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{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2014}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Charles Donovan
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| image = Charles Donovan.jpg
| image_size = 260px
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1863|09|19|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Calcutta]] (now [[Kolkata]]), [[India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1951|10|29|1863|09|19|df=y}}
| death_place = Moore Cottage Hospital, [[Bourton-on-the-Water]], [[England]]
| resting_place = Bourton-on-the-Water cemetery
| resting_place_coordinates = 
| other_names =
| residence =
| citizenship = [[United Kingdom|British]]
| nationality = [[United Kingdom]]
| fields = [[Parasitology]] [[Medicine]]
| workplaces = [[Government General Hospital, Chennai]] [[Madras Medical College]] [[Government Royapettah Hospital]]
| patrons =
| alma_mater = [[Trinity College, Dublin]] ([[Doctor of Medicine|MD]])
| thesis_title =
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| doctoral_advisor =
| academic_advisors =
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students = [[A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar|A.L. Mudaliar]]
| known_for = Discovery of ''[[Leishmania donovani]]'' [[Donovanosis]]
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo =
| influences =
| influenced =
| awards =
| signature = 
| signature_alt =
| website = 
| footnotes =
| spouse = Mary Wren Donovan
| children = Helen Donovan Amy Donovan Reagh Donovan
}}

'''Charles Donovan''' MD (19 September 1863 – 29 October 1951) was an Irish medical officer in the [[Indian Medical Service]]. He is best remembered for his discoveries of ''[[Leishmania donovani]]'' as the causative agent of [[visceral leishmaniasis]], and ''[[Klebsiella granulomatis]]'' as that of [[donovanosis]]. The son of a judge in India, he was born in [[Calcutta]] and completed his primary education in India, and continued secondary school in [[Cork City]], [[Ireland]]. He graduated in medicine from [[Trinity College, Dublin]] and joined the Indian Medical Service. He participated in British expeditions to [[Mandalay]] in [[Burma]], [[Royapuram]] and [[Mangalore]] in India, [[Afghanistan]], and finally [[Madras]] (now [[Chennai]]), where he spent the rest of his service. He was professor at [[Madras Medical College]] from 1898 until his retirement in 1919.<ref name=tharakaram>{{cite web|author=Tharakaram, S. |title=Donovan of MMC|url=http://madrasmusings.com/Vol%2020%20No%2018/donovan-of-mmc.html|work=Madras Musing|accessdate=28 January 2014}}</ref><ref name=cook>{{cite book|last=Cook|first=G.C.|title=Tropical Medicine: an Illustrated History of The Pioneers|year=2007|publisher=Elsevier|location=Burlington|isbn=9780080559391|pages=179–182|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iB_ibIXxhOMC&pg=PA179}}</ref>

==Early life and education==

Charles Donovan was the eldest of nine children of Charles Donovan. He was born in Calcutta (now [[Kolkata]]) in Bengal (now [[West Bengal]]), India. His father, an Irish judge, was working in the [[Indian Civil Service]]. He attended elementary schools in [[Dehra Dun]] and [[Mussoorie]]. In 1879 when he was thirteen years of age he was sent to Cork City in [[Ireland]] to live with his grandfather Charles Donovan. He continued his education and entered [[University College Cork|Queen’s College, Cork]]. Then he studied medicine at [[Trinity College, Dublin]]. He received an [[doctor of medicine|MD]] degree in 1889 from the [[Royal University of Ireland]].<ref name=cook/><ref name=thakaram2>{{cite web|author=Tharakaram, S.|title=CHARLES DONOVAN, MD, Indian Medical Service|url=http://www.evolve360.co.uk/Data/10/Docs/11/11Tharakaram.pdf|work=www.evolve360.co.uk|publisher=Liverpool Medical History Society|accessdate=28 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201173718/http://www.evolve360.co.uk/Data/10/Docs/11/11Tharakaram.pdf|archive-date=1 February 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Medical career==

