88

Chapter 3

The genesis of hospital medicine in India: The Calcutta Medical College

(CMC) and the emergence of a new medical epistemology

Prior to the overarching social presence of modern medicine, or what is regarded

internationally as hospital medicine, Rosenberg observes, “Both physician and educated
layman shared a similar view of the manner in which the body functioned, and the nature of
available therapeutic modalities reinforced that view.”1 Moreover, as Rosenberg argues,

…. as this world changed and provided data and procedures increasingly relevant to
the world of clinical medicine, it gradually undercut that structure of cognitive
framework and personal interaction which characterized therapeutics at the end of
the century.2

What Rosenberg wanted to argue about is fairly described in an important textbook

of internal medicine. It suggests that we are living in an era of “bio-medicalization” or
“techno-medicine”. To quote:

The hospital is an intimidating environment for most individuals. Hospitalized

patients find themselves surrounded by air jets, button, and glaring lights; invaded
by tubes and wires; and beset by the numerous members of the health care team –
hospitalists, specialists, nurses, nurses’ aides, physician’s assistants, social workers,
technologists, physical therapists, medical students, house officers, attending and
consulting physicians, and many others. They may be transported to special
laboratories and imaging facilities replete with blinking lights, strange sounds, and
unfamiliar personnel; they may be left unattended at times; and they may be obligated
to share a room with other patients who have their own health problems. It is little
wonder that patients may lose their sense of reality.3

In such a milieu, the doctor is often the only tenuous link between the patient and the
outside world and “may make a stressful situation more tolerable.” 4 S/he becomes both a
scientific person and a healer. Roy MacLeod has argued that, “Medicine, in its conceptual,
professional and political dimension, is both shaping and shaped by the cultural
1
Charles Rosenberg, “The Therapeutic Revolution: Medicine, Meaning, and Social Change in Nineteenth-
Century America,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 20.4 (Summer 1977): 485-506 (497).
2
Ibid, 497. For a nice and detailed analysis of medicine and patronage system in 18 th-century England see, N. D.
Jewson, “Medical knowledge and the patronage system in 18th century England,” Sociology 8 (1974: 369-85.
Jewson comments, “Perhaps the most immediately striking feature of the 18 th century pathology was the general
lack of agreement about the causes of illness and the effectiveness of therapies.”, 171.
3
Dennis L. Kasper, Anthony S. Fauci, Stephen L. Hauser, Dan L. Longo, J. Larry Jameson and Joseph
Losacalzo, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, 19th edition, vol. 1 (New York, Chicago: McGraw Hill
Education, 2016), 5.
4
Ibid.
 89

circumstances that surround it, and that give it at any time its particular character.” 5 A
common culture of medicine —sustained by the image of science as the universal agent of
progress, and scientific medicine as its instrument—became the hallmark of European
empires throughout the world.6 The success of western medicine was facilitated by the
expansion of hospitals to the non-European world. It seems to be echoed in the voice of
Mahendralal Sircar (Sarkar), “If there is anything for which we are under the great obligation
to the British Government it is perhaps the establishment of Hospitals and Medical Schools in
this country.”7
However, while it is still possible to conceive of the dissemination of Western
medicine through the institution of the hospital, as Harrison points out, “this process did not
represent a uniform trend towards medical modernity, but sometimes accommodation with
local, non-Western modernities and traditions”. 8 Additionally, “Colonial hospitals were also
centres of therapeutic innovation, subjecting to systematic trial a range of botanical and
chemical remedies either pioneered in the colonies, or adopted from indigenous traditions.” 9
In this enterprise, it had to negotiate between metropolitan “push” and peripheral “pull” on
the one hand, and ‘its own colonial dynamic’ on the other. It is with this problematic in mind
that I will study the institution of the CMC in this article.
The CMC has been an object of study for a long time. The focus of earlier accounts
was primarily “the diffusion of English medical knowledge amongst the native population”.10
One of the earliest, comprehensive yet detailed studies on the CMC was published in the
Calcutta Journal of medicine in 6 parts in the year 1873.11 Other earlier writings include that

5
Roy MacLeod, “Introduction,” in Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the
Experience of European Expansion (London, New York: Routledge, 1988), 1-18 (1).
6
Ibid, 3.
7
Mahendralal Sarkar, “The Calcutta Medical College, part I,” Calcutta Journal of Medicine 6.3-4 (March &
April 1873): 123-128 (125). For a brief introduction, Mahendralal was a graduate from the CMC. In his later life
he was a strong advocate of homeopathy and abandoned allopathy practice to embrace the former. Again, more
importantly, he was the founder of the first scientific research institute – Indian Association for the Cultivation
of Science – to do basic researches in non-biological sciences.
8
Mark Harrison, “Introduction,” in From Western Medicine to Global Medicine: The Hospital Beyond the West,
eds., Mark Harrison, Margaret Jones and Helen Sweet (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2009), 1-31 (2-3).
9
Ibid, 9.
10
Gopal Chunder Roy, “On the Past and Present State of Medicine in India,” Glasgow Medical Journal, New
Series III (1871): 538-551 (547).
11
Under the title “The Calcutta Medical College”, the account was published in 6 parts, presumably written by
the editor Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar, MBBS, MD. As has been discussed later, Sarkar was a CMC graduate with
brilliant career to the extent that while he was a 2 nd year student he was invited by his teachers to give lectures
on optics for senior students, he did his MD with excellence and was also a member of the British Medical
Association, Bengal Branch. He did clinical researches during his brief stint with the CMC and was engaged in
the practice of Western medicine. Later he abandoned modern medicine to embrace the doctrines of Hahnemann
and became the harbinger of homeopathy in British India by any modern medicine trained doctor. He was
expelled from the Association for his adherence to the idea of philosophy of homeopathy. Most notably, most
likely motivated by his nationalist drive, he was the founder of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of
Science (1876) – the first scientific institution in colonial India to perform basic science researches. However,
“The Calcutta Medical College” was published in 6 parts – part I, volume 6 (1873), nos. 3-4 (March-April), pp.
123-128; part II, no. 5 (May 1873): 175-180; part III, no. 6 (1873): 211-216; part IV, no. 7 (July 1873): 251-
256; part V, no. 8 (August 1873): 291-296; part IV, no. 9 (September 1873): 334-341.
 90

from Eatwell, Harrison and Sarbadhikari etc.12

In later writings such as that of Kumar, the focus shifted to a study of the
internalization of Western medical practice and its encounters with Ayurvedic and indigenous
practitioners at multiple sites and levels. 13 Dissecting practice and a small hospital with
outdoor dispensary, as viewed by them, became the cornerstone of this new institution. To
remember, the concept of hospital medicine was not known to these scholars. What was
European or scientific medicine in their perception is hospital medicine in our analysis. On
the other hand the scholarship of Bala has shown that the “porfessionalisation of medicine in
India” represented “British attempts to carry over the medical practices of an industrial
society into a vastly different developing society.” 14 David Arnold too has contributed to the
debate on medicinal practice in India and considers the CMC as the watershed between
indigenous medical knowledge and modern medicine.15 Through the foundation of the CMC
medicine was represented in such a way as “to be more than liberation from disease. It was
also viewed as a means by which Indian society might be liberated from its ignorance and
superstition.”16 As Arnold has rightly observed, “there was a shift away from the
environmental paradigm that dominated nineteenth-century medical thought and the
emergence of new scientific ideas, institutions and practices.” 17 The CMC was the prime
institution epitomizing this shift institutionally. The dividing line between the two
knowledges was anatomy: “The basis of all medical and surgical knowledge is anatomy…
there can be no rational medicine, and no safe surgery, without a thorough knowledge of
anatomy”18. With the foundation of the CMC, a new hegemonic medicine appeared on the
horizon leading to a gradual marginalization of indigenous medical knowledge.
S. N. Sen looks afresh into different layers of colonial medical education and the
foundation of CMC.19 In Bengali, Roy provides informative and detailed account of
background history of the foundation of CMC.20 Jaggi has done an extensive survey of
12
W. C. B Eatwell, On the Rise and Progress of Rational Medical Education in Bengal (Calcutta: Military
Orphan Press, 1860); James Harrison, “The Origin and Progress of the Bengal Medical College,” Indian Annals
of Medical Science 5 (1858): 37-54; K. C. Sarbadhikari, “Western Medical Education in India during The Early
Days of British Occupation,” Indian Journal Medical Education 1(1961): 27-32; Nandkumar H Keswani,
“Medical Education in India since Ancient Times,” in The History of Medical Education, ed., C. D. O’Malley
(Berkley, London: University of California Press, 1970), 329-366.
13
Deepak Kumar, “Probing the History of Medicine and Public Health in India,” Indian Historical Review 37.2
(2010): 259-273.
14
Poonam Bala, Imperialism and Medicine in Bengal: A Socio-Historical Perspective (New Delhi, London:
Sage, 1991), 67; also see her, Medicine and Medical Policies in India: Social and Historical Perspective
(Lanham: Lexington Books, 2007).
15
David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India
(Berkley, London: University of California Press, 1993).
16
Ibid, 58.
17
Arnold, Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), 57.
18
Southwood Smith, Use of the dead to the living, From the Westminster Review (Albany: Websters and
Skinners, 1827), 4.
19
S. N. Sen, Scientific and Technical Education in India: 1781-1900 (New Delhi: Indian National Science
Academy, 1991). Also see, Satpal Angwan, Technology and Colonization: An Indian Experience, 1757-1857
(Delhi: Anamika Prakashan, 1991).
20
BinayBhushan Roy, Chikitsa Bijnaner Itihas (Kolkata: Sahityalok, 2005).
 91

historical background of colonial cum modern medical education with its culmination in
CMC.21 Prakash identifies the “magnified attention to sanitation” which “represented a shift
in the colonial medical discourse that occurred as part of victory of the Anglicists over
Orientalists in the 1830s.”22 According to him, this was one of the factors that “led to the
replacement of the Native Medical Institution with the Calcutta Medical College in 1835.” 23
Hochmuth provides some important evidence on the history of the college and Bengal
Dispensaries, even though the Medical College is not his main area of study. 24 In his
argument, “medical education was a field of multiple ongoing negotiations and
accommodations.”25
Invoking race within the interstices of Western/colonial medicine, liberalism and its
anatomical enterprise, Ishita Pande argues, “British imperialism in India therefore signified a
return of the stronger branch of the Aryan family to resuscitate the weaker one, by
reintroducing rational medicine as colonial knowledge.”26 Further, in her argument,

The relative locations of the systems – Ayurvedic, Unani and European – mapped
temporally as ancient, medieval and modern respectively, were further fixed by
establishing an analogy with the languages which “contained” these medical systems
– Sanskrit, Arabic and English. Finally, these were made to fit into ethnological maps,
as the “Hindu,” the “Mohammedan” and the “English” systems. Once the map was in
place, the English language contained all of rational medical knowledge. India had
missed out on Europe’s history of progress; the way forward lay in a vicarious
experience of European history, made possible through the mechanics of empire.27

In more recent time, with the help of Michel Foucault’s writings on medicine and the
clinic, Sen and Das have attempted a conceptual distinction between a techne, and an epis-
teme.28 To them, “[b]eing both an educational and a scientific clinical institute,…[the
CMC] was the centre of a new form of knowledge of the body and newer practices of
medical interventions”.29 In an elaborate discursive engagement, they note that the birth of
the “colonial clinic” is yet a story untold. Their paper has so far most elaborately traced the
history and evolution of the CMC. However, it seems that the Foucauldian clinic seems to
differ from hospital medicine in the South Asian context. Studies of the “clinic” in the west
21
O. P. Jaggi, Medicine in India; Modern Period. Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture
(New Delhi; Oxford University Press, 2000).
22
Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000),
129.
23
Ibid.
24
Christian Hochmuth, “Patterns of Medical Culture in Colonial Bengal, 1835-1880,” Bulletin of the History of
Medicine 80.1 (2006): 39-72.
25
Ibid, p. 52.
26
Ishita Pande, Medicine, Race and Liberalism in British Bengal: Symptoms of Empire (New York, London:
Routledge, 2010), 75.
27
Ibid, 76.
28
Samita Sen and Anirban Das, “A History of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, 1835-1936,” in
Science and Modern India: An Institutional History, c. 1784-1947, ed., Uma Dasgupta (New Delhi: Centre for
Studies in Civilization, 2011), 477-521.
29
Ibid, 479.
 92

make it clear that it was, unlike India, an outcome of specific socio-historical and
economic developments over about two centuries.30
It may be mentioned here that Foucault himself seems to differentiate between the
hospital and the clinic. The clinic was essentially a European concept, mostly specific to
France in the late-18th and early-19th-century France. On the other hand, hospital is a global
concept across different centuries. The medical schools attached to the hospital, antedating or
post-dating the latter, produced generations of students to perpetuate the epistemological
matrix of the new medicine. Hence, instead of the “colonial clinic” we would be more
concerned with hospital medicine.
. Regarding the hospital and the clinic, Foucault explains:

in the hospital one is dealing with individuals who happen to be suffering from one
disease or another; the role of the hospital doctor is to discover the disease in the
patient; and this interiority of the disease means that it is often buried in the patient,
concealed within him like a cryptogram. In the clinic, on the other hand, one is
dealing with diseases that happen to be afflicting this or that patient: what is present is
the disease itself, in the body that is appropriate to it, which is not that of the patient,
but that of its truth. It is ‘the different diseases that serve as the text’: the patient is
only that through which the text can be read, in what is sometimes a complicated and
confusing state. In the hospital, the patient is the subject of his disease, that is, he is a
case; in the clinic, where one is dealing only with examples, the patient is the accident
of his disease, the transitory object that it happens to have seized upon.31

