Ronald Vernon Southcott (15 May 1918 in

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

– 9 April 1998) was an Australian medical

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

specializing in

Acari Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as ea ...

, mites and ticks.

Biography

After finishing school at

St Peter's College, Adelaide St Peter's College (officially The Anglican Church of Australia Collegiate School of Saint Peter, but commonly known as Saints) is an Private school, independent Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Primary school, primary and Secondary school ...

Southcott started working on mites, or the acari, at the age of 16 with

Herbert Womersley Herbert Womersley (1889–1962) was an English entomologist whose works were especially concerned with mites and ticks, silverfish and flies. His research into the diversity of Australian resulted in descriptions of new insect taxa. Biography ...

the acarologist at the

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultur ...

. Womersley described and named the trombidiid mite, which Southcott had collected on a cycling trip in the hills near Adelaide in 1934, '' Microtrombidium southcotti'', after Southcott. Southcott considered that act by Herb Womersley, "hooked me on mites". Southcott studied medicine at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

where he graduated in 1941. Southcott then served in the

Australian Army Medical Corps The Royal Australian Army Medical Corps (RAAMC) is the branch of the Australian Army responsible for providing medical care to Army personnel. The AAMC was formed in 1902 through the amalgamation of medical units of the various Australian colon ...

from 1942 to 1946. While he was stationed at Cairns he started working on the taxonomy and medical effects of jellyfish, the subject for which he was later to become famous. His more than 230 papers on the red mites include a classic revision of the families, subfamilies and genera of the Erythroidea in 1961, for which he received his D.Sc. Throughout his life Southcott was interested in the medical effects of plants and animals. But the huge bulk of his well illustrated papers are on the systematics of red mites. Southcott was never employed as an acarologist, but served as chairman for the South Australian Museum board for many years. He produced his outstanding mite papers in the evening after a days' work in Adelaide looking after the medical needs of returned servicemen. Many of his papers on mites are hundreds of pages long. His early work on the highly venomous box jellyfish, was one of his first and only papers on the

cnidaria Cnidaria ( ) is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic invertebrates found both in fresh water, freshwater and marine environments (predominantly the latter), including jellyfish, hydroid (zoology), hydroids, ...

n, ''

Chironex fleckeri ''Chironex fleckeri'', commonly known as the Australian box jelly, and nicknamed the sea wasp, is a species of extremely venomous box jellyfish found in coastal waters from northern Australia and New Guinea to Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and S ...

''. He also contributed on the medical effects of high liver consumption of Arctic explorers, leading to

hypervitaminosis A Hypervitaminosis A refers to the toxic effects of ingesting too much preformed vitamin A (retinyl esters, retinol, and retinal). Symptoms arise as a result of altered bone metabolism and altered metabolism of other fat-soluble vitamins. Hype ...

.J. Cleland und R. V. Southcott: ''Hypervitaminosis A in the Antarctic in the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914: a possible explanation of the illness of Mertz and Mawson''. In: ''Med. J. Aust.'' 1, 1969, S. 1337–1342 In 1972 Southcott self-published a book 'Studies on incidences and correlations of diseases and immunizations in South Australian schoolchildren 1952–1962.' The data used was from the results of the medical examination of schoolchildren in South Australia, and from the routine questionnaires completed by the parents for public health purposes. The data was codified and then fed into the computer at the division of Mathematical Statistics, CSIRO, in Adelaide. The data were analysed by age and sex of the children, by area of state classifications, and by region of birth. They were analysed using the chi-squared distribution. Other books he wrote were: ''Studies on the epidemiology of the 1947/1948 epidemic of poliomyelitis in South Australia'' / by R. V. Southcott and N. D. Crosby; with the collaboration of N. S. Stenhouse Southcott, R. V ook : 1949At University of Sydney ''Studies of the mortality and morbidity of a series of South Australian based veterans : and the interrelationships between mortality, preceding morbidity, and other factors'' / by R.V. Southcott, L.G. Veitch Southcott, R. V ook : 1980

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Southcott, Ronald Vernon 20th-century Australian zoologists 1918 births 1998 deaths University of Adelaide alumni