Patrick Manson: mosquitoes and a medical legacy
Dubbed the father of tropical medicine, Sir Patrick Manson - who helped discover the mosquito's role in spreading malaria - left a legacy that reverberates through Hong Kong's medical community today, writes Stuart Heaver
With anxiety mounting about the potential spread of the deadly Ebola virus from West Africa, it is an appropriate time to mark the 170th anniversary of the birth of Sir Patrick Manson, a pioneer in the fight against infectious diseases, who is widely regarded as the "father of tropical medicine".
"Mosquito Manson" was something of a maverick, an obsessive outsider. Once dismissed by one of his peers as an eccentric Scot with a fondness for whisky, Manson led the way in Western medical research in China from 1866 to 1889. That period included six years living and working in Hong Kong, where his legacy is enormous, not least among the award-winning medical scientists carrying out research and advising officials on emerging infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), bird flu (H5N1), swine flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome and, more recently, Ebola.
Manson was much more than a loyal colonial servant sent out from Europe to eradicate disease in the so called "white man's grave" of Asia, helping to facilitate the spread of the empire. From his first tentative steps into China, he immersed himself in the country, treating local patients, researching endemic diseases and looking to bridge the gap between European medical practice and the trusted traditions of Chinese medicine. This was at a time when there was great suspicion about the efficacy of Western medicine, which was made largely available to the indigenous population for free, to encourage their conversion to 19th-century Christianity, complete with hymns, bibles and sexual repression.
Manson later completed his work in the field of infectious disease, establishing, with protégé Sir Ronald Ross, that mosquitoes were the vectors of malaria.
To fully appreciate the relevance of Manson and his achievements in China, though, it is necessary to descend into the bowels of Queen Mary Hospital. Here, someone who might be considered a direct successor to Manson works in a cluttered office in the microbiology laboratory.
"I have been an academic for 30 years and have not yet been given an office with a window," jokes Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, chair of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong.
