National Galleries of Scotland

This scroll depicts Sir Ronald Ross discovering how malaria was spread. Whilst working for the Indian Medical Service in 1898, Ross identified the Anopheles mosquito as the carrier of the malaria parasite which spread the disease. Ross poetically described the parasites as the ?cunning seeds? of ?million-murdering Death?. His discovery, for which Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1902, laid the foundation for combating malaria. The artist is a storyteller in the ancient Patua tradition of Bengal in which the storytellers are also picture makers (chitrakars). They paint narrative scrolls which they unroll as they sing lyrics of their own composition. Gurupada begins by depicting the plaque in a Calcutta street where Ross?s research took place.