Born in Old Meldrum, Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1844, the son of a banker, he was educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, completing his medical degree at the Aberdeen University before the age of 21.
In 1866 he became medical officer of Formosa for the Chinese imperial maritime customs, moving to Amoy in 1871.
He was the first Dean of a school of medicine that became the University of Hong Kong.
In China, he conducted research on the chronic disease called elephantiasis and showed that it is caused by a parasite spread though mosquito bites. He also specialized in blackwater fever, leprosy and a heart disease he identified as beriberi.
He return to England in the 1890s and began lectures in Tropical medicine at Livingston College.
His work on ‘Mosquito Manson’ in China in the 1870s and his manual on Tropical Diseases: A Manual o the Diseases of Warm Climates in 1898 led to great advances in the control of malaria and yellow fever.
In 1890 Manson set up practice in London, where he became the leading consultant on tropical diseases and he developed programs to control epidemic diseases in the British Empire.
He was appointed medical adviser to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1897. Later he urged Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to create specializing in tropical medicine.
He used his position and his energy to establish, in conjunction with the Seaman’s Hospital on the Lower Thames, the London School of Tropical Medicine and on the 3rd October 1899 on Manson’s birthday the first class met.
He was the first to argue that the mosquito is host to the malaria parasite in 1877 an encouraged Sir Ronald Ross malaria research.
By 1898 he had developed a sophisticated understanding of the life cycle of the parasite, and had grasped the importance of protecting humans against mosquitoes at night.
Biography of Sir Patrick Manson (3 October 1844 – 9 April 1922)
