Manson, Sir Patrick (1844-1922), a Scottish physician, was called the father of tropical medicine. He demonstrated in 1877 that the parasite Filaria caused the disease elephantiasis. He later showed that mosquitoes carried the parasite (see Filaria ). In 1894, Manson suggested that mosquitoes also transmitted malaria to human beings, a theory later proven by the British physician Sir Ronald Ross. In 1900, Manson confirmed Ross’s findings.
Manson was born in Aberdeenshire (now Grampian Region), Scotland. Soon after graduating from the Aberdeen Medical School in 1866, he traveled to China, where he worked for 24 years. He helped establish the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1899.
