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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index R > Sir Ronald Ross Quotes

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Sir Ronald Ross
(13 May 1857 - 16 Sep 1932)

English physician, bacteriologist and mathematician.


Science Quotes by Sir Ronald Ross (9 quotes)

I have failed in finding parasites in mosquitoes fed on malaria patients, but perhaps I am not using the proper kind of mosquito.
— Sir Ronald Ross
Letter to his wife (14 Aug 1897). In Memoirs, With a Full Account of the Great Malaria Problem and its Solution (1923), 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Feeding (7)  |  Find (1014)  |  Kind (564)  |  Malaria (10)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Patient (209)  |  Proper (150)  |  Using (6)

Lately, however, on abandoning the brindled and grey mosquitos and commencing similar work on a new, brown species, of which I have as yet obtained very few individuals, I succeeded in finding in two of them certain remarkable and suspicious cells containing pigment identical in appearance to that of the parasite of malaria. As these cells appear to me to be very worthy of attention … I think it would be advisable to place on record a brief description both of the cells and of the mosquitos.
— Sir Ronald Ross
In 'On Some Peculiar Pigmented Cells Found in Two Mosquitoes Fed on Malarial Blood', British Medical Journal (18 Dec 1897), 1786. Ross continued this study and identified how malaria was transmitted.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Both (496)  |  Brief (37)  |  Brown (23)  |  Cell (146)  |  Certain (557)  |  Description (89)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Identical (55)  |  Individual (420)  |  Malaria (10)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Pigment (9)  |  Record (161)  |  Species (435)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Work (1402)

Science is the Differential Calculus of the mind. Art the Integral Calculus; they may be beautiful when apart, but are greatest only when combined.
— Sir Ronald Ross
Quoted in The Complete Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid 1920-76 (1978), Vol. 2, 1360.
Science quotes on:  |  Apart (7)  |  Art (680)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Combination (150)  |  Differential Calculus (11)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Integral (26)  |  Integral Calculus (7)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Science And Art (195)

The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito. … She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite—what if the parasites get into the system in this manner.
— Sir Ronald Ross
Letter (27 May 1896) to Patrick Manson. In The Great Malaria Problem and Its Solution: From the Memoirs of Ronald Ross (1988), 72. Ross asked for Manson’s opinion; the ellipsis above, in full is: “What do you think?” As quoted in William Derek Foster, A History of Parasitology (1965), 173. (It was for this insight that Ross was awarded a Nobel Prize.)
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Bite (18)  |  Disease (340)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Growing (99)  |  Injection (9)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Small (489)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)

The Panama Canal was dug with a microscope.
— Sir Ronald Ross
Attributed. He wrote “I have said elsewhere that the Panama Canal is being dug with a microscope,” in his Preface to Malcolm Watson, The Prevention of Malaria in the Federated Malay States (1921), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Canal (18)  |  Dig (25)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Panama Canal (3)

The student of biology is often struck with the feeling that historians, when dealing with the rise and fall of nations, do not generally view the phenomena from a sufficiently high biological standpoint. To me, at least, they seem to attach too much importance to individual rulers and soldiers, and to particular wars, policies, religions, and customs; while at the same time they make little attempt to extract the fundamental causes of national success or failure.
— Sir Ronald Ross
Introduction written by Ross for William Henry Samuel Jones, Malaria, a Neglected Factor in the History of Greece and Rome (1907), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Attach (57)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cause (561)  |  Custom (44)  |  Do (1905)  |  Extract (40)  |  Failure (176)  |  Fall (243)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  High (370)  |  Historian (59)  |  Importance (299)  |  Individual (420)  |  Little (717)  |  Nation (208)  |  Policy (27)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rise (169)  |  Ruler (21)  |  Soldier (28)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Striking (48)  |  Student (317)  |  Success (327)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  War (233)

The work … was … so blinding that I could scarcely see afterwards, and the difficulty was increased by the fact that my microscope was almost worn out, the screws being rusted with sweat from my hands and forehead, and my only remaining eye-piece being cracked… Fortunately my invaluable oil-immersion object-glass remained good.
— Sir Ronald Ross
From 'Researches on Malaria', Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps (May 1905), 4, No. 5, 549.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Crack (15)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Forehead (3)  |  Glass (94)  |  Good (906)  |  Hand (149)  |  Invaluable (11)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Object (438)  |  Oil (67)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Rust (9)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Screw (17)  |  See (1094)  |  Sweat (17)  |  Work (1402)

This day relenting God
Hath placed within my hand
A wondrous thing; and God
Be praised. At His command,
Seeking His secret deeds
With tears and toiling breath,
I find thy cunning seeds,
O million-murdering Death.
I know this little thing
A myriad men will save.
O Death, where is thy sting?
Thy victory, O Grave?
Poem he wrote following the discovery that the malaria parasite was carried by the amopheline mosquito.
— Sir Ronald Ross
From a privately printed book of verse, anonymously published, by R.R., In Exile (1906). As cited by S. Weir Mitchell, in 'The Literary Side of a Physician’s Life—Ronald Ross as a Poet', Journal of the American Medical Association (7 Sep 1907), 49, No. 10, 853. In his book, Ronald Ross stated “These verses were written in India between the years 1891 and 1899, as a means of relief after the daily labors of a long, scientific research.”
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Command (60)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Death (406)  |  Deed (34)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  God (776)  |  Grave (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Malaria (10)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Poem (104)  |  Save (126)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seed (97)  |  Sting (3)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Victory (40)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wondrous (22)

Well do I remember that dark hot little office in the hospital at Begumpett, with the necessary gleam of light coming in from under the eaves of the veranda. I did not allow the punka to be used because it blew about my dissected mosquitoes, which were partly examined without a cover-glass; and the result was that swarms of flies and of 'eye-flies' - minute little insects which try to get into one's ears and eyelids - tormented me at their pleasure
— Sir Ronald Ross
In Memoirs, With a Full Account of the Great Malaria Problem and its Solution (1923), 221.
Science quotes on:  |  Blowing (22)  |  Coming (114)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ear (69)  |  Examination (102)  |  Eye (440)  |  Eyelid (2)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gleam (13)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Hot (63)  |  Insect (89)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Minute (129)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Office (71)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Remember (189)  |  Result (700)  |  Swarm (15)  |  Torment (18)  |  Try (296)  |  Under (7)


See also:
  • 13 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Ross's birth.
  • Ronald Ross - Instructions for the Prevention of Malarial Fever for the Use of Residents (1900)
  • Ronald Ross: Malariologist and Polymath: A Biography, by E. R. Nye and Mary E. Gibson. - book suggestion.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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