Following this line of argument I will briefly delve into the genesis of the hospital as
an institution and study its cultural mutations across the globe. Some useful work has been
done by Bhattacharya on the rise of hospital medicine in India and modern anatomical
teaching.32 And Mark Harrison has usefully traced how the clinical practice of dissection in
the East India Company’s medical service became one of the key factors in the
development of hospital medicine in India.33 He argues, “Modern medicine, or what was
understood as such during the early nineteenth century, was as much a product of the
colonies as of the infirmaries of revolutionary Paris; or, for that matter, of the hospitals and
anatomy schools of Britain.”34 In his further argument, “Indeed, all the characteristic
elements of what have come to be known as ‘hospital medicine’ were present twenty or

30
See a similar line of argumentation in Harrison, “Introduction”, 4.
31
Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (New York: Vintage Books,
1994), 59.
32
Jayanta Bhattacharya, “The genesis of hospital medicine in India: The Calcutta Medical College (CMC) and
the emergence of a new medical epistemology,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 51.2 (2014): 231-
264; Bhattacharya, “Arrival of Western Medicine: Āyurvedic Knowledge and Colonial Confrontation,” Indian
Journal of History of Science 46.1 (2011): 63-108; Bhattacharya, “The first dissection controversy: The
introduction of anatomical education in Bengal and British India,” Current Science 101.9 (2011): 1227-1232.
33
Mark Harrison, “Disease and Medicine in the Armies of British India,” in British Military and Naval
Medicine, ed., Geoffrey L. Hudson (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2007), 87-119 (89).
34
Mark Harrison, Medicine in an Age of Commerce and Empire: Britain and its Tropical Colonies 1660-1830
(Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 9.
 93

thirty years before in military or naval institutions of the colonies.”35

Although Harrison talks about surgical and pathological practices of the EIC
surgeons, their practice did not automatically lead to the rise of “hospital medicine” in India.
Elsewhere, Harrison argues that it is possible that the early history of hospitals beyond the
West may shed some light on what constitutes a modern hospital, some of which lay beyond
Europe.36 However, they did not on their own give rise to hospital medicine. It demanded a
different sort of strategy, method and state policy. Bynum stresses that it had even more
important consequences for medical thought. As he points out, “it taught generations of
students to conceptualize disease as surgeons would: in terms of anatomic structures, the
solid parts, local lesions.”37 If the move to produce “generations of students” in India did not
succeed, all rational and scientific, medical and surgical practices done by the Company’s
medical establishment would fail to make European medicine thrive. The foundation of CMC
did this historical task.
Form experimental point view, as Harrison reminds us, “Colonial hospitals were also
centre of therapeutic innovation, subjecting to systematic trial a range of botanical and
chemical remedies either pioneered in the colonies, or adopted from indigenous traditions.” 38
In my argument, “hospital medicine” is a distinct phase in the evolution of modern
medicine which, though intimately related, is clearly demarcated from the hospital itself. This
distinction is often overlooked. As Ackerknecht points out, “it was only at the hospital that
the three pillars of the new medicine – physical examination, autopsy, and statistics – could
be developed.”39 One of the key features of hospital medicine – pathological anatomy – was
cultivated in Paris too.40 In his acute observation, Ackerknecht notes, “These were essentially
a consequence of the tremendous influx of uprooted and penniless boys and girls from the
country and of the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.” 41 It is substantiated by another
researcher,

The patients were poor, less articulate, less troublesome, and it was much easier to
carry out research on them (especially statistically based research which required
large numbers in one place – the hospital). Moreover, the advantage of the poor was
that the large numbers of post-mortems that were carried out would elicit no
complaints from influential families.42
All these observations are a definite pointer to a social condition where economic
changes are going, forcing people to become penniless and uprooted. A few more
characteristics of hospital medicine which took a definite institutional shape in Parisian
35
Ibid, p. 289. [Emphasis added]
36
Harrison, “Introduction,” in From Western Medicine to Global Medicine, p. 6.
37
William F. Bynum, Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28.
38
Harrison, “Introduction,” p. 9.
39
Erwin H. Ackerknecht, Medicine at the Paris Hospital, 1794-1848 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967),
15.
40
Ibid, pp. 74-93.
41
Ibid, p. 15.
42
Andrew Wear, “Introduction,” in Medicine in Society: Historical Essays, ed., Andrew Wear (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1-13 (6). [Emphasis added]
 94

hospital may be elaborated. Earlier on, as a patient recounted how he or she fell ill, the story
itself was the object of scrutiny by doctor and patient alike. Both were, in effect, able to hold
the narrative up to the light and make of it what they would. “By the 1780s, the patient’s
narrative was no longer the focus of inquiry in the infirmary.” 43 Regarding teaching at a Paris
hospital one American student described his experience,

there were hundreds, nay thousands of individuals, employed in demonstrating,

teaching, and unraveling, in every possible way, the most intricate subjects, in every
branch of our science and art, and for a compensation so exceedingly small, and,
oftentimes, without any compensation at all, as to be within the limits of the poorest
and most destitute student. … Above all, I found that the regular lectures in the
different hospitals and institutions, by men of the first eminence, were paid for by
government, and gratuitous, as respected the pupil.44

It is important to remember that the Parisian hospitals (unlike most of the English
medical schools for anatomical teaching) were controlled by the government, which
employed clinicians to attend patients and to teach, and, thus, “fostered the access of
instructors and students to the bodies of living patients and their remains after death. By
contrast, the London hospitals were private charitable institutions with lay boards of
governors that vested medical control in a small number of socially elite physicians and
surgeons.”45 Joan Lane reminds us that the changes in hospitals in the nineteenth century
were in important areas like medical teaching, and the whole profession expanded as never
before. The acute sick came to “outnumber the long-term chronic patients…the hospitals
became more ‘medicalised’…”46 The French experience of the rise of hospital medicine
heralded the closing hour of medical medievalism. It was no longer possible to practice
without examination. “Surgeons, used to extirpating the lesions of the disease, and
physicians, used to administering systemic medicaments, all suddenly now needed a blanket
system that could unite heretofore disparate perspectives on the ‘seats and causes of
disease’.”47
The bedside in hospital itself becomes a site of data-collection. Application of
measurement or numbers to medicine, as Trohler argues, may be seen under three broad
headings – (a) “statistical quantification” or measurements made in relation to a single
individual or place, (b) “medical statistics’ or measurements or numerical statements relating
to small groups of individual, and (c) ‘vital statistics” or measurements or numerical
43
Marry E. Fissel, “The disappearance of the patient’s narrative and the invention of hospital medicine,” in
British Medicine in an Age of Reform, eds., Roger French and Andrew Wear (London, New York: Routledge,
1991), 92-109 (99).
44
John Harley Warner, “Paradigm Lost or Paradise Declining? American Physicians and the ‘Dead End’ of the
Paris Clinical School,” in Constructing Paris Medicine, eds., Caroline Hanaway and Ann La Berge
(Amsterdam, Atlanta GA: Rodopi, 1999), 337-383 (344).
45
Ibid, p. 343.
46
Joan Lane, A Social History of Medicine: Health, healing and disease in England, 1750-1950 (London, New
York: Routledge, 2001), 87.
47
Russel C. Maulitz, “The pathological tradition,” in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, W.
F. Bynum and Roy Porter (ed.), vol. I (London: Routledge, 1993), 169-191 (178).
 95

statements relating to large groups of individuals or even to a population as a whole. 48 ‘The

body is sampled, invaded, measured and inspected, in order to yield images and information’
and it is “dispersed through multiple sites of investigation throughout this organizational
complexities.”49 Waddington reminds us that the body is in no way “naturally” a peculiarly
intimate and private thing, rather it has come to be so regarded gradually as part of the
civilizing process.50
The medical encounter began to demand that patients reveal the secrets of their
bodies, both by allowing physical examination and by giving their medical history under
questioning by the doctor.51 In Indian culture, revealing one’s body to the examination of an
alien person was unprecedented. With this new vision of hospital medicine, there emerged an
altogether novel thread, which bound culture, the hospital, society, and the notion of
profession inextricably together. The body rather than the discursive patient was becoming
the real object of medicine. Pickstone tersely comments, “The hospitals of England
experienced no revolutionary change, but here too the new attitudes took root.” 52 He also
notes that the health crisis of 1831-32 coincided with the political crisis over electoral
reform.53 We shall shortly see that this was true for India, especially in the foundation of the
CMC. Following Maulitz, for the first time in modern Europe, there was a context, a set of
structures and arrangements centered on the existence of a “newly ecumenical faculty, within
which a new theoretical canon could flourish.”54 As pointed out by the scholars, these new set
of structures and methodologies were a product of the changing time.
Somewhat similar changes were taking place in Bengal, and in India, during the first
three decades of the 19th century. It must be stressed that it was never like politically free and
economically market-driven states of Europe. Rather the changes happening here were
engrafted to a great extent. It started primarily from point of desire of the upper echelon of
society on the one hand, and general populace at large who were mostly sans treatment to a
great extent.
In the Indian context, four basic changes principally augured the beginning of the
new medicine: (a) a conceptual change of the two-dimensional bodily image to the three-
dimensional one; (b) the treatment of the patient in a hospital setting, not in his/her
domestic environs; (c) touching and measuring the patient’s body with a stethoscope,
thermometer and other modes of inspection; and (d) a transition to a new type of “modern”
identity, that is, from the socially embedded individual to “case number” in a hospital.

48
Ulrich Trohler, Quantification in British Medicine and Surgery 1750-1830, with special reference to Its
Introduction into Therapeutics (PhD Thesis, University College London, 1978), 41.
49
Paul Atkinson, Medical Talk and Medical Clinic (London, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1995), 61.
50
Ivan Waddington (1973), “The Role of the Hospital in the Development of Modern Medicine: A Sociological
Analysis,” Sociology 7(2): 211-224 (219).
51
For an insightful discussion see, Deborah Lupton, Medicine as Culture (London, Thousand Oaks: Sage,
2003).
52
John V. Pickstone, Medicine and Industrial Society: A history of hospital development in Manchester and its
Region, 1752-1946 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 48.
53
Ibid, 54.
54
Russel Charles Malitz. Morbid Appearances: The Anatomy of Pathology in the Early Nineteenth Century
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 4.
 96

In my analysis, the CMC represents an admixture of the secular and advanced

methods of medical teaching adopted at the University College London (UCL), medical and
surgical practices of the Company’s surgeons and the discriminatory nature of colonial
practice on the one hand and, on the other, the transition from military medical training to
modern medical education in India. Since the period of the foundation of the CMC, the
structure of medical education in India, like European medical schools, acquired the ability to
control “its own education and training followed by examination, certification and
registration”.55
Though registration was a later development, graduates from the CMC initiated modern
professionalism, distinct from both indigenous medical practitioners and the native doctors
of the Native Medical Institution (hereafter, NMI). The mode of training followed at the
NMI by surgical practices pursued in British hospitals since the late eighteenth century,
was improvised at the instance of its introduction in regular clinical training at the bedside
of patients in the hospital.56
Hospital medicine is recent scholarships is an accepted paradigm, especially in
Western scholarship, to differentiate the new medicine, intimately related to socio-economic
changes during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries in Europe, especially in
Western scholarship. Following Ackerknecht, the three pillars of the new medicine (that is,
hospital medicine) – physical examination, autopsy and statistics – as we have already
discussed, could only be developed in the hospitals. Jacyna comments, “Ackerknecht offered
a classification of the major stages in the history of Western medicine that proved to be
remarkably influential.”57
It gained further momentum after the publication of Jewson’s now classic paper “The
Disappearance of the Sick-man from Medical Cosmology, 1770–1870”.58 Jewson, among
others, stressed on four specific issues—(a) medical cosmology characteristic of Western
European societies during the period 1770–1870; (b) the universe of discourse of medical
theory changing from that of integrated conception of the whole body to that of a network of
bonds between microscopic particles; (c) social production of knowledge—raw material of
production; and (d) a “collegiate” system of educational control emerging within the
community of medical investigators. In his commentary on Jewson’s paper, Pickstone
stressed that it may be profitable to think of a historical and analytical shift from a series-
model of successive types of medicine (bedside to hospital to laboratory to, now, techno-
medicine) to a model of co-existence and inter-penetration of types where novel forms co-

