Sir Ronald Ross was a British medical doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission of malaria, becoming the first British Nobel laureate, and the first born outside Europe. His discovery of the malarial parasite in the gastrointestinal tract of a mosquito in 1897 proved that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, and laid the foundation for the method of combating the disease.
Tropical medicine is an interdisciplinary branch of medicine that deals with health issues that occur uniquely, are more widespread, or are more difficult to control in tropical and subtropical regions.
William Crawford Gorgas KCMG was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria by controlling the mosquitoes that carry these diseases, for which he used the discoveries made by the Cuban doctor Carlos J. Finlay. At first, Finlay's strategy was greeted with considerable skepticism and opposition to such hygiene measures. However, the measures Gorgas put into practice as the head of the Panama Canal Zone Sanitation Commission saved thousands of lives and contributed to the success of the Canal's construction.
Major-General Sir David Bruce was a Scottish pathologist and microbiologist who made some of the key contributions in tropical medicine. In 1887, he discovered a bacterium, now called Brucella, that caused what was known as Malta fever. In 1894, he discovered a protozoan parasite, named Trypanosoma brucei, as the causative pathogen of nagana.
Sir Patrick Manson was a Scottish physician who made important discoveries in parasitology, and was a founder of the field of tropical medicine. He graduated from University of Aberdeen with degrees in Master of Surgery, Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Law. His medical career spanned mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and London. He discovered that filariasis in humans is transmitted by mosquitoes. This is the foundation of modern tropical medicine, and he is recognized with an epithet "Father of Tropical Medicine". This also made him the first person to show pathogen transmission by a blood-feeding arthropod. His discovery directly invoked the mosquito-malaria theory, which became the foundation in malariology. He eventually became the first President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He founded the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
William Henry Welch was an American physician, pathologist, bacteriologist, and medical-school administrator. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was the first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and was also the founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first school of public health in the country. Welch was more known for his cogent summations of current scientific work, than his own scientific research. The Johns Hopkins medical school library is also named after Welch. In his lifetime, he was called the "Dean of American Medicine" and received various awards and honors throughout his lifetime and posthumously.
Aldo Luigi Mario Castellani, Marchese di Chisimajo, KCMG was an Italian pathologist and bacteriologist. He is best remembered as discoverer of the etiology of sleeping sickness and Yaws (1905), as a pioneer in the development and use of combined vaccines.
Major-General Ian Patrick Crawford, was a British Army medical officer and expert on preventive medicine who was awarded the George Medal for saving the life of a Gurkha officer following a helicopter crash in the Borneo Jungle during the Malaysia-Indonesia confrontation in April 1964.
The Walter Reed Tropical Medicine Course at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is one of the many Tropical Medicine Training Courses available in the US and worldwide. It is an intensive 5-day course and a 3-day short course, created to familiarize students with tropical diseases they may encounter overseas. The course is open to Physicians, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, ESO, 18D, or other medical personnel. The course is run by the military and designed for personnel of the US Military and several other US government agencies.
George W. Hunter III was a parasitologist and educator with the US Army Sanitary Corps and Army Medical School. He is best known for his work with Schistosoma control and with the Tropical Medicine Course at the Army Medical School. The textbook he helped create for the Tropical Medicine Course now is the leading reference text for Tropical Medicine and the title bears his name.
Charles Brooke Worth was an American naturalist and virologist who worked as a professor at Swarthmore College, with the US Army during World War II, and then with the Rockefeller Foundation during the post-war period working on matters of public health and mosquito-borne diseases. He travelled around the world, including countries in Africa and Asia, and was the author of several books, including Manual of Tropical Medicine, A Naturalist in Trinidad, The Nature of Living Things, and Mosquito Safari: A Naturalist In Southern Africa, Of mosquitoes, moths, and mice.
Colonel Sir Edward Ford, was an Australian soldier, academic and physician. He played an important role in the anti-malaria campaign in the South West Pacific Area during the Second World War, and in preventative medicine in Australia after the war, but is best known for his Bibliography of Australian Medicine.
Edmund Alexander Parkes was an English physician, known as a hygienist, particularly in the military context.
Adetokunbo Oluwole Lucas was a Nigerian doctor who was considered a global leader in tropical diseases. Born in Lagos, he was educated in the United Kingdom and commenced his professional career in Nigeria. Lucas received the Prince Mahidol Award in 1999 for his support of strategic research on the tropical diseases. He served for ten years as the Director of Special Programmes for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases based at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He was Adjunct Professor of International Health Department of Global Health and Population of the Harvard School of Public Health. Lucas worked largely during his life time in his home nation of Nigeria and traveled frequently to the United Kingdom and to the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States.
Sir Arthur Newsholme was a leading British public health expert during the Victorian era.
Dalla Lana School of Public Health is the school of public health at the University of Toronto. It was founded in 1927, and was home for 50 years to Connaught Laboratories, a manufacturer of vaccines, insulin, and many other pharmaceutical products. Having grown to be the largest cluster of public health scholars in Canada, the school was revitalized in 2008 with the support of a major gift from the Dalla Lana family.
Sir Philip HenryManson-Bahr, CMG, DSO, MA Cantab, MB BChir, MD, MRCP, FRCP was an English zoologist and physician known for his contributions to tropical medicine. He changed his birth name to Manson-Bahr after marrying Edith Margaret Manson, daughter of the doyen of tropical medicine Sir Patrick Manson. Following his father-in-law, he devoted much of his career to tropical medicine. He was a Consulting Physician, and held high offices at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and at the London Hospital. He was knighted in 1941.
Frederick Creighton Wellman was an American physician specialising in tropical medicine, scientist, author, playwright, teacher, artist and engineer. As an author, he wrote under the pseudonyms Cyril Kay-Scott and Richard Irving Carson. His colorful life led to the epithet "the Casanova of Tropical Medicine".
Colonel Frederick Percival MackieCSI OBE KHS FRCP FRCS was an English physician who was in the Indian Medical Service between 1901 and 1931 working on the incidence, transmission, and pathology of insect-borne tropical diseases. He discovered the vectors for relapsing fever and kala-azar. He had important administrative responsibilities in Iraq during the First World War and emerged as a leading figure in Indian medical science, public health, and tropical hygiene between the wars as director of the Haffkine Institute in Bombay (Mumbai).
Janet Welch Mackie was an English doctor who worked mainly in East Africa and the United States. Her work, research and published material helped in establishing modern healthcare and nursing practices in the developing world. From 1926 until 1938, Welch worked as a medical missionary with the Church of Scotland, working mostly in Blantyre in modern day Malawi. In 1942 she emigrated to the United States. In 1946 she became an assistant professor at the Bowman Gray Medical School in North Carolina and eventually went on to become a medical consultant to the United States Public Health Service and World Health Organization.