After postgraduate training in [[Dublin]] hospitals for two years, Donovan was commissioned as Captain in the Indian Medical Service in 1891.<ref name="pmid18463075">{{cite journal |author=Dutta AK |title=Pursuit of medical knowledge: Charles Donovan (1863–1951) on kala-azar in India |journal=J Med Biogr |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=72–6 |date=May 2008 |pmid=18463075 |doi=10.1258/jmb.2007.007004 |url=http://jmb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=18463075 }}{{Dead link|date=November 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> He was sent to the Royal Army Medical Corps at [[Netley]] for probationary training. He set sail for India on 30 September 1891 and reached [[Bombay]] (now Mumbai) on 26 October. After a brief stay in India he was stationed at [[Fort Dufferin, Burma|Fort Dufferin]] in Mandalay. After seven years of service in several [[expeditionary forces]] in Burma, India and Afghanistan, he was finally posted in Madras in 1898. He initially worked in the Surgeon General Office before eventually being posted to Madras Medical College and [[Government General Hospital, Chennai|Government General Hospital]], both of which were teaching institutions. In the college he was a professor, and in the hospital he was a Second Physician and held the Chair of the Physiology Department. In 1910 he was transferred to [[Government Royapettah Hospital]] to become its first Medical Superintendent.<ref>{{cite news|author=Muthiah, S. |title=Will Donovan be remembered?|url=http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/article2503648.ece|accessdate=28 January 2014|newspaper=The Hindu|date=12 October 2012}}</ref> He continued to teach at the medical college until his retirement in 1919 with the rank of [[Lieutenant-Colonel]].<ref name=tharakaram/>

===Discovery of ''Leishmania donovani''===

A fatal infectious disease called visceral leishmanis (''kala-azar'' as it was called in [[Hindi languages|Hindi]]) was widespread in India just after the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]]. The first epidemic was reported in 1870 by British medical officers from [[Assam]]. In 1900 [[William Boog Leishman]] first discovered the protozoan parasite from an English soldier who was stationed at [[Dum Dum]], [[West Bengal]], and died at the [[Army Medical School]] in [[Netley]], [[England]]. But he mistook the parasite to be degenerate [[trypanosomes]], already known protozoan parasites in [[Africa]] and [[South America]]. In 1903 Leishman published his discovery in the ''[[British Medical Journal]]'', which appeared on 11 May. It was titled "On the possibility of the occurrence of trypanosomiasis in India." On 17 June 1903 Donovan found the parasites (by then known as "Leishman bodies") from the spleen tissue and in the blood of an infected young boy who was admitted to the Government General Hospital. Donovan identified the Leishman bodies as the causative agents of ''kala-azar''. At the time the disease was believed to be a [[quinine]]-resistant [[malaria]]. He wrote a commentary of his discovery in relation to that of Leishman in the same journal (using the same title as Leishman's), which appeared on 11 July 1903.<ref>{{cite web|title=1903–1917 |url=http://forms.asm.org/Membership/index.asp?bid=17372 |publisher=American Society for Microbiology |accessdate=28 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202113050/http://forms.asm.org/Membership/index.asp?bid=17372 |archivedate=2 February 2014 |df=dmy }}</ref> Soon a controversy arose as to whom such monumental discovery should be credited. Donovan sent some of his slides to [[Ronald Ross]], who was in [[Liverpool]], and to [[Alphonse Laveran]] at the [[Pasteur Institute]] in [[Paris]]. Laveran and his colleague [[Félix Mesnil]] identified the protozoan (and yet wrongly) to be members of [[Piroplasmida]], and gave the [[scientific name]] ''Piroplasma donovanii''. It was Ross who resolved the conflict of [[scientific priority|priority]] in the discovery and correctly identified the species as member of the novel genus ''Leishmania''. He gave the popular name "Leishman-Donovan bodies", and subsequently the valid [[binomial nomenclature|binomial]] ''Leishmania donovani'', thereby equally crediting the two rivals.<ref>{{cite book|title=From Physiology and Chemistry to Biochemistry|year=2011|publisher=Longman|location=Delhi|isbn=9788131732205|pages=36–37|author=Chakravorty, Maharani}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Pati, Biswamoy|title=The Social History of Health and Medicine in Colonial India|year=2009|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=9780203886984|page=99|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8YsYAyd1Xs4C&pg|edition=Reprinted.}}</ref><ref name=pearson>{{cite book|title=Principles and Practice of Clinical Parasitology|year=2001|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=Chichester|isbn=9780470851722|pages=287–290|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BcNvch0jhAC&pg|chapter=Leishmaniasis|author=Richard D. Pearson|author-link=Leishmaniasis|author2=Selma M.B. Jeronimo |author3=Anastacio de Q. Sousa |editor=Stephen H. Gillespie, Richard D.}}</ref> But the reconciliation was not embraced by Londoners, who still wanted to remove Donovan's name. Donovan's continued works on the biology of ''L. donovani'' however established him as the leading authority on ''kala-azar''.<ref name=thakaram2/>

