Mosquitoes and Malaria

Abstract

WITH reference to the recent article on the Ronald Ross Jubilee¹, it may be of interest to note that, in a paper read at a meeting of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in April 1892, Dr. H. Martyn Clark, of Amritsar, remarked "that, as some insects carry the pollen of one plant to the flower of another, so mosquitos [sic] transplant the malarial germ to a suitable nidus by directly inoculating their victims with it"². He further stated that "it will probably some day be ascertained that the mosquito fulfils a part in their [that is, the germs of malaria] transmission". As Ross met Manson in 1894, and Manson brought forward the mosquito theory in that year, Clark‘s adumbration seems to be worthy of recall.