55
Irvine Loudon, “Medical Education and Medical Reform,” in The History of Medical Education in Britain,
ed., Vivian Nutton and Roy Porter (Amsterdam, Atlanta GA: Rodopi, 1995), pp. 229-249 (233).
56
Unlike the NMI, in the Madras system, a new method of training was well developed to produce compounders
and dressers from the sons of soldiers—a sort of half-caste—to be educated at the hospitals as sub-assistant
surgeons. But such a plan was finally discarded in 1826 by the Medical Board in favour of the NMI. For Madras
training see, Pratik Chakrabarti, ““Neither of meate nor drinke, but what the Doctor alloweth”: Medicine amidst
War and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Madras,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80 (2006): 1-38.
57
Stephen Jacyna, “Medicine in Transformation, 1800-1849,” in The Western Medical Tradition: 1800 to 2000,
W. F. Bynum, Anne Hardy, Stephen Jacyna, Christopher Lawrence, E. M. (Tilli) Tansey (Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 11-110 (53).
58
N. D. Jewson, “The Disappearance of the Sick-man from Medical Cosmology, 1770–1870,” International
Journal of Epidemiology 38.3 (2009): 622-633. Reprinted from Sociology 10.2 (1976): 225-244.
 97

exist with the old one in contested cumulations.59

Nicolson finds that medical knowledge of the pre-hospital medicine era was ‘exoteric’
as opposed to the ‘esoteric’ form of medical knowledge in the era of hospital and laboratory
medicine. This meant that the signs and symptoms that disease inscribed on the suffering
body, were now intelligible only to the expert physician.60 The disappearance of the ‘sick-
man’ from medical cosmology as Armstrong argues could mark the very crystallization of a
new form of ‘modern’ identity, albeit initially in an anatomical form. 61 Somewhat similar to
the American scenario,62 anatomical or pathological signs became an expression of
modernity. In India, during the mid-nineteenth century, British doctors derived their claims to
scientific objectivity and authority largely from their studies of morbid anatomy and their
attempts to relate the state of diseased internal organs examined after death to the symptoms
manifested externally during life.63
Following Foucault, in the newly emerging clinic and medicine, there was “an
essential mutation in medical knowledge”.64 Scholars have argued that Northwestern Europe
and North America were the regions in which a certain kind of nation-state, with particular
social and economic forms, medical organizations, and intellectual culture first generated a
widespread view that science in medicine would benefit not only some individuals but all
“citizens” universally.65 This very phase of European medicine surpassed anything prevailing
before it. With the rise of hospital medicine it was no longer possible to practice without
examination. “Surgeons, used to extirpating the lesions of the disease, and physicians, used to
administer systemic medicaments, all suddenly now needed a blanket system that could unite
heretofore disparate perspectives on the ‘seats and causes of disease’.”66 The person of the
patient was transformed into pathology inside the body. The old medicine had been deeply
entangled with theory, but “the new medicine, like the old surgery, would be devoted to
practice”.67 The hospitals of England experienced no revolutionary change, but there too the
new attitudes took root.68 Pickstone shows the interrelation between medicine and politics
and how the health crisis of 1831–32 coincided with the political crisis over electoral
reform.69 Techniques of physical diagnosis helped establish the significance of the hospital as

59
John V. Pickstone, “Commentary: From history of medicine to general history of ‘working knolwledges’,”
International Journal of Epidemiology 38.3 (2009): 646-649.
60
Malcom Nicolson, “Commentary: Nicholas Jewson and the disappearance of the sick man from medical
cosmology, 1770-1870,” Journal of Epidemiology 38.3 (2009): 639-642.
61
David Armstrong, “Commentary: Indeterminate sick-men – a commentary on Jewson’s ‘Disappearance of the
sick-man from medical cosmology’,” International Journal of Epidemiology 38.3 (2009): 642-645.
62
Michael Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century
America (Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004).
63
Arnold, Colonizing the Body, p. 53.
64
Foucault, Birth of the Clinic, p. viii.
65
Harold J. Cook, “Introduction,” in The Western Medical Tradition, pp. 1-6 (2).
66
Maulitz, “The Pathological Tradition”, p. 178.
67
W. F. Bynum, Science and the Practice of Medicine in Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 28.
68
Pickstone, Medicine and Industrial Society: A history of hospital development in Manchester and its Region,
1752-1946 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 48.
69
Ibid, p. 54.
 98

a place of medical learning.70

Tersely speaking, in hospital where dissection is of the greatest importance for the
acquisition of modern medical knowledge, the anatomist eventually becomes the “person
who has reduced one body in order to understand its morphology, and thus to preserve
morphology at a later date, in other bodies, elsewhere.”71

Opening the Space for Western Medicine – The Gestation of Hospital Medicine

We shall come to see this impact later on.

Medicine, unlike other branches of the natural sciences, deals with living people; and
the better understanding of disease demands the dissection of cadavers. In its transformation
from the ‘art of healing’ to ‘biomedical cure’, western medicine had to incorporate advances
in the basic sciences that were already current – and this transformation had an integral
political dimension to it. Larwood for example has traced the establishment and
consolidation of the British empire in India as coincident with the expanding interests and
achievements in science in Europe. 72 It is noteworthy therefore that British power “watched
with peculiar anxiety the introduction into India of medical science in its European form,
and its rise and progress as a plant from a foreign land, adopted and recognized by the
natives”73. 35 In short, it had to go beyond the “enclavism” of British hospital practice for
this purpose in India.74
Favorable attitudes towards Western medical practice, I argue, was an outcome of
general scientific education which began in India during the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century. The introduction of stethoscope was one of the most potent tools in this
regard. Conwell, a staff surgeon of the East India Company, Madras, was possibly the first
person to submit the cases he studied and his notes on the stethoscope in 1827. 75 In similar
ways (but in a slightly different context) the Serampore missionaries pioneered
popularization of general scientific education in the subcontinent. Sivasundaram, for
example, exposes how the Serampore Mission of Bengal sought to bring indigenous
traditions into a dialogue with European science, so that the former could give way to the
latter.76 For an example:

70
Reiser, “The Science of Diagnosis: The Diagnostic Technology,” in Companion Encyclopedia of the History
of Medicine, eds., W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, vol. I (London, New York: Routledge: 1993), 826-851.
71
Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the human body in Renaissance culture (London,
New York: Routledge, 1996), 2.
72
H. J. C. Larwood, “Western Science in India before 1850,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic (New Series) 94 (1-2):
62-76.
73
Anonymous, “Sketch of an Indian physician,” Lancet 1 (1855): 48.
74
Arnold, Colonizing the Body.
75
W. E. E. Conwell, Observations Chiefly on Pulmonary Disease in India and an Essay on the Use of
Stethoscope (Malacca: Mission Press, 1829). William Eugene Edward Conwell, a student of the inventor of the
stethoscope, René Théophile Hyacinthe Laënnec himself, was probably the first person to use the stethoscope
for quantification of pulmonary case records, and to relate the cause of death to pathological anatomy, in the
Indian subcontinent; at least, he seems to have been the first to publicly comment upon the matter.
76
Sujit Sivasundram, “’A Christian Benares’: Orientalism, Science and the Serampore Mission of Bengal,”
Indian Economic and Social History Review44,2 (2007): 111-145.
 99

For Ward, the India in which he lived possessed an intellectual culture which had
been stunted and which only followed the corrupted wisdom of the past. He described
how men of learning only possessed between 10 and 20 Sanksrit works, while the
‘great bulk of the people’ were ‘perfectly unacquainted with letters, not possessing
even the vestiges of a book’. Indian women, in the meantime, were said to be ‘almost
in every instance’ unable to read. Of 100,000 Brahmans, Ward noted that only 10
would become learned in the astronomical shastras, while 10 more might understand
them imperfectly.77

Further in their efforts, “In pursuing a course of experimentation and in using so many
scientific instruments, the Serampore evangelists taught Indians how to relate to the visible
and how to avoid deifying nature.” 78 In his brilliant analysis, Raj depicts how Calcutta
gradually became the capital city for a world of scientific knowledge construction. The
British could not sustain control over the territory “by relying solely on the mere 1200 civil
and military agents of the Company, who were, in addition, poorly trained for administrative
tasks”,79 They were, therefore, always in need of people who could internalise Western
science. In Raj’s argument, for the “construction of knowledge as such” one should look “to
the process rather than to the event”.80
Initially, the introduction of modern medical education in India had to overcome the
impact of Ayurveda and Unani as well as the conventional repugnance of touching dead
bodies instilled by social habits and custom. Curiously, even as late as the 1830s, Company
surgeons seemed to be treated with low esteem in England: “the medical practitioner, in
the service of our Honorable East India Company, is estimated somewhat under a butler in
London! By the said Company a man is considered as far inferior to a horse – and
consequently a surgeon is sub- ordinate to a black-smith!”81 In the reporting just mentioned
there was a “Memorial” “On the Medical Officers of the Bengal Presidency, whose
Signatures are Hereunto Annexed, to the Chairman, Deputy Chairman, and Directors of the
Honorable The East India Company, &c. &c. &c.”. The unnamed signatories stated in
clear terms,

We, the undersigned Medical Officers of the Bengal Presidency, most humbly and
respectfully solicit the attention of your Honorable Court to the existing state of the
medical department of this country hitherto in force, is so entirely changed in its
character and provisions that … under which they at present suffer.82

So, elevating the professional status of the Company surgeons in their homeland was
strongly needed. In 1837, Goodeve felt, “ Within the last twenty or fifteen years Anglo-
77
Ibid, p. 131.
78
Ibid, p. 137.
79
Kapil Raj, “The Historical Anatomy of a Contact Zone: Calcutta in the Eighteenth Century,” Indian Economic
and Social History Review 48.1 (2011): 55-82 (65).
80
Ibid, p. 56.
81
Anonymous, “Review of the Medical Department of the East India Company,” Medico-Chirurgical Review
(New Series) 13.25 (1830): 112-122 (113).
82
Anonymous, “Review of the Medical Department of the East India Company”, p. 114.
 100

Indian medicine has advanced with rapid stride”, and, accordingly, he believed, “[t]he
immense improvements which have taken place in the medical sciences in Europe have
doubtless contributed to this desirable end; for even…these distant regions…feel…the
influence of scientific discoveries at home”.83
During the period under study, health treatment and other amenities for the common
people of Bengal was in a nascent state of development. Soorjo Goodeve Chuckerbutty (as
he pronounced and spelt his own name and surname, with great honor to his teacher and
mentor Goodeve – professor of the CMC) described the scenario in 1864:

It was commonest thing in those days I am speaking of (in the 30s of the 19 th
century, just prior to the establishment of the CMC) to see these Kobirajes going
about the villages each with a brass case in his armpit, well furnished with reed
phials filled with different kinds of drugs; and, as they went from house to house
they dealt out these drugs to their patients, giving particular directions as to whether
they were to be taken with the juice of Toolsi-leaves, Bael leaves …84

There were also Kobirajes of high prominence and esteem. They were deeply
regarded by common people –

in fairness I am bound to confess that there were some among them well instructed
in the Shastras and highly popular. Such names as Ramdullub Sein (Ramdurlabh
Sen) and Nillumber Sein (Nilambar Sen) were widely known, and they were
reported to have effected extraordinary cures. The latter of these gentlemen attended
a patient under my own observation more than thirty years ago, and it was curious to
see how the villagers flocked around to have a sight of him all along the road. The
case was then in the last stage of dysentery, and so, finding that he could do nothing
in the way of cure, he boldly foretold the day and hour of death, which proved to be
correct.”85

This amount of social esteem not only signifies the practitioner’s long-earned
respect, but also, I believe, a certain kind of social-embeddedness, which was vanishing
during the more objective and clinically detached new medicine, which came in vogue later
on. Further, he elaborates the situation and talks about 20 type different types of itinerant
village healers:

Thus, besides the Kobirajes Barber-Surgeons, Ticcadars, and midwives, there are a
host specialists. There were itinerant eye-doctors, who went about to perform the
operation of extraction for the cataract; itinerant phlebotomists, who bled for all
sorts pains and aches; itinerant lithotomists, who cut for stone in the bladder;

