School of Tropical Medicine
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The School of Tropical Medicine was established in 1921 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India.
Its establishment, was due to the results of a government initiative as well as private efforts, and was an important landmark in the development and research in tropical medicine in India.
The person who took a leading role in its creation was Leonard Rogers (1868-1962) of the Indian Medical Service, professor of pathology at the Calcutta Medical College.
It was, till 2003, affiliated with the historic University of Calcutta. Now it is under the West Bengal University of Health Sciences.
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The first School of Tropical Medicine was founded in Liverpool, England in 1898. Sir Alfred Lewis Jones, a Liverpool shipowner, together with members of the business community, founded the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1898, the first of its kind in the world. Between 1898 and 1913 the School despatched no fewer than 32 expeditions to the tropics, including Sierra Leone, the Congo and the Amazon.
Sir Ronald Ross became the first British winner of a Nobel prize for medicine when, in 1902, he was recognised for his discovery that malaria is carried by mosquitoes. The School's scientists also developed the first drug to treat malaria and pioneered treatments for sleeping sickness and relapsing fever.
Africa has been the setting for many of the School's outstanding achievements. These include the discovery of links between insects and onchocerciasis (river blindness) and elephantiasis and new organisms which affect humans, including some associated with HIV disease.
Sleeping sickness and meningitis are two of the serious diseases tackled recently in Uganda and Ghana, and in areas of conflict, including the Congo (Zaire), Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sierra Leone, the School's scientists have persevered against great odds to sustain crucial treatment and control programmes.
500 students each year are welcomed from over 70 countries. These visitors include doctors, nurses, health managers and scientists who disseminate the School's work throughout the world
