World Malaria Day

Sir Ronald Ross

Today is World Malaria Day, this gives us the opportunity to highlight some the historical malaria collections that we have in the LSHTM archives. We hold the papers of Sir Ronald Ross, discoverer of the mosquito transmission of malaria and the first Briton to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine, this collection comprises of his notebook where he made his discovery on 20th August 1897, photographs, reports, publications, correspondence and a microscope. Ross corresponded with Sir Patrick Manson, founder of the School and so-called

Mosquito box

Father of Tropical Medicine; his collection includes a mosquito box, used to transport mosquitoes from Italy to London which were feed on volunteers who then developed malaria. Other collections include the papers of Professor Leeson who led a School expedition to East Africa in 1936 to study malaria, we have a film of the trip, photos and documents including camping lists and expenses; the papers of Christopher Draper who worked at the School  for much of his career from the 1950s to 1980s; and we also have a large collection of maps relating to malaria.

For further information, please go the archives website