Elizabeth Ness MacBean Ross (14 February 1878 14 February 1915) was a Scottish

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

who worked in Persia (presently

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

) among the

Bakhtiari people The Bakhtiari (also spelled Bakhtiyari; fa, بختیاری) are a Lur tribe from Iran. They speak the Bakhtiari dialect of the Luri language. Bakhtiaris primarily inhabit Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and eastern Khuzestan, Lorestan, Bushehr, and ...

. With training and a post-graduate qualification in tropical medicine, she responded to an appeal for doctors by the Serbian government in 1915 and treated Serbian casualties, most of whom were victims of

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

. Ross's life and work is commemorated by a plaque in her home town of Tain and her death anniversary is commemorated by ceremonies in Serbia, on 14 February.

Early life and family

Elizabeth Ness MacBean Ross was born in Hampstead, London, to Scottish parents. Her father, Donald Alexander MacBean Ross (18491893), manager of the London branch of the

Commercial Bank of Scotland The Commercial Bank of Scotland Ltd. was a Scottish commercial bank. It was founded in Edinburgh in 1810, and obtained a royal charter in 1831. It grew substantially through the 19th and early 20th centuries, until 1958, when it merged with th ...

, was originally from Inverness, while her mother, Elizabeth Wilson Ross (née Ness) was from Tain.England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, ''FamilySearch'' (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NVGW-LS4: 11 February 2018, Donald Alexander MacBean Ross in entry for Elizabeth Ness Ross) When her father died, they moved to her mother's family in Tain, where she attended Tain Royal Academy. She went on to study medicine at Queen Margaret College, Glasgow, in 1896. This was some two years after Marion Gilchrist, the first woman to qualify in medicine from a university in Scotland, had graduated. Ross graduated with an

MB ChB Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...

in 1901. Lucy, one of Ross's sisters, also graduated in medicine and became a doctor in York.

James Ness MacBean Ross Temporary Surgeon James Ness MacBean Ross, (15 November 1889 – 3 April 1964) was a British medical doctor who was deployed with the Royal Naval Division during the First World War. He was awarded his first Military Cross in 1917 and a Bar in ...

, her brother, became a naval doctor and was awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC ...

and bar and the Croix de Guerre during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Early career

After graduation Ross worked in Tain and then as a medical officer on the Scottish island of

Colonsay Colonsay (; gd, Colbhasa; sco, Colonsay) is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, located north of Islay and south of Mull. The ancestral home of Clan Macfie and the Colonsay branch of Clan MacNeil, it is in the council area of Argy ...

. She then spent eighteen months in practice in East Ham in London. She accepted a post in Isfahan province as assistant to an Armenian physician in the city of Isfahan before setting up in practice on her own. Returning on leave to the UK she passed the examination to gain the Diploma in Tropical Medicine. On her return to Persia, she met Samsam al-Saltane (1846–1930), prime minister of Persia and at his suggestion began to work with Bakhtiari people of south west Persia. Adopting their customs and their dress, she became integrated to such an extent that she was made an honorary chief of the Bakhtiari. She wrote a book describing her experience among them, ''A Lady Doctor in Bakhtiari Land'', which was published posthumously with her brother James as editor. In this, she provided "first-hand information as to the life, the point of view, and the changing conditions among these virile, if unstable, tribesmen." In 1913, she successfully applied for a job as a ship's surgeon on the SS ''Nigaristan'' to work her way home. She subsequently became ship's surgeon on the Glasgow Line SS ''Glenlogan'', a post which took her to India and Japan before she returned to Isfahan in 1914.

Serbia

On the outbreak of the

she read of the need for doctors in Serbia. The first phase of the Austro-Hungarian campaign against Serbia had resulted in the Serbian army suffering heavy casualties and a

epidemic among the military and the civilian populations. The epidemic reached its height in March 1915 when it was estimated that around 150,000 people were affected, of whom some 30,000 died. Elizabeth Ross arrived in January 1915 and volunteered to work in Kragujevac, the city worst affected by the epidemic, accounting for almost 10 percent of all cases in Serbia. The large military hospital where she worked was overcrowded with typhus victims. The conditions under which Ross worked were described by Louise Fraser, a nurse who visited her from the nearby Scottish Women's Hospital, who wrote that she had seen "some of the worst slum dwellings in Britain, but never anything to approach these wards in filth and squalor." At that time the louse-borne transmission of the disease was not fully understood, but the need for cleanliness, disinfection and isolation of victims was. These proved impossible to achieve in the military hospital at that time and the mortality rate from typhus in Kragujevac was particularly high, estimated by Colonel William Hunter of the British Military Sanitary Mission to Serbia at 40–50%.

Death and legacy

Ross died from typhus on her 37th birthday, 14 February 1915, three weeks after arriving in Kragujevac. She is buried in the cemetery in Kragujevac, the inscription on her gravestone including, in Serbian, the text: "In memory of Dr. E. Ross and two nurses who died in 1915 in our town while attending to our ill and wounded soldiers. Grateful soldiers from the Saloniki front. Renewed 1977." There is a plaque in her memory in St Duthac's Church, Tain. which includes the words "This tablet has been erected and hospital beds endowed in Serbia by public subscription in remembrance of the noble life and sacrifice of one whose home was for many years in Tain." In 2015, Ross was one of six British women to feature on a commemorative set of postage stamps issued by Serbia Post. The local Red Cross youth branch in Kragujevac is named the Dr Elizabeth Ross Society. At the annual commemoration ceremony they wear t-shirts bearing Ross's graduation photograph. Elizabeth Ross Street in Kragujevac is named after her. A street in the town is named in her honour. On 14 February, her birth and death date, memorial ceremonies are held each year in Kragujevac and at other locations in Serbia to commemorate her work for the people of Serbia.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Elizabeth Ness MacBean 1878 births 1915 deaths People from Tain 20th-century Scottish medical doctors Alumni of the University of Glasgow British Merchant Navy officers British tropical physicians Deaths from typhus People educated at Tain Royal Academy People from Hampstead Scottish memoirists Ship's doctors British women in World War I People from Ross and Cromarty Anglo-Scots British casualties of World War I British expatriates in Iran