Gordon Covell

{{Short description|Physician and major general}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Sir Gordon Covell | birth_name = | native_name_lang = | image = Sir Gordon Covell. Photograph. Wellcome L0011127.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_date = 20 October 1887 | birth_place = | death_date = 4 October 1975 | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | other_names = | residence = | citizenship = | nationality = | fields = | workplaces = | alma_mater = | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | influences = | influenced = | awards = Darling Medal, Manson Medal, Walter Reed Medal | signature =  | signature_alt = | website =  | footnotes = | spouse = | children = }} Major-General '''Sir Gordon Covell''' (20 October 1887 – 4 October 1975) was a physician and Indian Medical Service officer. He specialized in malaria disease control and eradication efforts<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=The Therapeutics of Malaria in Africa|url=https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/64145/WHO_Mal_53.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=May 6, 1953|title=Sir Gordon Covell Will Deliver Cutter Talk at Health School|work=The Harvard Crimson|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1953/5/6/sir-gordon-covell-will-deliver-cutter/|access-date=26 July 2020}}</ref> and was a member of the expert committee on malaria set up by the WHO from 1948 to 1958, serving as its secretary.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|date=1962-05-01|title=Discussion|url=https://academic.oup.com/trstmh/article/56/3/194/1919640|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|language=en|volume=56|issue=3|pages=194–201|doi=10.1016/0035-9203(62)90154-2|issn=0035-9203|url-access=subscription}}</ref> He was also an advisor to the British Ministry of Health and the Director of the Malaria Laboratory at Horton Hospital.<ref name=":1" />

== Education == Covell studied at King's School, Canterbury, and graduated in medicine (MBBS) from Guy's Hospital in 1913 after which he was posted on war duty in East African campaign (World War I). <ref name=":4" /> He qualified for the Indian Medical Service in 1914.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Mulligan|first=H. W.|date=1976-01-01|title=Major-General Sir Gordon Covell, C.I.E., M.D., I.M.S. (RET.)|url=https://academic.oup.com/trstmh/article/70/1/92/1901401|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|language=en|volume=70|issue=1|pages=92|doi=10.1016/0035-9203(76)90023-7|pmid=131391|issn=0035-9203|url-access=subscription}}</ref> After serving in World War I, he passed the DTM&H with distinction and received Doctor of Medicine in 1923.<ref>{{Cite journal|s2cid=220152015|date=1975-10-18|title=Obituary Notices|journal=BMJ|language=en|volume=4|issue=5989|pages=170–171|doi=10.1136/bmj.4.5989.170|issn=0959-8138}}</ref>

== Career == Covell served as a doctor in the Indian Medical Service from 1914 until Indian independence,<ref name=":4" /> when he headed the Central Malaria Bureau and the Director of the Malaria Institute of India in New Delhi (1936-1947).<ref name=":0" /> Early in his career in India, he was posted in the medical research department and posted in Central Malaria Bureau at Kasauli (later Central Research Institute, Kasauli), where he worked under Rickard Christophers and John Alexander Sinton, both accomplished Malariologists.<ref name=":4" /> In 1928, he co-authored a book on conducting surveys for malaria, published by the Indian government under the British Raj.<ref name="Christophers 1928">{{Cite book|last1=Christophers|first1=Samuel Rickard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ZHtugEACAAJ|title=How to Do a Malaria Survey|last2=Sinton|first2=John Alexander|last3=Covell|first3=Sir Gordon|date=1928|publisher=Government of India, Central Publication Branch|language=en}}</ref> He was the first Assistant Director for the newly created ''Malaria Survey of India'' created in 1927 and subsequently became its Director succeeding the founding director, John Alexander Sinton.<ref name=":4" /> During his tenure in India, he supervised some of the first of systematic epidemiological surveys of Malaria in several urban and rural areas in different parts of the country including relatively remote areas in Wayanad district, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, coastal regions of Odisha, northern parts of Sindh, urban locations in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi.<ref name=":4" />

In 1927, he published possibly the first detailed account of the distribution of all 37 species of Anopheles mosquitoes (then known) from Indian and Ceylon.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Covell|first=Gordon|date=1927|title=The Distribution of Anopheline Mosquitoes in India and Ceylon.|url=https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19271000270|journal=Indian Medical Research Memoirs|volume=5|pages=85|via=CabDirect}}</ref> In a subsequent substantive account he published all known details of 137 species of Anopheles then known throughout the world with notes on their distribution, breeding and behaviour of all these.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Covell|first=Gordon|date=1927|title=A Critical Review of the Data Recorded regarding the Transmission of Malaria by the Different Species of Anopheles; with Notes on Distribution, Habits and Breeding-Places.|url=https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19272902083|journal=Indian Medical Research Memoris|volume=7|pages=117|via=CabDirect}}</ref>

He was particularly identified with successful malaria control programs in Bombay and Delhi, with his Delhi efforts being among the first to use large-scale insecticide spraying specifically targeting the adult stage of the vector.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Simmons|first1=S. W.|last2=Upholt|first2=W. M.|date=July 1951|title=[Insecticides in disease control; review of the literature]|journal=Boletin de la Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana. Pan American Sanitary Bureau|volume=31|issue=1|pages=1–21|issn=0030-0632|pmid=14858512}}</ref><ref name="Christophers 1928" /> Later on, these initial efforts using Pyrethroid sprays would be replaced with DDT in many programs across the world.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Singh|first=Jaswant|s2cid=40169912|date=1952-09-01|title=Malaria and Its Control in India|journal=Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute|language=en|volume=72|issue=5|pages=515–525|doi=10.1177/146642405207200506|pmid=13000829|issn=0370-7334}}</ref> He was a proponent for a careful study of entomology, Anopheles species distribution and biting behaviour of the mosquito vector in determining success of disease control efforts and urged for looking beyond use of DDT and insecticides only in malaria eradication.<ref name=":2" /> He was involved in advising WHO on the therapeutics for malaria as well as research approaches to study efficacy of anti-malaria drugs.<ref name=":1" />

