George Archibald Park Ross (also Park Ross, G.A., or Park-Ross, G.A.) medical practitioner, came
to South Africa in 1900 to serve as a trooper in the First Lovat's Scouts
during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). He was awarded the Queen's South African
Medal with four bars. Upon his return to Scotland he qualified as Bachelor of
Medicine (MB) and Bachelor in Surgery (ChB) at the University of Edinburgh in
1901 and the next year acquired the Diploma in Public Health (DPH) at the same
institution. During 1902-1903 he travelled in the United States and Russia and
in the latter year was appointed in the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases.
This was followed by a period as medical officer to the Anglo-Portuguese Delimitation
Commission demarcating the boundary between the Zambezia province of Mozambique
and present Zambia and Zimbabwe. He was registered to practice medicine in
Natal in 1906 and the next year was appointed district surgeon of Nqutu,
Zululand, a post he held to 1910. Meanwhile he qualified as Doctor of Medicine
(MD) at the University of Edinburgh in 1908.
During March-June 1910 Ross conducted research into the
diseases of northern Zululand and was then appointed as assistant port health
officer in Durban. The next year he became government pathologist and
bacteriologist of Natal. During the re-organisation of the civil service
following the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 he was appointed on
1 April 1912 as government bacteriologist at the Public Health Laboratory in
Durban. He remained in the employ of the Department of Health until 1939 or
later.
Ross first reported relapsing fever as a result of a tampan
bite in South Africa. He observed the disease in Zululand in 1910 and described
it in 'Human spirochaetosis' (Transvaal
Medical Journal, 1912, Vol. 7, pp. 125-129). However, he is best remembered
for his work on the control of malaria in South Africa, a topic on which he
published a paper in the Medical Journal
of South Africa in 1923. During the nineteen-thirties he led the campaign
of pyrethrum spraying against indoor mosquitoes in Natal, in collaboration with
Dr Botha de Meillon. Antilarval methods were found to be ineffective, but
indoor spraying against adult mosquitoes worked very well. The results were
reported in a paper entitled 'Insecticide as a major measure in control of
malaria, being an account of the methods and organisations put in force in
Natal and Zululand during the past six years'. The paper was read at the League
of Nations Pan-African Health Conference held in Johannesburg in 1936 and published
in the Quarterly Bulletin of the Health
Organisation of the League of Nations (1936). Years later he delivered an introduction to a discussion of "Control of malaria in the Union" at the 18th South African Medical Congress (South African Medical Journal, 1946, Vol. 20, pp. 450-458).
In 1908 Ross married Frances Mary Smith, with whom he had three sons. After her death he
married Mary Lear.
