MOSQUITO

 August 20, 1897, British doctor Ronald Ross proved that malaria could be spread by mosquitoes. Ross was practicing medicine in Secunderabad, Andra Pradesh, India, and began studying the disease after he himself fell ill with it.

Ross’ groundbreaking experiment had four major phases. First, Ross let uninfected mosquitoes feed on a patient already sick with the disease. Second, he tested the mosquitoes, showing they were now infected. In the third phase, he let an uninfected mosquito feed on an infected bird, then on an uninfected one. Finally, in the fourth phase, he tested the second bird, showing it had become infected after the mosquito bite. Ross won the 1902 Nobel Prize in Medicine for this important discovery.

Malaria is a tropical disease, mostly affecting people who live in hot and humid areas. Every year, about 216 million people suffer from the disease, and about 655,00

0 die.