83
Quoted in Harrison, Medicine in the Age of Commerce, p. 96.
84
S. Goodeve Chuckerbutty, Popular Lectures on Subjects of Interest (Calcutta: Thomas S. Smith, 1870), 138.
This paper was written on February 2nd, 1864, and was then published in the British Medical Journal. Later on,
it was compiled in this book.
85
Ibid, p. 139. [Emphasis added]
 101

itinerant cuppers; itinerant leech-men; itinerant devotees, who sold all manner of
charms and amulets for prevention and cure of diseases; itinerant exorcisers, who
pretended to cure hysteria, mania, and epilepsy by expelling evil spirits; Ojhas, who
professed to extract the venom from poisoned wounds by charms, incantations, ad
religious mummeries; priests of Hindu temples, who advised penance and money-
gifts to particular idols, who, they said, had the power effecting miraculous cures;
cauterisers, who used gool (or burning coal) and red-hot iron for chronic disorders;
acupuncture-men, who would puncture the enlarged spleen and liver; issue-men,
who would make large issues on the legs and arms for all diseases of plethora;
women-doctors for complaints connected with generative functions; travelling-
aurists; tooth-extractors; and so on.86

But Chuckerbutty was not entirely dismissive regarding these practicing people of
village – “All these men, ignorant and narrow-minded as they were, had a certain amount of
dexterity in their different callings, which, no doubt, was the result of repeated practice.”87

A ryot with a wife and two children seldom earned more than “five rupees a month,
out of which he ha[d] to defray all expenses”88. The common people of Bengal, it was
reported, had to bear “the barbarous treatment of the Kobirajes” and the half-educated quack
– an Eastern type of Dr Sangrado who required a fee of ‘one rupee in many cases from the
poor fellows”.89 In 1822, some people of Calcutta wrote to the editor of the Sangbad
Coumudy (the Moon of Intelligence), “The people of this country have been relieved from a
variety of diseases since it has been in the possession of the English nation.” 90 They wrote
that the ten rupees which poor people earned every month was barely sufficient to sustain
the family, and, consequently, “the populace have generally not the means of calling in a
European doctor…whereby the poor might avail themselves of the medical treatment of
European doctors”.91 They argued, “Were the Hindoo physicians to instruct their children in
the knowledge of their own medical Shasters first, and then place them as practitioners
under the superintendence of European physicians, it would prove infinitely advantageous to
the Natives of the country.”92
According to the reporting, this endeavour would benefit the society in four ways. First,
pupils would be acquainted with both the English and Bengali mode of learning. Second,
“by going to all places, and attending to poor as well as rich families, and to persons of
every age and sex, he could render service to all”. Third, “he could go to such places as
were inaccessible to European doctors”. Fourth, “this kind of medical knowledge, and the
mode of treatment by passing from hand to hand, would be at length spread over the whole
86
Ibid, pp. 139-40.
87
Ibid, 140.
88
Anonymous, “Miscellaneous Critical Notices,” Calcutta Review 13.25 (1854): xviii-xx (xix).
89
Ibid. This particular issue related to Dr. Sangrado has been dealt with in a more detailed manner later on in
another chapter..
90
Anonymous, “Miscellaneous – Bengally Newspapers,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register 14.82 (October
1822): 385-394 (387).
91
Ibid,
92
Ibid, p. 388.
 102

country”93. The new medicine, heralding its universality with the words ‘[for] every age
and sex’, also incorporated a kind of secular nature into it. Bearing only the faint trace of
the gurukul system, in which knowledge could be passed “from hand to hand”, the English
mode of teaching had to be incorporated for better efficacy. It was in such an intellectual
climate and bolstered by such favourable social attitudes (at least in a particular section of
society) that the NMI struck its deep roots in Bengal.
At least until the 1830s, there were rather two conflicting strands in European
medicine. While symptomatology of the patient and six non-naturals of humoral theory
guided the world of medicine, post-Vesalian anatomy and post-Harverian physiology built up
the premise of surgical excellence and cures. One of the earliest medical treatises on India
even discussed about “sol-lunar influence” on fevers. 94 As a result, in the world of
therapeutics, European medicine could not actually overcome indigenous therapeutics of
India. Nevertheless, superior surgical dexterity was successful to produce awe for European
medicine –

Hormasjee Bhicajee, a respectable native merchant and ship-builder, was induced to

lay aside prejudice, and submit to the operation of lithotomy performed by Dr.
Fogerty…The result of this and other operations has led us to the conclusion, that the
natives of the country are daily becoming more and more alive to the benefit derived
from the employment of European skill in the treatment of disease.95

More convincing was the cranial surgery done by “Ramnarain Doss (Ramnarayan
Dass), a student of the Medical College” who treated a boy with “severe concussion of the
brain’ and operated on the boy by the methods available then to him to restore the boy to
consciousness, and ultimately to health.96 It was the “first triumph of the Medical College
and must be gratifying to the Professors”.97 Ramnarayan Dass’s feat was fully described in
the British and Foreign Medical Review.98

93
Ibid, p. 388.
94
Francis Balfour, A Collection of the Treatises on the Effects of Sol-Lunar Influence in Fevers; with an
Improved Method of Curing Them (London: Cupar, 1815, 3rd edn).
95
Anonymous, “Excerpta,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register XXVII.107 – New Series (November 1838):
162.
96
Anonymous, “Medical Student’s Skill,” Calcutta Monthly Journal, Third Series, 5.52 (1839): 171.
97
Anonymous, “Medical Student’s Skill”, p. 171.
98
Anonymous, “Half-yearly Reports of the Government Charitable Dispensaries established in the Bengal and
North-Western Province, from 1st August 1840, to 31st January 1842,” British and Foreign Medical Review 19
(January-April 1845): 72-78 (76).
 103

A number of feats of Ramnarayan Dass and Umacharan Seth, who were among the
first five graduates of the CMC in 1838, were reported in the same journal. Seth “supplied a
man with a nose after the Taliacotian method (to remember, not the Indian method of
Suśruta), who had ahd his own cut off in a quarrel. Numerous cases of hydrocele were treated
with iodine injections.”99 Let us look into another important major operation by Dass.100

Bhicajee’s case is in 1822, while those of Dass and Seth belong post-CMC period.
Only common thread between the two is (1) thrust of elite as well as common people on
European surgery of new kind, and (2) European surgery is metonym for Western medical
excellence in its wholeness.
The first Legislative enactment recognising the policy of education in colonial India
was Act 53, George III, Cap. 153 of 1813. Cooke observed that owing perhaps to the
unsettled state of Europe at the time, and “the breaking out afresh of the war with Bonaparte,
with the consequent monetary disturbances in the English markets, no steps were taken to
carry this resolution of the Government into effect…remained unfulfilled till the year
1823”.101 The twin need for an educational economy as well as a cohort of trained “native
doctors to supply vacancies in regiments” 102 was the principal motive behind educating
‘native doctors’ in India. In 1855, the Lancet reported, “It is little more than thirty years ago
since the wants of the army caused the Medical Boards of Madras and Calcutta to commence
instructing natives in some of the simple varieties of medical knowledge”, though these were
“of the humblest possible description.”103
The economic need of the state was explicitly stated: “Native surgeons, educated
99
Ibid, p. 75.
100
Ibid.
101
Charles W. R. Cooke, Education in India. An Essay on the State and Prospects of Education among the
Upper Classes of Natives in India (Cambridge, London: Macmillan & Co., 1864), 39-40.
102
Anonymous, “Education of Native Doctors,” Asiatic Journal 22.127 (1826): 111-121.
103
Anonymous, “Sketch of an Indian Physician,” Lancet I (1855): 48.
 104

at the Company’s Medical College in Calcutta, could be easily procured, and would be
glad to be employed, at from Rs 25 to Rs 50 per month, with rations and a free
passage.”104 For each English soldier, on the other hand, it would cost the state £100 to
train him for duty.105 From 1819 new influences were at work at India House in London
with the appointment of James Mill, the Utilitarian philosopher. 106 During this time, there
appeared strong voices against monopoly of the Company on the one hand, and “the
singular monopoly of the College of Physicians in England”, 107 on the other. Medicine and
medical profession were even compared with “sum of good” and “like commodities in
commerce be limited only by demand”. 108 All these factors intersected one another in
many tangible and intangible ways in the shaping of the CMC. Khaleeli comments, “Interests
in native health seem to coincide with interest in native education, as the administrative
advantages of both came to be appreciated.”109
The earliest reference to ‘black doctors’ is possibly found in a return of the
Company’s Bengal Army on 21 June 1762. There were 19 “black doctors” among 8338
English soldiers, or about two per battalion of a thousand men. 110 When the Company
raised a standing army, native medical attendants were appointed to each crops and
regiment.111
The military sub-medical department in Bengal appears to have been definitely
constituted in the first years of the nineteenth century. A general order, dated 15th
June, 1812, published in the C.G. of 2nd July, 1812, approves of a plan submitted by
the Medical Board for training boys from the Upper and Lower Orphan Schools and
from the Free School, as compounders and dressers, and ultimately as Apothecaries
and Sub-Assistant Surgeons. This appears to be the earliest use of the title Sub-
Assistant Surgeon in Bengal.112

Similar developments occurred in Madras and Bombay: those who were referred to as
“Native Dressers” in Madras corresponded to, it seems, the Black Doctors of Bengal.
Crawford notes,

104
Report of the Select Committee on Transportation; Together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and
Index (London, 1838), 196.
105
W. J. Moore, Health in the Tropics or Sanitary Art Applied to Europeans in India (London: John Churchill,
1862), 6.
106
A. F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Social Ideas and Social Change in Bengal 1800-1835, Papyrus edition (Calcutta:
Papyrus, 2003), 189.
107
Anonymous, An Exposition of the State of Medical Profession in the British Dominions; and of Injurious
Effects of the Monopoly by Usurpation of the Royal College of Physicians in London (London: Longman, Rees,
Orme , Brown and Green, 1826), 4.
108
Ibid, p. 1.
109
Zhaleh Khaleeli, “Harmony or Hegemony? The Rise and Fall of the Native Medical Institution, Calcutta,
1822-35,” South Asia Research 21.1 (2001): 77-104 (80).
110
Arthur Broome, History of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal Army, Appendix P, vol. 1 (Calcutta: W.
Thacker & Co., 1850), xxxi.
111
D. G. Crawford, A History of Indian Medical Service 1600-1913, vol. II (London: W. Thacker & Co., 1914),
102.
112
Ibid, pp. 106-07.
 105

A Political Letter from Madras, dated 15th March, 1811, states in paras. 313, 314, that
Native Dressers are continued on the Pension List on half pay, five pagodas a month.
These Native Dressers in Madras corresponded to the Black Doctors of Bengal, and to
the Military Sub-Assistant Surgeons of the present day.113

A Government Order (GO) of 15 June 1812 approved of a plan submitted by the

Medical Board for training boys from the Upper and Lower Orphan Schools and from the
Free School, as compounders and dressers, and ultimately as apothecaries and sub-assistant
surgeon in Bengal. It was stated that twenty-four boys of fourteen or sixteen years of age
were to be selected. They were to be posted as follows—ten at the General hospital at the
Presidency, ten at the Garrison Hospital, Chunar and four at the General Dispensary. They
were placed under the immediate charge of the Superintending Surgeon.