After his retirement from India, he succeeded Sinton as the Director of the ''Malaria Research Laboratory'' at Epsom, continuing his work on chemotherapy and chemoprophylaxis for Malaria, as well as establishing pre-erythrocytic phases in all four human malarias.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Covell|first1=Gordon|last2=Nicol|first2=W. D.|title=Clinical, Chemotherapeutic and Immunological Studies on Induced Malaria|date=1951-01-01|url=https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/8/1/51/337731|journal=British Medical Bulletin|language=en|volume=8|issue=1|pages=51–55|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a074054|pmid=14944815|issn=0007-1420|url-access=subscription}}</ref> In 1952, he was invited by the then imperial government Ethiopia to study the malaria situation in southern part of the country around Lake Tana.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last1=Taffese|first1=Hiwot Solomon|title=An epidemiological profile of malaria in Ethiopia. A report prepared for the Federal Ministry of Health, Ethiopia, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership and the Department for International Development, UK|last2=Daddi|first2=Jima|last3=Worku|first3=Bekele|last4=Ejigu|first4=Henok Kebede|last5=Balkew|first5=Meshesha|last6=INFORM Project|publisher=National Malaria Control Team, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, World Health Organization, Addis Ababa University and the INFORM Project|year=2014|location=Addis Ababa}}</ref> He planned studies and collected baseline malaria on distribution of malaria prevalence, spleen rates and dominant vectors in Gondar, Jimma, Awash River valley and the Kobbo Chercher plain.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Covell|first=G.|date=January 1957|title=Malaria in Ethiopia|journal=The Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|volume=60|issue=1|pages=7–16|issn=0022-5304|pmid=13385916}}</ref> This was amongst the first few systematic epidemiological investigations of malaria at different parts of the country, laying the foundations for a nationwide malaria control efforts.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mulligan|first=H.W.|date=1976|title=Major-General Sir Gordon Covell, C.I.E., M.D., I.M.S. (RET.)|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|language=en|volume=70|issue=1|pages=92|doi=10.1016/0035-9203(76)90023-7|pmid=131391}}</ref>

On May 6, 1953, he delivered the Cutter talk on preventive medicine at the Harvard school of public health.<ref name=":0" />

In 1961, he was in Pakistan to help with malaria disease control and eradication efforts by establishing training centres there and also frequently visited Delhi to observe the National Malaria Eradication Program that he described as "...something of a gigantic program in operation now in India".<ref name=":2" /> Due to the relatively later introduction of spraying for mosquitoes on a national scale in Pakistan, he advocated for prolongation of nationwide spraying efforts in India due to the possibility of transmission across the border areas.<ref name=":2" /> He noted the relatively better-off quality and systematic nature of training efforts for malaria eradication organised by the Malaria Institute of India and tried to organise training for senior leadership of the disease control efforts in Bangladesh and Pakistan, but this did not occur due to political reasons<ref name=":2" />

He also worked on Rabies and studied endemic typhus in the Himalayan foothills. He fell seriously ill with typhus while studying it.<ref name=":4" /> He was a member of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and was its Vice-President.<ref name=":4" /> He co-edited a volume on medical research for the ''History of the Second World War'' series, Britain's official history of the Second World War.

== Personal life == He was married to Oona McLeod, daughter of Colonel Kenneth McLeod of the Indian Medical Services, who was possibly the first to describe Epidemic dropsy.<ref name=":4" /> They had three children, two of whom trained as doctors. He was known to enjoy classical music and had an interest in birds.<ref name=":4" /> In a letter to his friend P.G. Shute in late life, he wrote a poem about his health.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Killick-Kendrick|first=R.|date=1982|title=Major General Sir Gordon Covell|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|language=en|volume=76|issue=6|pages=772|doi=10.1016/0035-9203(82)90103-1}}</ref>

== Awards == He was awarded the ''Darling Medal'' by the World Health Organization in 1951 instituted in the memory of Samuel Taylor Darling.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Covell|first=Gordon|date=1951-08-01|title=Presentation of the darling medals|url=https://academic.oup.com/trstmh/article/45/1/43/1924172|journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|language=en|volume=45|issue=1|pages=43–44|doi=10.1016/S0035-9203(51)90504-4|issn=0035-9203|url-access=subscription}}</ref> The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene awarded the Walter Reed Medal to him on November 4, 1960 ''in absentia''<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1961-05-01|title=Presentation of the Walter Reed Medal for 1960 to Sir Gordon Covell|journal=The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|language=en|volume=10|issue=3|pages=304–307|doi=10.4269/ajtmh.1961.10.304|issn=0002-9637}}</ref>''.'' He was awarded the Manson Medal in 1971.

== Works ==

* Malaria Control by Anti-mosquito Measures, 1941 * How to Do a Malaria Survey, 1928 * ''Medical Research'' (''History of the Second World War'' series, co-edited with F. H. K. Green), 1953

==References== {{Commons category}} {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Covell, Gordon}} Category:1887 births Category:1975 deaths Category:British entomologists Category:Malariologists Category:Naturalists from British India Category:Indian Medical Service officers Category:20th-century British zoologists Category:The Darling Foundation Prize laureates