Nicolaas Swellengrebel

Nicolaas Hendrik Swellengrebel (12 August 1885 – 1 January 1970) was a Dutch epidemiologist, parasitologist, pathologist, and specialist on several human diseases, particularly malaria.

Born in an upper-class Amsterdam family, the son of Mari Adriaan Swellengrebel and Ida de Graaf.

He was also influenced by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur but found that medical researchers lacked a sound training or interest in many aspects of biology.

His first work in public health was on plague dealing with an outbreak in Holland and in the colonies in Indonesia and Java.

He saw the need for entomological studies and made more trips in the region, accompanied by his wife Meta, and sought a naturalistic approach to the management of vectors by modification of the habitats, a method that he called "species sanitation."