When these pupils are considered by the Superintending Surgeon, and the Surgeons
under whom they will be more immediately educated, duly qualified for exercising
the duties of Compounders and Dressers, they shall then be stationed at the
recommendation of the Medical Board with such native corps as may more peculiarly
require their aid; and afterwards with the different European Corps of the Honourable
Company's Service, with Field Hospitals, and with the Depots of Medicines.114

Such medical training was of a purely military nature, to serve only military purposes.
Moreover, it was not an institutional training, but rather an individual tutoring under the
superintending surgeon with the aim to produce compounders and dressers. It had no
syllabus, no proper examination system or certification. The twin need of utter military
necessity and economy of education in the production of Native Doctors will be much more
evident from observations of Lushington, as regards the formation of the Native Medical
Institution (NMI):

The anxiety of the Medical Board, relative to the paucity and inefficiency of that
useful body, the Native Doctors, induced them in 1822 to represent the matter to
Government, in order that a remedy might be applied to an evil which was rapidly
increasing, and threatened the most injurious consequences to the service. Previously
to the abolition of the General Hospitals in the interior of the Country, and the
augmentation of the army, persons of this description, properly qualified, were
procurable in adequate numbers. But, the sources whence they had acquired their
knowledge having been removed, they were no longer to be procured at fixed stations,
in cases of emergency, and the Medical staff were obliged to take such individuals as
offered, wherever they could be found, notwithstanding their slender qualifications.
Thus, by a peculiar fatality, as the demand for Native Doctors increased, so the means
of meeting it were diminished. Owing to our recent expansion of territory, and the
consequent wide distribution of the army for it’s protection, a great number of the

113
Crawford, A History of Indian Medical Service, p. 103.
114
Ibid, p. 107.
 106

Native Battalions had been broken down into two and sometimes more sub-
division.115

Lushington further notes that not only military stations, but also the civil stations were
not exempt from “the same evil”: “even to a greater degree at the Civil Stations, some of
which had from the scarcity of assistant Surgeons been left for long periods to the care of the
Natives.”116 Especially, under such circumstances, “it was not surprising that great mortality
evinced the unskilfulness of the Native practitioners.” 117 Being left at the hands of the Native
Doctors, though quite unfortunately, seems to denote two aspects – (1) the dwindling of the
White race, as well as (2) superior position of European medicine not being properly applied.
Finally, on May 30, 1822, the Medical Board submitted the Regulations of the
proposed school for educating native youths in medical knowledge of European world
through the medium of vernaculars. Within less than a month the Military Department issued
the Governor General’s general order No. 41 dated June 21, 1822, establishing the School for
Native Doctors or the Native Medical Institution (NMI). 118 The G.O. consisted of 39 clauses
elaborately elucidating requirements and proto-syllabus of the NMI. Sharp describes the
phenomenon tersely:

In 1822 the establishment of a medical school to consist of 20 students with

allowances of Rs. 8 per mensem each, and a superintendent on Rs. 800 was settled.
The Court did not altogether approve and expressed a preference for the Fort St.
George plan of training half-castes as dressers. The Court also thought the salary of
the superintendent excessive. In 1825 the Medical Board explained their reasons for
not adopting the Madras system and the superiority of their own scheme. During the
prevalence of cholera in 1825 the students were most usefully employed. In 1826 the
number of students was increased to 50 and the stipends to Rs. 10. The Court
approved and sent out certain. Models (anatomical models like Lizar’s and Cloquet’s
ones).119

In 1825, it was observed that notwithstanding their acknowledged utility and visible
necessity the Honorable Court of Directors “have unfortunately, with a view to economy,
ordered its abolition; but the government of India, bound by their sacred duty to their native
subjects, have unanimously recommended in the strongest possible terms its
continuance…”120 Two issues should be brought into consideration. Firstly, whether the
Madras system of half-caste training or full-scale for training Native Doctors to be adopted
115
Charles Lushington, The History, Design, and Present State of the Religious, Benevolent and Charitable
Institutions, Founded by the British in Calcutta (Calcutta: Hindostani Press, 1824), 312-13. [Emphasis added]
116
Ibid, pp. 313-14.
117
Ibid, p. 314.
118
S. N. Sen, Scientific and Technical Education in India, 1781-1900 (New Delhi: Indian National Science
Academy, 1991), 130.
119
H. H. Sharp, Selections from Educational Records, Part I, 1781-1839 (Calcutta, 1920), 184. Also see, GRPI,
1851, p. 184.
120
Anonymous, “Debate at the E.I.H, June 21 – Education of the Native Doctors,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly
Register, vol. 22.127 (1826): 111-121 (113).
 107

was resolved, and secondly, as the monopolist traders like the East India Company Directors
favored the abolition of the college, the Government of India (not the EIC House) upheld the
continuation of the college. The strife between the Court of Directors of the EIC and the
policy of the Government of India became apparent and visible, which was finally resolved in
1835. In 1826, Dr. Breton, successor of the first Superintendent Dr. Jameson, remarked:

The grand object of the Native Medical Institution, if I judge rightly, is to diffuse
amongst the natives, generally of Hindustan, medical knowledge according to
European principles; but the ostensible one is to educate Hindus and Musulmans to
enable them to fill efficiently the situation of native doctors in the civil and military
branches of the service.121

Breton started his classes at his own residence, as then there was no separate building
with class rooms, museums and laboratories. On his exhortation and definite guidance, after
registration the students used to be distributed at the General Hospital, King’s Hospital, the
Hon’ble Company’s Dispensary and the Native Hospital. This arrangement then rotated
among the students groups enabling each of them to have the experience of the four
hospitals.122
Doing rounds in the hospitals and learning from patients and autopsy done at those
hospitals provided them a new world of visual images, medical experience, a new individual
psyche for this new kind of medicine, and new kind vocabularies which would lead new
auditory experience. An altogether new world was in the making. “Demonstration of the
Human Body”, Breton informs us, is

given as opportunities offer at the General and Native Hospitals. Lectures on

comparative anatomy illustrative of the structure and functions of the various parts of
the animal Body, and discourses on Materia Medica and Practice of Physic are also
given to the students in the Superintendent’s own Premises … assisted by my own
private Persian and Nagree and are subsequently printed in Lithography for the
instructions of the Students and the Native Practitioners of Hindoostan.123

Besides exposure to human diseases, comparative anatomy and autopsy the students
would also observe and learn chemical and physical lessons. Various experiments were
shown including preparations of different substances such as sulfate of soda, magnesia,
muriatic and nitric acids, calomel, hyd. precip. rubrum, caustic bougies, spirits of wine from
rice and gur (molasses), and distilling the same. He also demonstrated to the students a
variety of experiments with the air-pump and on electricity with the object of giving them
some idea on the properties of air and the phenomenon of lightning.124

121
Mahendra Lal Sircar, “The Calcutta Medical College,” The Calcutta Journal of Medicine vol. 6.3-4 (March
& April 1873): 123-128 (127).
122
S. N. Sen, Scientific and Technical Education, p. 135.
123
Ibid, p. 135.
124
Ibid, p. 135.
 108

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night from 8 to 10 o’ clock, the students were
convened and made to read the medical texts prepared for them. This kept their mind
constantly exercised and impressed thoroughly in their recollection what they saw and
learned.125 Lushington informs:

Even the Hindoo students, persuaded that nothing which has for it’s object the
preservation of human lives, is repugnant to the tenets of their religion, regularly
attend and readily assist in dissections as opportunities offer, and the majority of the
students who arrived in Calcutta in 1823, can themselves give a clear demonstration
of the Abdominal and Thoracic Viscera, of the Brain, and of the Structure of the eye;
and have distinct notions of other parts of Medical Science which have been
explained to them.126

Breton also introduced the system of monitors and assistants. According to this
system all the trained students of the school should not be made available, after qualification,
for appointment as native doctors. Four of the most capable students should be permanently
attached to the school as monitors and assistants on the same emoluments as those of native
doctors. These persons were to assist the Superintendent. Their main duties would be teach
the elementary part of medical science to the junior students:

In 1826, the Superintendent obtained 4 monitors or assistants, of whom one was

attached to the General Hospital for giving demonstrations in anatomy as
opportunities offered; one to the Company's Dispensary practically teaching
pharmacy and material medica; one to the Native Hospital to act as a clinical
instructor, and the fourth to assist the Superintendent in conducting the business of the
School. The students used to receive stipends, the amount of which varied from time
to time. At the outset the school did not much attract the native youths, but it soon
became a very popular institution under the able management of Dr. Breton and his
successor Dr. Tytler.127

Breton thought that between three and four years should be sufficient for the students
to be qualified for any kind of duty that could be allotted to a native doctor. We come across
a few names for their excellence in the acquisition of knowledge. One of them was
Sautcouree (Satkari) who expert in the removal of cataract. Sautcouree was also skilled in
performing operations for the dropsy, hydrocele, spleen etc. Another student was Pursun
(Prasun) Singh performed the operation successfully on the cataract as a result of which the
eye sight of two old men was restored. Both of them were monitors in the institution.128
On taking a closer look to these feats it should be evident to us that all these
operations were traditionally performed by Indian practitioners for centuries. What the NMI

125
O. P. Jaggi, Medicine in India: Modern Period (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011), 43.
126
Lushington, The History, Design, and Present State, p. 319.According to Lushington, “in the course of one
month, A Mussulman Practitioner operated successfully for the cataract on 11 patients…” Ibid, p. 319).
127
Mahendralal Sircar, “Calcutta Medical College” (part 1), p. 126.
128
Sen, Scientific and Technical Education, pp. 136-137.
 109

training actually did was refine the methods. Still one may wonder if their anatomical
knowledge was to the extent of organ localization of disorder and surgery based on sound
knowledge of organs. Only point which can be stressed here is that the repugnance about
touching the dead and acquiring practical anatomical knowledge was efficiently overcome.
During the initial months of Tyler’s (successor to Breton as Superintendent of the
NMI) he found that pupils had nothing to do with dissection except examining the intestines
of morbid subjects, and consequently “had no notion of it as a means of acquiring
knowledge”.129 According to S. N. Sen, “On one occasion the students expressed surprise
when Tytler proposed to exhibit a sheep’s heart and wondered how the human heart could
resemble the sheep’s”130 We can understand that knowledge of anatomy advanced from texts
and scholastic discussion to anatomical plates to zootomy (sheep’s dissection). As a historical
fact NMI stopped at this point. But anatomical knowledge had definitely gained momentum
which could attain “escape velocity” at the CMC only, as we shall come to see sometime
later.
Notably, vernacularization of English medical texts in Arabic, Persian or Hindi
(Nagree) led to a situation of almost trivializing the texts and, also, damaging the contents of
the texts. Tytler seems to admit the fact, “I could not however render it more general without
the risk of its being condemned as incomplete or incorrect.”131 However one important
change began to occur at the same time. As Seema Alavi has shown how, “[m]ost of this
training took place not in a classroom but at the bedside of the patient. It was here that British
doctors instructed native doctors on matters of medical practice”.132 Often passages from
medical journals were read out to them: “The native doctor noted this medical knowledge
with a piece of chalk on the floor, at the foot of the patient’s bed. Later they memorized it”.133
Earlier to this, one of the best anatomical engravings by John Lizars 134 was bought by Breton
at a cost of Rs. 130 “to aid his staff in the publication of Urdu texts on anatomy.”135
As I stated earlier, visual and verbal acculturations began to take shape, especially at
the NMI. The superintendent of the NMI was to “direct the studies…to give
demonstrations…to take every available means of imparting to them a practical
acquaintance with diseases of most frequent occurrence in India, the remedies best suited
to their cure, and the proper mode of applying those remedies”.136
From its inception (21 June 1822) to its abolition (1835), the NMI was a colonial
institution serving colonial ends. Khaleeli notes, “The Indians were to watch and learn rather
than contribute.”137 M’Cosh specifically noted the duty of native doctors as “to…see that the
129
Ibid, 141.
130
Ibid, 141-42.
131
Letter of John Tytler to James Hutchinson, dated May 21, 1832 (Proceedings of the Medical Board, National
Archives, New Delhi). Hutchinson was surgeon on the Bengal Establishment. [Emphasis added]
132
Seema Alavi, Islam and Healing: Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Tradition, 1600-1900 (New Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2007), 71.
133
Ibid.
134
John Lizars, A system of anatomical plates; accompanied with descriptions, and physiological, pathological,
and surgical observations (Edinburgh: D. Lizars, 1822).
135
Alavi, Islam and Healing, 80.
136
Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company with
Appendix and Index, 1, Public (London, 16 August, 1832), p. 447.
137
Khaleeli, “Harmony or Hegemony?”, 95.
 110

prescriptions are taken, attend to the sick in the absence of the surgeon…and perform minor
operations of surgery”.138 Moreover, he expresses his fear about untrustworthiness of the
Native doctors, “I have rarely found Native doctors, of the old school, worthy of trust; and on
most occasions, when it was possible, saw the medicines given during the visit; still, with a
rigid scrutiny and careful superintendence, they were capable of being made very useful.” 139
Thus said, M’Cosh made some important observations regarding Indian habits –

Generally speaking, the Natives prefer their own countrymen as their medical
attendants on ordinary occasions, and take the advice of the European in extreme
cases. To one not initiated in the customs of the East, the manner of attendance on
Native ladies of rank must appear very absurd. The doctor is rarely indeed allowed to
see his fair patient face to face. For the most part the lady throws the door ajar, and
extends her hand through the slit for him to feel her poise, or in the event of his being
admitted to the haram, the patient lies in bed shrouded with curtains, and exposes her
tongue, or the part diseased, through a hole in the curtain, made expressly for the
purpose. Nor is it the young and the beautiful that are so modest and retiring, but the
old, and for what is known to the contrary, the ugly also are equally careful of their
person.140

