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W F Bynum and Caroline Overy (eds), The beast in the mosquito: the correspondence of Ronald Ross and Patrick Manson, Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine, Clio Medica 51, Amsterdam and Atlanta, Rodopi, 1998, pp. xxxv, 528, illus., L78.50, $132.00 (hardback 90-420-0731-1), L24,50, $41.50 (paperback 90-420-0721-4).
The correspondence between Ronald Ross and Patrick Manson documents one of the legendary collaborations in the history of medicine and science in the nineteenth century. Their four-year collaboration (1894-1898) led to the discovery of the transmission of the plasmodia protozoa in the bite of the mosquito. With the advantage of a century of research, it is easy to look back on their achievement as one in a long series of breakthroughs. This was hardly the case. Even Charles Alphonse Laveran, who in 1880 proposed a causal relationship between the presence of pigmented bodies in the blood and malaria disease, faced a chilly reception for five years. Thereafter, researchers in Italy elaborated the asexual stage of the plasmodia in the human body. There was still no consensus about the meaning of the crescent and flagella forms, that is the equivalent of the sexual stage of the protozoa outside the bloodstream. In December 1894 Manson inserted himself into a growing international competition. Observing the transformation...