Bruce, David (1855-1931)

Australian-born British military physician. In 1899 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, for which he undertook commissions of inquiry into diseases in Malta, Uganda, and Nyasaland (now Malawi). In Malta he discovered the cause of brucellosis (Malta or undulant fever) and in Africa he showed that the tsetse-fly was the carrier of the organism causing trypanosomiasis (sleeping-sickness).

Bruce was born in Melbourne, Australia, and educated at Edinburgh University. He entered The Royal Army Medical Corps in 1883, and was assistant professor of pathology at Netley, England (1889-94). He was knighted in 1908. During World War I he was chairman of the pathological committee of the War Office. He was made President of the British Association in 1924.