Open Access and researchers: interview with Gareth Knight

In continuation of the success we had during Open Access Week at the School, I thought it would be a great to ask a few members of both the library, research data team and faculty what their views are of Open Access today. Last week we had Antonio Gasparrini, Senior…

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Explore your Archive: The Great War Bake Off 2015

On Wednesday 18th of November, 17 of the School’s finest bakers went head to head to win the title of best Great War Baker! As part of Explore your Archive week where archives nationally showcase their collections, the School’s Archives Service asked staff and students to bake a…

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World Toilet Day: Dr James Balfour Kirk’s guide to excretion in the tropics

By Chris Olver

To celebrate World Toilet Day we thought it would be appropriate to quickly highlight one of our archival manuscripts on sanitary care in the tropics. Written by Dr James Balfour-Kirk to his godson who was travelling through the tropics with his family in 1925, Kirk provides…

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Open Access and researchers: interview with Antonio Gasparrini

Open Access Week is now in its eighth year offering the opportunity to celebrate our achievements so far, and further promote awareness to help make Open Access the new norm in research worldwide.

Exemplifying some of the achievements at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the institutional repository…

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Unique film of an expedition to East Africa, 1936

In 1936, Major HS Leeson, an entomologist working at the School, set off on an expedition to study malarial mosquitoes in East Africa. He was accompanied by his assistant, John David Gillett, who made an extraordinary film of the whole expedition, from their departure from Croyden Airport, their flight to…

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Ross in Alexandria, 1915

Sir Ronald Ross’ work on dysentery in Alexandria, Egypt

In July 1915, Sir Ronald Ross was appointed Consulting Physician on Tropical Diseases and was sent to Alexandria in Egypt for four months to research disease among the troops in the Dardanelles. In his report at the end of his service, he states that on visiting seven large hospitals in…

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The First World War and LSHTM

Sunday is Armistice Day, a day where we remember those who fought and died in the First World War. Many of the staff and students of the School joined the war effort and to commemorate their efforts, the Library & Archives Service have selected four members of staff and outlined…

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Top 5 downloaded papers from LSHTM Research Online – October 2015

                     Image caption: Metric Mania by Batega. License: CC-BY

 

Last month LSHTM Research Online had over 160, 700 full text papers downloaded with the top three downloading countries being the UK, Germany and US. This is a significant increase on downloads from this time last year. Over the last…

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Ross in Alexandria, 1915

Sir Ronald Ross & Hygiene at the Regina Hotel, Alexandria

Ross in Alexandria, 1915

Ross in Alexandria, 1915

By Elizabeth Shuck Between July and November 1915, during the hostilities of the First World War, Sir Ronald Ross was dispatched to Alexandria, Egypt by the War Office. Ross, the first British winner of the Nobel Prize in 1902, was there to investigate an outbreak of dysentery among troops stationed in the Dardanelles region, a narrow strait North West Turkey. It would seem, however, that conditions at his hotel, the Regina, did not always meet Ross' expectations. Ross' diary from October 1915 shows that he was disturbed repeatedly at night by work carried out on an open drain just outside of his window. Ross was so concerned by these activities that he took the measure of planting culture plates on the window sill in order to look for harmful microorganism. Apparently, the activities not only kept him awake, but also, so he believed, caused him to, 'be made ill of it' as he complained  in a letter to the manager of the hotel on the 8th of October 1915. Ross was so perturbed by these works that he also felt it necessary to write to the Major General who was commanding troops in Alexandria about the incident. In his letter of complaint to the General he argues that he, 'demonstrated dangerous germs in the air!'Perhaps Ross was correct in this assumption, according to the results of Ross' window sill culture plates B.Coli, a parasitic species that causes the intestinal disease balantidiasis, and 'a large number of molds', was found to be present. Fortunately, Ross did not succumb to serious illness and was able to leave Alexandria after four months when the outbreak of dysentery ceased.
Bill for Sir Ross from the Regina Hotel, Alexandria, 1915

Bill for Sir Ross from the Regina Hotel, Alexandria, 1915

  In the Archives there is a large collection of material on Ross’ work in Alexandria including photographs of the 21 General Hospital in Alexandria where Ross worked, garrison orders warning troops not to clean cutlery with unsterilized sand, nominal roll of admissions for dysentery for Number 17 General Hospital, post mortems on cases showing dysenteric ulcerationof colon at 21 General Hospital by George Bertram Bartlett and charts showing incidence of bowel complaints in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force by David Thomson. For further information, please contact the Archives Service at archives@lshtm.ac.uk Read more

LSHTM Eye Health Collection

An exhibition by the International Centre of Eye Health (ICEH) is currently on display in the Keppel Street Foyer at the School. The primary focus of the exhibition is to raise awareness of the eye health research being conducted in LSHTM amongst members of staff and students at the School…

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