Against this perspective, the importance of male midwifery introduced at the CMC a
few years later should emerge with a different significance and relevance in the history of
medicine in India. As already clearly described, for the purpose of acquiring practical
knowledge of pharmacy, surgery, and physic, the pupils of the NMI were attached to the
Presidency General Hospital, the King’s Hospital, the Native Hospital and the Dispensary.
The only practical information given on the subject was obtained from the dissection of
lower animals and from the post mortem examination of persons dying in the General
Hospital.141 To be more specific, they received practical knowledge of anatomy at the
General Hospital and Company dispensaries. Here they observed British surgeons dissect
human body. In 1825 an assistant surgeon, William Twining 142, posted at the General
Hospital in Calcutta, regularly demonstrated to them the anatomical details of bodies he
dissected. And the apothecary, Mr. Reid, at the Calingah dispensary, located close to the
NMI, trained students in chemistry. Students got clinical experience in their interactions
with patients at these institutes.143
The exposure to dead bodies began to erase the social taboo against touching the
dead. Before the foundation of the CMC, students were exposed to the post- mortem
examination and attended clinical classes at the General Hospital. This prepared the environs

138
John M’Cosh, Medical Advice to the Indian Stranger (London: Wm H. Allen & Co., 1841), 6.
139
Ibid, 8.
140
Ibid, 11. [Emphasis added]
141
Chuckerbutty, Popular Lectures, 142.
142
William Twining is the author of an important book – Clinical Illustrations of the More Important Diseases
of Bengal with the Result of an Enquiry into their Pathology and Treatment (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press,
1832).
143
Alavi, Islam and Healing, 87.
 111

for exposing the new generations of pupils to visual and psychological acculturations with
the new culture of medicine. When the cholera epidemic struck Calcutta in the 1820s, twenty
of Breton’s (a superintendent at the NMI) “most experienced pupils” were dispatched among
the local population with the hope that a “decrease in the number of cases of cholera in the
town will now admit of the aid” of his students.144 In a letter to Dr Breton, Radhakanta Deb
wrote, “I shall introduce and recommend your advice and medicine, both here and in the
interior; and the human lives which will thereby be saved.”145
Thus the background for the gestation of public health in India was prepared. Western
education became successful in producing its agency through elite people like Radhakanta.
Moreover, by suiting the desires of the government and the population at large, the NMI
avoided “confrontation with the established medical men of pre-colonial India”.146 New
experiments and trials in a hospital setting were also conducted, for example, by Dr
Gilchrist,

…a quantity of finely powdered bark and cinnamon, with a due proportion of

laudanum, into a bottle of Madeira wine, to shake the mixture well…to take a wine
glassful of the medicine, to be repeated every half hour, until one of ourselves could
attend in person. This experiment was tried with the utmost success…147

The year 1826 is significant because it is then that Dr Tytler commenced his lectures
according to the Western method at the College on medicine, and “Professors were appointed
to teach Caraka, Suśruta, Bhāva Prakāśa, etc. Classes for the Āyurvedic students were opened
in 1827”.148 Tytler organised his classes around four major departments of medical science,
namely, Anatomy, Pharmacy, Medicine and Surgery.149 According to Tytler, it was “no small
recommendation of Anatomy, that it has a most powerful influence in counteracting
prejudices that arise from birth, or station, or cast, by demonstrating that, however mankind
may differ in their externals, their internal organization is the same”.150 Anatomy, in this
description, becomes the great social leveler – “Before the knife of the anatomist every
artificial distinction of society disappears; and if all the individuals of the human race be
equal in grave, they are still more so on the dissecting table.”151
To the beginners in the fourth class he taught anatomy in the following way:

144
Anonymous, “Education of the Native Doctors”, 115.
145
Ibid, p. 114.
146
Alavi, Islam and Healing, 73.
147
Anonymous, “Liberality of the Indian Government towards the Native Medical Institution of Bengal,”
Oriental Herald 10 (July-September, 1826), 17-25 (20).
148
Girindranath Mukhopadhyay, History of Indian Medicine Containing Notices, Biographical and
Bibliographical, of the Ayurvedic Physicians and their Works on Medicine from the Earliest Ages to the Present
Time, vol. II, 2nd edition (originally published in 1922-29 by the University of Calcutta). Reprint (New Delhi:
Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1974), 15.
149
S. N. Sen, “The Pioneering Role of Calcutta in Scientific and Technical Education in India,” Indian Journal
of History of Science 29.1 (1994): 41-47 (43).
150
Tytler, trans., The Anis Ul Musharahhin or Anatomist’s Vade-Mecum by Dr. Robert Hooper (Calcutta:
Education Press, 1830), 14.
151
Tytler, Anatomist’s Vade-Mecum, p. 14.
 112

After a preliminary lecture, I begin with the bones and commencing as usual with the
head go regularly through the whole…on the bodies of sheep beginning with the
Viscera and Thorax, then the Abdomen, the Pelvis and Brain and organs of sense…
there are frequent opportunities of seeing these in Post Mortem examinations at the
General Hospital.152

The gradual marginalisation of Indian medical texts was coterminous with the
extension of western medical pedagogy in India. Although the original intention was to
instruct boys in the Ayurvedic and Unani systems of medicine without excluding the
European system, “the latter gradually and inevitably gained importance under European
superintendence”.153 The process reached such a height that Durshun Lall, a Hindu pupil,
brought Tytler a skull his friend had picked up in the banks of the river.154
Opening up the cavity of an organism made pupils further aware of the depth and the
third dimension of the body, as opposed to the received understanding of the two-
dimensional idea of the body upheld by both Ayurvedic and Unani systems of medicine.
Students would learn zootomy by dissecting goats and lambs. But, at the CMC, the
subjects were taught practically “by the aid of the Dissecting Room, Laboratory, and
Hospital”.155 Additionally, new instruments of investigations like the thermometer and
stethoscope and new modes of physical examination like inspection, palpation,
percussion and auscultation were introduced. It is important to note, however, that the
NMI did not have a proper institutional structure to incorporate the new medical education
as yet, or in the offing. Additionally, as Bonner points out, the training of doctor was
“inevitably influenced by the rising power of the middle classes in Europe and America as
they demanded more medical services and a higher standard of medical competence.” 156
This was also true for Calcutta as well as India. The newly rising middle class did show
their demand for better Western medical treatment. As a consequence, the foundation of a
modern medical college was a historical necessity and inevitability.
Since its very beginning, the new medical training was secular in nature. A report
from a Select Committee was to state: “Hindoos and Mussulmans were equally eligible, if
respectable.”157 Alavi has further pointed out that “… any coolie attached to the army, once
he became well versed in the Nagri script and qualified in basic hospital skills, could rise to
become a native doctor”.158 For the first time in India, at the NMI, students were inducted
into the procedures of individual case-history formulation. “The pupils,” wrote Tytler,
“keep a case-book of the symptoms and treatment of the sick on the establishment.”159

152
Sen, Scientific and Technical Education, pp. 139-40.
153
Ibid, p. 149.
154
Ibid, p. 142.
155
Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction (henceforth GCPI), 1941, p. 34.
156
Bonner, Becoming a Physician, 158.
157
Appendix to the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East- India
Company, 1, Public, 16 August, 1832, and Minutes of Evidence (London: Honorable Court of Directots, 1833),
p. 270.
158
Alavi, Islam and Healing, 71.
159
Monier Williams, History of The Application Of The Roman Alphabet To The Languages Of India (Calcutta:
Longman, Green, 1859), 56.
 113

Another dimension in the changes inaugurated by western medicine lay in the

temporality of disease investigation and cure. The materiality of western medical practice
lies in the transcription of evidence in written form which is thereafter abstracted as a
medical record of observed events.160 The conceptual basis of the clinical case thus lies in
the ordering of its facts by the agency of time. The introduction of time as an ordering
variable in the construction of clinical cases was completely new in Indian practice;
gradually the “seasonal time” of indigenous Indian medical practice transformed into the
clinical time of Western practice.
It became widely accepted that “the British government could not have established
an institution calculated to be of greater benefit…than the Native Medical Institution
[NMI]”.161 Macaulay’s efforts seemed only to add a snowballing effect to the process
already started by the students of the NMI and Calcutta elites taken together. During the
decade of its existence, the number of native doctors “which this institution furnished to
the public service between 1825 to 1835…was 188”.162 Eight of the pupils “who had been
educated in this seminary were appointed native doctors, and sent with the troops serving
in Arracan”.163

It may be added here that the system “adopted for the Instruction of the Native
Medical Students, corresponds with that introduced by Colonel Pasley, of the Royal
Engineers, for the education of the Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates of Royal
Sappers and Miners, in Geometry and Mathematics.”164
My contention is that the brief phase of the NMI and the medical classes at the
Calcutta Sanskrit College represents the period of gestation of hospital medicine in India.
Medical classes at the Sanskrit College started in 1827. But the preparatory phase to
introduce pupils to modern science – its technology and technique – had begun earlier. The
report of 1828 stated that the progress of the students of the medical classes had been
satisfactory “in the study of medicine and anatomy; and particularly that the students had
learned to handle human bones without apparent repugnance, and had assisted in the
dissection of other animals”.165 They also “performed the dissection of the softer parts of
animals’, and opened ‘little abscesses and dressing sores and cuts”. 166 Moreover, at the

160
Stanley Joe Reiser, “Technologies of Time Measurement: Implications at the Bedside and the Bench,” Annals
of Internal Medicine 4.132 (2000): 31-36 (31).
161
Anonymous, “Liberality of the Indian Government”, p. 24.
162
Centenary Volume of the Calcutta Medical College (Calcutta, 1935), 9.
163
Minutes of Evidence, 1832, p. 448. Interestingly, in mimicry of the NMI, the earliest record of an
association of indigenous practitioners is the Native Medical Society, founded in Calcutta in 1832. It was
solely confined to the Vaidya caste, “the Byodya practitioners should refuse to undertake any case where
medicine has been administered to the patient by any practitioner of another caste”. It was also decided that
medicines of all sorts will be prepared by the Society “but will be sold to no one who is not of the Byodya
caste”. See, Anonymous, ‘Native Medical Society,” Asiatic Journal 7.26 (1832): 84–85.
164
Lushington, The History, Design, and Present State, p. 318.
165
Anonymous, ‘Native Medical Society,” Asiatic Journal 7.26 (1832): 84–85.
166
David Kopf, British Orientalism: The Dynamics of Indian Modernization, 1773-1835 (Calcutta: Firma K. L.
Mukhopadhyay, 1969), 183-84.
 114

Sanskrit College of Calcutta the number of pupils was then 176, and was rapidly increasing
and of these only ninety-nine received allowances from the college.167
This estimate makes it clear that seventy-seven students were without allowances and
still pursuing their studies at their own expense—the lure of English medical education can
be unmistakably discerned from these facts. Another issue of importance in this regard is the
dissemination of the new knowledge of medicine throughout Indian society, whatever be the
quanta of dissemination. In Alavi’s insightful observation,

Awareness of the new medical ethos slowly spread through society via the wide range
of service gentry attracted to the press for employment form all over northern India.
Such knowledge was disseminated through the person of the native doctor as well, and
texts literally moved around with the marching regiments, who had their native
doctors.168

As found in Fisher’s memoir, “The report of 1829 states that 300 rupees per month
had been assigned for the establishment of a hospital in the vicinity of the college”. 169
Though curricula were in accordance with Sanskrit medical works, a hospital of some kind
was thought absolutely necessary for proper medical teaching. As a letter written in 1831
conveys, “[t]here is now every reason that medical education in India will be improved in a
very material degree by this institution”.170 It was thought that the institution would have the
benefit of “affording to the medical pupils ample opportunities of studying diseases in the
living subject”.171 One graduate, N.K. Gupta, who had been trained as an apothecary, was
apparently doing quite well in the position at the hospital. “Though no Hindu had yet
performed a major operation, they regularly performed minor ones such as ‘opening little
abscesses and dressing sores and cuts’.”172 In 1833, Dr J. Grant wrote to Major Troyer, the
then secretary of the Sanskrit College,

The students of the Medical Class having attained a respectable knowledge of

elementary Anatomy and Physiology as far as the means at our disposal permitted
consistent with Native prejudices: The next point of importance was to give them
some correct notions of European Medical and Surgical knowledge.173

In the same letter he made mention of “ninety-four House Patients (as stated earlier)
and one hundred and fifty-eight out-patients. Of the Two Classes of Patients, the House
ones sleep and dieted (sic) in the Hospital”.174 He also stated that the out- patients were
“visited if unable to come at their own residence by the Apothecary, when

167
Minutes of Evidence, 1832, p. 494.
168
Alavi, Islam and Healing, p. 89.
169
H. Sharp, Selections from educational records. Part I: 1781-1839 (Calcutta, 1920), 183.
170
Letter, in Public Dept. to Bengal, 24 August 1831, Appendix to the Report, p. 346.
171
Ibid.
172
Kopf, British Orientalism, p. 184.
173
Centenary Volume, pp. 126-27 (126).
174
Ibid, p. 127.
 115

practicable…”175 The Asiatic Journal ( 1 8 3 2 ) also published a similar report

regarding the hospital: “The poor afflicted and helpless sick are now admitted to this
hospital, and are furnished with medicine, food and beds; and, in fact, they are attended
better than they could be by their own families at home.”176