===Discovery of ''Klebsiella granulomatis''===

In 1881 a Scottish professor of surgery, Kenneth MacLeod described lesions of [[ulcer (dermatology)|dermal ulcer]] in Madras as "serpiginous ulcer". In 1896 J.H. Conyers and C.W. Daniels reported the same disease as "lupoid form of the so-called groin ulceration" in [[New Guinea]]. In 1897 similar symptom was described by J. Galloway as "ulcerating granuloma of the pudendum" from one infected person in London. This became a commonly used medical term. Even after twenty years the nature of the causative agent was elusive. In 1905 Charles Donovan prepared tissue smears from the ulcerative mouth of a ward boy in Madras hospital. Under the microscope he found intracellular bodies as the cause of the lesion. He described these bodies as like "gagantic bacilli with rounded ends." Even though he regarded them as parasitic protozoans, the nature of these bodies was a matter of dispute.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sexually Transmitted Diseases : a Guide for Clinicians|year=2012|publisher=Springer|location=[S.l.]|isbn=978-1-4612-8142-9|pages=105–120|author=Sehgal, Virendra N. |chapter=Granuloma Inguinale|editor=L.C. Parish |editor2=F. Gschnait|doi=10.1007/978-1-4612-3528-6_8}}</ref> They were simply referred to as "Donovan's bodies".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Mohan|first=Thappa Devinder|title=Evolution of venereology in India|journal=Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology|year=2006|volume=72|issue=3|pages=187–196|url=http://www.bioline.org.br/request?dv06065}}</ref> In 1910 R.M. Carter demonstrated a large number of the pathogens in large [[monocytes]] and he noted their resemblance to protozoans such as ''[[Crithidia|Crithidium]]'' and ''Herpetomonas''. The description was similar to Donovan's bodies, hence, they were considered to be members of [[Sporozoa]], and the scientific name ''Donovania granulomatis'' was introduced. In 1913 H.D. Aragão and G. Vianna gave the binomial ''Calymmatobacterium granulomatis'' noting their similarities to [[bacteria]] from their (rather dubious) [[cell culture]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Principles and Practice of Clinical Bacteriology.|url=https://archive.org/details/principlespracti00gill_660|url-access=limited|year=2006|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|location=Chichester|isbn=9780470035320|page=[https://archive.org/details/principlespracti00gill_660/page/n392 387]|author=Richens, John |edition=2nd|chapter=Donovanosis and ''Klebsiella'' spp.|editor=Stephen Gillespie |editor2=Peter M. Hawkey}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Rajam, R.V. |author2=Rangiah, P.N. |title=Donovanosis|year=1954|publisher=World Health Organization|location=Geneva|pages=9–20|url=http://whqlibdoc.who.int/monograph/WHO_MONO_24.pdf}}</ref> The scientific name was ultimately changed to ''Klebsiella granulomatis'' based on the [[phylogenetic]] relationship with the genus ''[[Klebsiella]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Carter|first=J. S.|author2=Bowden, F. J. |author3=Bastian, I. |author4=Myers, G. M. |author5=Sriprakash, K. S. |author6= Kemp, D. J. |title=Phylogenetic evidence for reclassification of ''Calymmatobacterium granulomatis'' as ''Klebsiella granulomatis'' comb. nov.|journal=International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology|year=1999|volume=49|issue=4|pages=1695–1700|doi=10.1099/00207713-49-4-1695|pmid=10555350|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=O'Farrell|first=N|title=Donovanosis|journal=Sexually Transmitted Infections|year=2002|volume=78|issue=6|pages=452–457|doi=10.1136/sti.78.6.452|pmid=12473810| pmc=1758360 }}</ref>

