William Gilchrist's (1836) observations on mosquitoes in the Madras Presidency, India

Abstract

This article validates the note on the developmental biology of a mosquito (possibly an anopheline taxon) under the title ‘On the metamorphoses of the mosquito’ by William Gilchrist, a medical officer attached to the Madras Medical Establishment, Madras, India, which was published in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science in 1836. In today's context, Gilchrist's observations arouse interest given that they were made in Hoonsoor (now ‘Hunsur’, Karnataka, 12°18′27″N, 76°17′16″E), a remote village (town?) in the Madras Presidency in the 1820s, when magnifying optical instruments were crude and primitive even in Europe. Gilchrist's notes gain in validity especially because he made the observations approximately six decades before Ronald Ross established the connection between the mosquito and malaria. Scientific monographs and papers on Indian mosquitoes of early twentieth century are those of George Giles, who started his studies with Ronald Ross in Calcutta at the turn of the nineteenth century. Gilchrist's note precedes the work of Giles, but does not figure in Giles's papers and monographs, published nearly seven decades later.