I suggest that these were the first instances when Indian patients were dislocated
from their domestic setting to the environs of the hospital. A new notion of treatment,
which found its final shape in the CMC, began to emerge within social life. By this time, a
shift in the vocabulary of medicinal pedagogy was effected and the word “education” in
lieu of the older “training” gained currency. One example should clarify it. Native Doctors
were subject to military laws and regulations, while the graduates of the CMC – a few
years later – were under the supervision of civil education committee. A report related to
court martial of two Native Doctor was published in the Asiatic Journal. The report goes
thus:

Shaik Mohamed Morad and Mirza Allyar Beg, native doctors of the 50 th N.I., have
been tried by a native court-martial “for scandalous and disgraceful conduct, in
having, when several men of the regiment were about to proceed on sick leave,
fraudulently demanded and received, either from the men themselves, or through the
agency of others, certain sums of money, on various pretences;….177

Mr. Wilson, who examined the medical class in 1830, ecstatically claimed, “the
triumph gained over native prejudices is nowhere more remarkable than in this class”, where
“not only are the bones of the human skeleton handled without reluctance, but in some
instances dissections of the soft parts of animals performed by the students themselves”.178

It would be judicious to add that with the introduction of medical texts, especially
European one, in the Sanskrit College indigenous as well as traditional knowledge system
was being replaced epistemologically. In the Annual Report of 1834, Troyer, then Secretary
of the College, wrote:

The students belonging to the medical caste of the Hindus have the choice, instead of
entering the class of Logic [Nyaya], to attend the medical lectures of the Sanskrit as
ewll as of the English lecturer on medicine, and they do not study the law [Smriti].
As their object to follow the profession of their fathers, they cannot but wish to
acquaint themselves with the Hindu practice of physic and with the sorts of
medicines most easily obtainable and most generally used in this country…179

Mahendra Lal Sircar comments, “even anterior to the foundation of the Medical
College, prejudices of students in pre-existing institutions were observed to have given way
175
Ibid.
176
Anonymous, “The Hindu Hospital,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register, New Series 9.33 (September
1832): 8.
177
Anonymous, “Native Doctors,” Asiatic Journal 21 – New Series (September-December 1838): 137.
178
Minutes of Evidence, 1832, p. 494.
179
Brajendranath Bandyopadhyaya, Kolikata Sanskrita Kolejer Itihas (History of the Calcutta Sanskrit College),
part I: 1824-1858 (Calcutta: Calcutta Sanskrit College, 1948), 35.
 116

to the light of knowledge.”180 The acquisition of anatomical knowledge played the pivotal
role. It is again reinforced by Ram Comul Sen, a member of the Education Committee. He
seems to have observed:

The Vaid students at the Sanscrit College, would be glad to avail themselves of
opportunities to acquire a knowledge of practical anatomy tomorrow, if the thing
could be managed in secret. They have themselves entirely got rid of their prejudices
on this head, and their wish to cultivate such pursuits in secret, is merely a sacrifice of
policy to the prejudices of those among whom they are to acquire their bread: for if it
were known generally that during the hours of tuition, they touched a human bone,
much less a dead body; it would create a repugnance to employing them, that must
end in their ruin.181

Similar modes of acculturation processes – visual, verbal and psychic – were in

operation in both the NMI and Sanskrit College. Moreover, a copy of the number of patients
treated in the hospital attached to the College should testify the impact of Western medicine
on the acquisition of learning medicine as well as its social significance. 182 In his
“Introductory Address” to the students of the Medical College in 1863, Fayrer made it
particularly clear –

Sights and objects to the untutored mind, revolting and disgusting; matters to be
committed to memory that are at first dull, uninteresting and incomprehensible, or, at
the best, but half understood; the greatest difficulty of all, the inaptitude, at first, for
application to study of any kind; inability to fix the attention on strange matters taught
in a foreign language, and of which, beyond the most ordinary expressions, the very
meaning of its words is obscure—withal, 183

180
Sircar, “Calcutta Medical College (part 2),” Calcutta Journal of Medicine 6.5 (1873): 175-80 (177).
181
Ibid, p. 175. [Emphasis added]
182
Sen, Scientific and Technical Education, p. 148.
183
Fayrer, “An Introductory Address,” p. 6. [Emphasis added]
 117

Concurrently there was a more fundamental shift in the linguistic sign system which
determined the development of medicine as an edifice of knowledge in the subcontinent.
The essence of the Sanskrit texts was metonymically reconstituted to suit the purpose of
modern medicine. As Vasudha Dalmia has shown, by 1827, within western Orientalism,
there occurred a “radical shift from awe and a certain mystification of [the] wisdom of the
East’ to a ‘marginalization of this knowledge and the degradation of the bearers of it to the
position of native informants”.184 In the fundamental reconstruction of the indigenous
cognitive world Dalmia shows that the pundits “had to deliver the raw material so to speak
[and] the end products were to be finally manufactured by superior techniques developed
in Europe”.185 Hooper’s Anatomist’s Vade mecum was translated into Sanskrit as Sarira
Vidya by Madhusudan Gupta, for which he was paid a sum of rupees 1000. “It was
intended to convey to the medical pandits throughout India, who are an exclusive caste of
hereditary monopolists in their profession, and all study their art in Sanskrit, a more
184
Vasudha Dalmiya, Orienting India: European knowledge foundation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
centuries (New Delhi: Three Essays Collective, 2003), 48.
185
Ibid.
 118

correct notion of human Anatomy.”186 Modern anatomical knowledge came in the guise of
the indigenous one – “Once placed in a Sanskrit dress, the European system of anatomy
would be accessible all over India for subsequent transfer into Hindi dialects of every
province if requisite…”.187 Interestingly, somewhat at the same time, Tytler translated two
chapters of the “First of Sooshroota” into English188, while, in the Bombay School for
Native Doctors “the Sooshroota Shereer” was translated into Marathi.189
Unlike the NMI, the aim of the Sanskrit College was not the production of native
doctors. Here students from higher castes of Bengali society were first exposed to general
scientific training, and, then, gradually incorporated into the fold of Western medical
education. The English and the medical classes at the Sanskrit College were eventually
abolished in 1835 and the decision “was hailed by a section of conservative diehards”.190
Taking a cue from Gelfand,191 I have shown that the CMC was not a sudden
phenomenon exploding on the subcontinental scene in one clear move. This section has
attempted to show that the new medical epistemology had its “gestation period” – a period
of nativity, exemplified by the work of the NMI especially, and, partially, through medical
classes at the Sanskrit College. By virtue of their training in a medical institution (NMI), the
students had the opportunity to be inducted into the basic sciences like rudimentary
chemistry, material medica and pharmacopoeias along with their primary training in
surgery.192 The NMI systematised medical instruction and laid out strict codes of medical
apprenticeship and training.193
This pre-CMC training also foregrounded the absolute necessity of hospital of some
kind for proper medical teaching. 194 All of this had simply inaugurated a predicament in
which hospitals and medical pedagogy of an altogether new type became necessary. The
“gestation period” described in the section above, ushered in an era of hospital medicine and
a new kind of medical cosmology and education in India. During this period, as Holloway
argues, medical education became more systematic, medical knowledge became more
scientific, and the medical profession more unified.195 Moreover, following Holloway, the
four systems are to be considered – the system of medical education, the corpus of medical
knowledge, the social structure of the medical profession, and the social structure of the
wider society.196 One can find all these characteristics and many more nuances in the
unfolding of the new medical education as hospital medicine through the institution of the
CMC.
186
Anonymous, “Proceedings of the Asiatic Society,” Journal of the Asiatic Society VII, Pt. II (1838): 663-664
(663).
187
Ibid, p. 664.
188
Sen, Scientific and Technical Education, pp. 160-161. Tytler translated chapters fourth and fifth.
189
Anonymous, “Medical School at Bombay,” Appendix to the Report from the Select Committee of the House
of Commons on the Affairs of the East- India Company, 1, Public, 1833, p. 311-15.
190
Ahmed, Social Ideas and Social Change, p. 199.
191
Toby Gelfand, “Gestation of the Clinic,” Medical History 25.2 (1981): 169-80.
192
Jaggi, Medicine in India, p. 42.
193
Alavi, Islam and Healing, p. 75.
194
Sen, Scientific and Technical Education, p. 147.
195
S. W. F. Holloway, “Medical Education in England, 1830-1858: A Sociological Analysis,” History 49
(1964): 299-324.
196
Holloway, “Medical Education”, 299.
 119

To mention, when the Committee appointed by Lord Bentinck to enquire into the
condition of the then medical institutions faced robust objection from Tytler against
abolition of the existing institutions, the Committee replied in a seemingly sarcastic note:

In a word, if we do not make lexicographers of native sub-assistant surgeons, they

will not be able to set a fracture, or to prescribe a dose of calomel; and their English
remarks or directions, though perfectly intelligible, will amount, in fact, to nothing but
a Hottentot jargon! Need we, in refutation of this exaggerated view, remind your
Lordship, that there are many respectable native gentlemen in Calcutta, who both
speak and write English correctly and fluently?197

To be sure, as Arnold argues, the abolition of the NMI and medical classes in the
Sanskrit College and Madrasa did signify an issue beyond the “Anglicist” and “Orientalist”
debate.

The function of the Calcutta Native Medical Institution was never to promote
indigenous medicine (which anyway formed a secondary part of the curriculum) as an
equal or alternative to the Western system, but to ‘train up a class of native
practitioners who would employ suitable native medicines with skill’. Offering
instruction in Ayurveda and Unani medicine was also a ploy to attract recruits from
the Vaidyas and other communities with a tradition of medical practice.Once
recruited, it was assumed that they would come to recognise the superiority of
Western medicine, even if they used cheap ‘native remedies’ instead of costly
imported drugs in their professional work.198

CMC: The Institutional Beginning and Changes of a New Medicine

[An old photograph or portrait shows the foundation of the CMC.]

In 1828, Montgomery Martin, laid the project and plan for a new medical college
before Viceroy Lord Bentinck. The plan was rejected “at the time by the Supreme
197
Charles E. Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India, Appendix (London: Longman, Orme, Brown,
Green, and Longmans, 1838), 213.
198
Arnold, Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India, 62-63.
 120

Government, lest Hindoo prejudices should be offended”.199 It was the Act of 1833 in
England that injected “fresh vigour into both the Home and Foreign divisions of [the]
oriental administration…[and] medical and general education began to experience
something like the attention it deserved”.200
Bentinck had “indeed subscribed in 1826 for two shares in the newly founded
University College, London – an institution under combined Whig, Benthamite and
Dissenting control, and a forward battalion in the ‘march of mind’…”. 201 Utilitarian
influence on Bentinck was quite explicit. Bentinck was quite close to Jeremy Bentham. He
had also his own copy of Bentham’s Panopticon. While leaving for India he wrote to
Bentham, “I am going to British India; but I shall not be Governor-General. It is you that
will be Governor-General.”202 Before leaving for India, Mill took Bentinck to Bentham.
With regard to medical education given at the Oxford and Cambridge universities
and private schools in London, at a later period, Abraham Flexner, the great reformer of
American medical education, simply dismissed the whole thing – “The British system
simply did not promote scientific study or teaching.” 203 Unlike Oxford and Cambridge, the
students of UCL did not require subscription to the thirty nine Articles of the Church of
England. This new university tried in the 1830s to join the theoretical study of science to
the practical work of the clinic, as was already underway in Germany. Jacyna informs us,
“[t]his institution is noteworthy because it was to become a site at which crucial issues of the
content medical knowledge and of the locus of medical was contested and decided.” 204 But
there was resistance from the more orthodox section of society:

Likewise in Britain, when the new University of London tried in the 1830s to join the
theoretical study of science to the practical work of the clinic, as was done in
Germany, the hospital teachers at St. Bartholomew's objected strenuously that the new
school was superior “in no respect” and that it was “much inferior” to others in its
practical instruction.205

