Kenneth Mellanby

Major Kenneth Mellanby (26 March 1908 – 23 December 1993) was an English ecologist and entomologist. He received the OBE for his work on the scabies mite.

Life and work Mellanby was educated at Barnard Castle School and then at King's College, Cambridge in Biology. He gained his PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on the ability of parasites to survive desiccation. He then worked as a Sorby Research Fellow of the Royal Society in Sheffield.

He carried out research on volunteers, mainly conscientious objectors, at the Sorby Research Institute, which he founded. He showed that the mite was largely unable to survive in bedding. He demonstrated that the disease is spread by the female mite and not males, immature forms, or eggs. He furthermore showed that a single treatment with benzyl benzoate provided a prompt cure. Based on his research, the ministry of health officially determined that disinfection of bedding and garments (known as 'stoving') was not required to properly treat scabies, thus saving the military an estimated half a million pounds per year. In 1945, he was awarded the OBE for this work. Mellanby Hall, the university's first student hall of residence, is named after him.

On his return to England, he worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and then became head of the Entomology Department at Rothamsted Experimental Station. In 1961, Mellanby founded and served as director of the Monks Wood Experimental Station, an ecological research center in Huntingdon, England. Mellanby married twice. His first wife, Helen Nielson Dow Mellanby, was a biologist and medical doctor; they had a daughter, biochemist Jane Mellanby. One of his grandsons is curator Edward Impey.