The Australian parasitologist David Bruce (1855-1931) discovered the causes of Malta, or undulant, fever and of sleeping sickness.

David Bruce was born on May 29, 1855, in Melbourne, Australia. His family went to Scotland when David was 5. He attended the medical school at Edinburgh University. In 1883 he married Mary Elizabeth Steele, who assisted him in his work throughout his life. Shortly thereafter Bruce was commissioned in the Royal Medical Service and was posted to Malta in 1884. There he studied a serious, often fatal disease, known as Malta or Mediterranean fever, which was prevalent among civilians and military personnel.

Malta fever is characterized by a continuous long-lasting fever which rises and falls irregularly, and which has been known in the Mediterranean region since the time of Hippocrates, who accurately described it. Within two years of his arrival in Malta, Bruce found a bacterium in the spleen of a number of fatal...