in the early twentieth century.

Item #17831

Price: $3,400.00