Marc Armand Ruffer

Sir Marc Armand Ruffer CMG (29 August 1859 – 15 April 1917) was a British academic and an experimental pathologist and bacteriologist. He is considered a pioneer of modern paleopathology.

Early life Ruffer was born in Lyon, France, on 29 August 1859. His older brother was the British banker Maurice Ruffer (1857–1935).

He was educated in Germany and France before attending Brasenose College, Oxford (1878–1881) and reading medicine at University College London. He also studied at the Pasteur Institute in Paris under Louis Pasteur.

Ruffer went to Greece during World War I in the capacity as commissioner of the British Red Cross Society to improve sanitation. Returning to Egypt on board the ship on 15 April 1917, his ship was torpedoed off the Greek coast near the island of Milos without warning by the German submarine with the loss of 279 lives, 35 of which were crew. He was seen on two occasions floating in the sea; the first time he was alive and upright, and on the second occasion his body was floating, believed dead. His body was never recovered from the sea. He was declared legally dead in 1918.

Honors Ruffer was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) of Great Britain in 1905 and was knighted in 1916. He also received the Grand Cross of the Order of Osmanieh and the Order of the Medjidie from the Ottoman Empire; the Order of the Redeemer (2nd class) of Greece; Commander (2nd class) in the Order of Saint Anna of Russia; and the Order of the Crown of Italy.

After research by the In from the Cold Project, Ruffer was accepted on 17 September 2016 for commemoration by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on their Mikra Memorial in Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, Greece, to those who have no known grave.