Doctors of Medicine in New Mexico: a history of health and medical practice 1886–1986

it over and proceed!" In that light, some might query the prominence given the glossary that precedes the text. Second, while the body of Ross's narrative appears faithful to the original, several dates have been corrected and some changes made in spelling and in reference style, all reasonable alterations except that they pass unremarked. Ross was born in 1857 in India amidst the drama of the great Indian Mutiny, and he died in 1932 in the drama of the Great Depression. During his life he provided his own dramas, the greatest of which was played out in India in pursuit of the malaria problem. That story Ross describes in evocative prose and abundant detail, most of it drawn directly from his correspondence with Patrick Manson, the mentor who set him on to mosquitoes as possible vectors. The hypothesis was Manson's, the actual inquiries and labour Ross's. His success in incriminating mosquitoes took four years oftenacious work under trying circumstances. Of such matters Ross wrote in his Preface that "many discoveries have really been the climax of an intense drama-full of hopes and despairs, visions seen in darkness, many failures, and a final triumph-in which the protagonists are man and nature, and the issue a decision for all the ages". Ross's triumph brought him Sweden's Nobel Prize in 1902, a knighthood, the FRS, and many other recognitions; and his 1923 Memoirs-which he dedicated pointedly to the Swedes, not to the British-also earned a prize. He was a prodigious worker who projected his talents beyond the Great Problem to make contributions to mathematics, epidemiology, and literature. His archives, comprising some 32,000 items, reflect Ross's industry and his evident concern about a place in history. For all of that, Ross was a difficult and troubled man: his dogged but fruitless pursuit of a pecuniary award from Britain's Parliament for his malaria work, his bitter disputes with the Italians over priority, and his lamentable falling out with Manson, were but three affairs in which Ross's sense of proportion failed him. The Keynes Press publication from the Memoirs represents a signal tribute to Ross's hard-won solution of the Great Malaria Problem. No figure in tropical medicine, and few in any other field, could match Ross for his ability to write history as well as make it.