The Calcutta Chromosome

'Lutchman has a fever next morning: 99.8 at 8 a.m. ("Looking ill", Ro

'Wait, wait,' Antar broke in. 'I want to be clear about this. Are you arguing that Lutchman was sent to Ross's lab specifically in order to disprove Manson's theory?'

'I'm not arguing anything,' said Murugan. 'Just taking the facts as they come. And the facts are these: Ro

'By mid-May they know Ro

'But why Lutchman?' said Antar.

'Let me put it like this,' said Murugan, 'whoever picked Lutchman knew exactly what they were doing. For one thing, they knew enough about microscopy to make sure that he didn't have any malaria parasites in his blood. Ro

'So they stepped in; they sent him someone who didn't have any parasites. Remember that this is a place where the rates of malaria in the general population are so high they're off the charts. It isn't easy to find people who don't have any trace of the parasite in their blood. But these guys reach into their bag, pick out someone who's just right, and then they send him over to Begumpett General. It works: Ro

'But,' said Antar, 'wouldn't Ross have noticed something so obvious?'

'Ro

'For the next thirty-four months – the entire period that Ron's working on malaria – Lutchman sticks to him like roll-on deodorant. Starting May 1895, until July 1898, when Ron makes his final breakthrough in Calcutta, Lutchman almost never lets Ron out of his sight. He gets pretty good at doing luggage impersonations. "I left Secunderabad with the smallest possible 'kit'," says Ro

'It gets so that even Ron can't help noticing that Lutchman's making some pretty important co

'While he's recouping Lutchman succeeds in planting a crucially important idea in his head: that the malaria vector might be one particular species of mosquito. "Oh, yeah?" says Ron; he thinks Lutchman's full of shit: he's been getting a lot of negative results but it's never occurred to him that they might have something to do with family differences among mosquitoes.

"Tell you what, Lutch," says Ron, "next time I want your help I'll ask for it." But after Lutchman plants this little seed something begins to stir in the mud; a creature begins to take shape in Ron's head.

'He starts eyeballing every different species of mosquito he can get his hands on. Trouble is Ron doesn't know a goddam thing about mosquitoes: he's never even heard the word anopheles. He ends up chasing after Culex, Stegomyia - going every which way but ahead. Now Lutchman cuts in once again. On August 15 1897 he goes into a huddle with the rest of his crew and decides something's got to be done double quick.

'The way Ro

'Next day Lutchman makes sure Ro

'On August 20 1897 Ro

"Whew!" says Lutchman, skimming the sweat off his face. "Thought he'd never get it."

'Later Ron asks him: "Yo, Lutch, where'd you get that hot tip about mosquito species?" Lutchman plays dumb: "Oh, some villagers up in them hills happened to mention it one morning while grazing their goats." And you know what? Ron buys it. He thinks Lutchman hit upon this bright idea while gambolling in the hills with happy natives.

'What gets me about this scenario is the joke. Here's Ro