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Description area
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History
Charles Donovan obtained his MD at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1889 and was commissioned into the Indian Medical Service in 1891. After service in Burma, he was posted in 1898 to Madras to take up an appointment in the Surgeon-General's Office. He was Second Physician at the Government General Hospital until 1910 and then Superintendent at the Royapetta Hospital until his retirement in 1919. He was also Professor of Physiology at the Madras Medical School, studying at King's College, London, during his leave in 1901, and visiting colleagues in the field of tropical medicine in Paris, Edinburgh and Liverpool. His research came to concentrate on Kala-azar, which was prevalent in Blacktown, a densely-populated part of Madras, and in June 1903 he identified the parasite now known as Leishmania donovani.
Amy Skelland was widowed in 1907. She qualified as a nurse in 1909, having trained at the Government General Hospital at Madras, and she was matron of the Royapetta Hospital at the time that Donovan was Superintendent. His reference for her (B.2/4) mentions her "very good knowledge of microscopical work" and the "great help" she had been in "the record keeping of special cases that interested [him]".