PHILOSOPHIES
BY RONALD ROSS
K.C.B., F.R.C.S., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., C.B.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1923
| First Edition | September, 1910 | |
| Reprinted | December, 1910 | |
| Reprinted | June, 1911 | |
| Reprinted | August, 1923 |
All Rights Reserved
Printed in Great Britain by
Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
PREFACE
These verses were written in India between the years 1881 and1899, mostly during my researches on malaria. Friends whohave read that part of them which is called In Exile complainedthat they could not easily follow the movement of it;and as I am now publishing the poems together with a text-bookon malaria—and also because I desire very strongly to ridmy mind of this subject which has occupied it for twentyyears—I take the opportunity to give such explanation of thework as I can find expression for.
In 1881 I joined the military medical service of India, andwas called upon to serve during the next seven years inMadras, Bangalore, Burma, and the Andaman Islands. Havingabundant leisure, I occupied most of it in the study of varioussciences and arts, in all of which I attempted some works to thebest of my ability. For this I make no excuse to my conscience,since to my mind art and science are the same, andefforts in both, however poor the result may be, are to becommended more than idleness. Near the end of the sevenyears, however, I began to be drawn toward certain thoughtswhich from the first had occurred to me in my profession,especially as to the cause of the widespread sickness and ofthe great misery and decadence of the people of India. Rackedby poverty, swept by epidemics, housed in hovels, ruled bysuperstitions, they presented the spectacle of an ancient civilisationfallen for centuries into decay. One saw there bothphysical and mental degeneration. Since the time of the earlymathematicians science had died; and since that of the greattemples art had become ornament, and religion dogma. Herewas the living picture of the fate which destroyed Greece, Rome,and Spain; and I saw in it the wo