==Zoological works==

He took an interest in the study of butterflies and birds. After retirement he wrote a ''Catalogue of the Macrolepidoptera of Ireland'' (1936). Much of the field work for this was carried out in the area of [[Timoleague]], [[Co. Cork]] when he was visiting his sisters there.<ref name=cook/> He also studied butterflies in India. In his diary before eight days of his death he made his last notes on butterflies. Some of his collections are still preserved in the [[Natural History Museum, London]], and in [[Oxford]]. He also made personal investigations on malaria in monkeys in the [[Nilgiris]].<ref name=tharakaram/>

==Personal life and later years==

Charles Donovan married Mary Wren Donovan, his cousin and daughter of Dr Henry Donovan, at Bombay in 1891. They had two daughters Helen and Amy, and a son Reagh. He was a dedicated doctor and inspirational leader that even the sweepers at Madras hospital were able to prepare excellent [[microscopic slide]]s. He created his self-funded Madras Medical College Athletic Association and invited all the staff to join. He took classes wearing his [[Academic dress|convocation gown]].

After his retirement in 1919 he returned to UK and settled in a small village, [[Bourton-on-the-Water]], at 'Camp House'. His wife died in 1940, and he lived with his two daughters; while his son studied engineering at [[Cambridge University]]. He died in 1951 in Moor Cottage Hospital in Bourton. All his children died too in their early adulthood without leaving him any grandchildren.<ref name=tharakaram/>

==Award and recognition==

*Charles Donovan was decorated with the ''Tirah Medal'' of the Indian Medical Service in 1897 for his service in Afghanistan.
*In 1953 "Havelock Ward" was renamed the "Donovan Ward" in Government Royapettah Hospital.
*''Klebsiella granulomatis'' infection is most popularly known as "donovanosis" in medical community.
*[[University College Cork]] (was Queen’s College in donovan's days) instituted the ''Charles Donovan Prize for Dermatology''.<ref>{{cite web|title=THE CHARLES DONOVAN PRIZE IN DERMATOLOGY|url=http://www.ucc.ie/medstud/Awards/ucc/donovan.html|publisher=UCC Medical Society|accessdate=29 January 2014}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|35em}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140202172622/http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb0120-mss.2208-2216and5692-5697 Papers of Donovan]
*[http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/collections/collections-management/collections-navigator/transform.jsp?rec=/ead-recs/nhm/uls-a341219.xml Entomology Manuscript Collection of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Donovan]
*[http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/record/2000088062997 The European Library]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donovan, Charles}}
[[Category:Irish naturalists]]
[[Category:Irish entomologists]]
[[Category:19th-century naturalists]]
[[Category:20th-century naturalists]]
[[Category:1863 births]]
[[Category:1951 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian Medical Service officers]]
[[Category:British parasitologists]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin]]
[[Category:Alumni of University College Cork]]
[[Category:Scientists from Kolkata]]
[[Category:People from Bourton-on-the-Water]]

Charles Donovan - Revision history

Bot at 11:11, 20 January 2022