In Oxford “they do not even profess to give medical education” 206 Further, Bonner
notes, “The old divisions among surgeons, physicians, and apothecaries, still insisted on by
the royal corporations, were in fact disappearing in actual practice. Most apothecaries now
sought qualifications in surgery, and surgeons likewise sought experience in medicine.” 207
199
Robert Montgomery Martin, Statistics of the Colonies of the British Empire in West Indies, South America,
North America, Asia, Austral-Asia, Africa, and Europe (London: Wm. Allen & Co., 1839), 305.
200
Anonymous, “Sketch of an Indian physician”, 48.
201
John Rosselli, Lord William Bentinck: The Making of a Liberal Imperialist, 1774-1839 (Berkeley, Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), 85.
202
The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed., John Bowring, volume X (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), 577.
203
Thomas Neville Bonner, “Abraham Flexner as Critic of British and Continental Medical Education, “
Medical History 33 (1989): 472-479 (473).
204
Jacyna, “Medicine in Transformation, 1800-1849”, 21.
205
Thomas Neville Bonner, Becoming a Physician: Medical education in Britain, France, Germany, and the
United States, 1750–1945 (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 144.
206
Bengal Catholic Herald VIII (1845): 345. In 10 years Oxford had conferred 22 degrees of M.D., Cambridge
51, while in 10 years University of London had conferred 22 M.D. degrees – Ibid, 345.
207
Ibid, 167-68.
 121

Singer and Holloway emphasizes that the “distinctive feature of University College Medical
School and of its sister foundation attached to King's College was that they were specially
equipped to teach the ancillary sciences for they employed full time professors of these
subjects.”208 All these happenings in England had their profound influence in shaping the
mode of clinical training and curricula of the CMC. Percival Spear urges us to look to
England rather than to India for the decisive changes in Indian educational policy. “The
two sources of these ideas”, writes Spear, “were, briefly, Evangelical and the Utilitarian.”209
Interestingly, like the UCL, when the Medical College Hospital was completed in
1852–53 it was built in Corinthian style. In 1834, Bentinck wrote to his friend Peter Auber,
“Be assured that we progress here as elsewhere. The mind of this country is receiving a new
impulse and excitement, and we must keep pace with it. Three thousand boys are learning
English at this moment in Calcutta and the same desire for knowledge is universally
spreading.”210 In an assured note, he continued, “My firm opinion on the contrary is that no
dominion in the world is more secure against internal insurrection.”211 Much later on, Gopal
Chandra Roy, reflected similar sentiments in his speech at the 7 th meeting of the Medico-
Chirurgical Society of Glasgow, on 3 rd February, 1871: “When once the ice is broken, there
stands no barrier, however strong, that can with stand its resisting influence.”212
Against this changed scenario, the foundation of the CMC was firmly declared in a
Government Order (G.O No. 28) of 28 January 1835.213 Moreover, as the remarks of
Goodeve would suggest to us, beyond this socio-political reason the vestiges of humoral
theory had also been superseded by “rational medicine”214 at the CMC. In Spry’s jubilant
note, “This college has been opened under the happiest auspices. And a most encouraging
proof of its rising popularity among the respectable native community, is afforded by the
accompanying highly gratifying communication.”215 He reproduced the letter written by
Dwarakanath Tagore to Bramley, first principal of the CMC.216

My Dear Bramley,
I am unwilling to offer you my congratulations upon the success which has attended
your undertaking in the Medical College, without showing that my feelings towards
the institution are more substantial than those which words only can express.
Should all your expectations be realized, and there is every reason to believe they
will, the Medical College cannot fail to produce the happiest result amongst my
208
Charles Singer and S. W. F. Holloway, “Early medical Education in England in Relation to the Pre-History of
London University,” Medical History 4.1 (1960): 1-17 (7).
209
Percival Spear, “Bentinck and Education,” in Modern India, ed. Thomas R. Metcalf (New Delhi: Sterling
Publisher, 1994), 241-260 (245).
210
C. H. Philips, ed., The Correspondence of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck: Governor General of India
1828-1835, vol. II (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), 1279. [Emphasis added]
211
Ibid, p. 1280. [Emphasis added]
212
Gopal Chunder Roy, “On the Past and Present State of Medicine in India,” The Glasgow Medical Journal III-
New Series (1871): 538-551 (547).
213
Henry Harper Spry, Modern India: With Illustrations of the Resources and Capabilities of Hindustan,
Two Volumes, Volume 1 (London: Whittaker & Co., 1837), 309-19.
214
Harrison, Medicine in an Age of Commerce, 96.
215
Ibid, 314.
216
Ibid, 314-15. [Emphasis added]
 122

countrymen. No man, I assure you, is more sensible than I am of the benefits which
such an institution is calculated to dispense; but I know also, that you have many very
great difficulties before you, and the greater part of them you will have to contend
with at the onset. My own experience enables me to tell you that no inducement to
native exertion is so strong as that of pecuniary reward; and I am convinced that you
will find difficulties disappear in proportion to the encouragement offered to the
students in this particular. As an individual member of the native community, I feel it
belongs to us to aid, as far as lies in our power, the promotion of your good cause. At
present this can hardly be expected on any very great scale; but as example may be of
service to you, I, for one, will not be backward to accept your invitation to my
countrymen to support the college.
I beg, therefore, as an inducement to the native pupils now studying in the Institution,
and those who may hereafter enter, to offer the annual sum of rupees, 2000 (200£.),
for the ensuing three years, to be distributed in the form of prizes. In order that these
may be of substantial value to the candidates, I propose that the prizes should not
exceed eight or ten in number, and that they should be available only to foundation
students and natives, bona fide pupils of the college ; all the other arrangements, in
regard to this distribution, I leave to your discretion.
Yours very sincerely,
(signed) Dwarkanauth Tagore.
Calcutta, 24th March, 1836.

Before the issuance of the GO, a committee was formed in 1833 by Lord Bentinck to
look into the state of medical education in the subcontinent. The Committee was to
summarize the defects of the NMI:

(1) The absence of a proper qualifying standard of admission; (2) scantiness of means
of tuition ; (3) the entire omission of practical human anatomy in the course of
instruction; (4) want of regularity in the time of admitting students ; (5) the shortness
of the period of study; (6) the want of means and appliances for the convenience of
private study; (7) the desultory character of the students' attendance on the practical
means of instruction; (8) the inconclusive nature of the power and authority
wherewith the Superintendent is vested; (9) the mode of conducting the final
examination.” Detailed recommendations were submitted to remedy these defects. On
one important point the members of the Committee were divided in opinion, namely,
whether instruction should be imparted in an Indian vernacular or in English. The
Anglicists finally prevailed over the Orientalists, and it was emphatically laid down
that “a knowledge of the English language we consider as a sine qua non, because that
language combines with itself the circle of all the sciences and incalculable wealth of
printed works and illustrations, circumstances which give it obvious advantages over
Oriental languages, in which are only to be found the crudest elements of science, or
the most irrational substitutes for it.217
217
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 435. Crawford adds a footnote here – “[i]n the Native
 123

On a closer look, one would realize that a paradigmatic shift from military medical
“training” to medical “education” has taken place. The following narrative will reveal the
changing dynamics which led to the emergence and shaping of hospital medicine and medical
education in India: “Efforts were made to procure every appliance necessary to place it on the
same footing of efficiency as European colleges was (sic) furnished with a bountiful hand…
Natives of high caste were found to resort freely to the dissecting room, and to handle the
scalpel with as much indifference as European students.”218 The duration of education was
fixed at four to six years. All foundation pupils were “required to learn the principles and
practice of the medical sciences in strict accordance with the mode adopted in Europe”.219
The aspiring candidates for admission were to be “examined by the Education Committee
and the Superintendent of the Institution, and that the selection of the pupils shall be
determined by the extent of their acquirements.”220 To be more specific, “a preliminary
examination was held on the 1st May, at the residence of J. C.C. Sutherland, Esq. Secretary to
the Committee of Public Instruction, for the purpose of selecting students on the
foundation.”221 About a hundred candidates “presented themselves” and “twenty-five were
selected as stipendiary students.”222 It means that success rate on entering the CMC was only
25% in the first year. Almost all of these students “received their education at Mr. Hare’s
school, the Hindu College, and the Scotch Assembly School.”223
Modern reader may wonder here if such a screening process for admission into the
CMC is a precursor to modern-day entrance examination. Public service was to be supplied
“with Native Doctors from the institution”. Definite provisions were mentioned to witness the
practice of the General Hospital, the Native Hospital, the Honourable Company’s Dispensary,
the Dispensaries for the poor, and the Eye Infirmary (31st clause). Students, not the
professors, passing out from this institution were allowed to enter into private practice (22nd
clause).
Through the functions of the CMC, hospital medicine and the new medical education
were merged together. All the foundation pupils received a stipend at the rate ₹7 (first
class), ₹9 (second class) and ₹12 (third class). This was quite different from the
circumstances of medical students in London: according to the 1834 Report on Medical
Education, “about one third of the London medical students went to a private school…The
core of the private school’s teaching, however, was anatomy”. 224 They were never paid by
the government. In regard to stipend, Trevelyan explained that the professional training at
the CMC was carried so much beyond the period usually allotted to education in India, that
“without this assistance, the poverty or indifference of the parents would often cause the

Medical Institution dissection was performed on the bodies of sheep.”

218
John Clarke Marshman, A History of India: From the Earliest to the Close of Lord Dalhousie’s
Administration, vol. 3 (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1867), 68-69.
219
Spry, Modern India, 311.
220
Ibid, 311. To mention, this was the 9th clause of the 34 clauses of the G.O. of January 28, 1835.
221
General Committee of Public Instruction for the Year 1836 (1837), 63. [Hereafter GCPI]
222
Ibid.
223
Ibid.
224
Pauline M. Mazumdar, “Anatomy, physiology, and surgery: physiology teaching in early nineteenth-
century London,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 4.2 (1987): 119-43 (128).
 124

studies of the young men, particularly when they come from a distance, to be brought to a
premature close”.225 Moreover, “the stipends which had always been allowed to medical
students must therefore be continued until the advantages to be derived from the college
wishing to qualify themselves for the medical profession become more generally
evident.”226
One may note the utilitarian undertone in the statement. Again, the production of
some kind of desire for Western/English education through pecuniary incentive is also
evident. On the Education of the People of India was published in 1838. Ironically, merely
two years ago the same person – Charles E. Trevelyan – was vehemently against providing
any sort of stipends to students. Contrarily, in the statement of Dr. Bramley, the first
principal of the CMC, “Whether the small Government stipend were sufficient to induce
young men to devote the best years of their life to the acquisition of a description of
knowledge, the benefits whereof were at the best, prospective, and the effect to the students
and their friends, uncertain.”227
CMC began its functioning from a very origin. It consisted of an old house in the
rear of the Hindu College, in which two young Assistant Surgeons, to whom a third was
subsequently, and after much difficulty, added. They were “expected to teach the whole
circle of medical science to a class of upwards of fifty students. There was neither library,
museum, hospital, nor philosophical apparatus; and we had to combat national prejudices
against the study of anatomy”228 Moreover, “the greater of the community laughed the
attempt to scorn as a vain chimera, and our best friends assisted us with a very modified
degree of encouragement … appeared at best a doubtful experiment.” 229 Finally, the classes
started on the 20th February, 1835.
In the November 1836 issue of the Calcutta Monthly Journal a detailed report on the
“Mode of Educating the Native” was published.230 Trevelyan argued that

the principle of the stipendiary system is radically bad. … A person who does not
want to learn a particular language or science, is tempted to commence study by the
stipend. As soon as he gets the stipend, he has no motive for zealously prosecuting
the study. Sluggishness, mediocrity, absence of spirited exertion, resistance to all
improvement, are the natural growth of this system. It is also of great importance in a
country like this, that the Government should have a real test of the wishes of its
subjects in regard to the kind of education given. As long as stipends are allowed,
students would, of course, have been forthcoming; but the public may decide for
themselves.231

225
Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India, 31.
226
Ibid, 30-31. [Emphasis added]
227
GCPI, 1837, 34
228
General Report of Public Instruction, in the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency, From 1 st Oct. 1849 to
30th Sept. 1850, 1851, 123. [Hereafter GRPI, 1851]
229
GRPI, 1851, 123.
230
Anonymous, “Mode of Educating the Native,” Calcutta Monthly Journal (November 1836): 271-315.
231
Ibid, p. 277. [Emphasis added]
 125

How did such change of perception occur in case of Trevelyan? One plausible answer
may be in July 1836 Trevelyan was not much sure about the prospect of the provision of
stipends to the student. In 1838, at the time the publication of his book, he became convinced
of the triumph of Western medical education in the CMC. To perpetuate the victory, at least
during its consolidation phase, stipend became a crucial issue. And Trevelyan subscribed to
it. In his euphoric note:

A hospital is about to be opened on the premises belonging to the college, for the
purpose of giving the students the advantage of clinical instruction. Distinguished
pupils are drafted from the different provincial seminaries to the medical college, and
it is intended to establish dispensaries, including the necessary provision for
vaccination and for the treatment of surgical cases, at the principal towns in the
interior, which will be placed under the charge of young men who have been educated
at the college.232

As I have shown earlier in this chapter, from his own experience, Dwarakanath
Tagore wrote to Bramley, “no inducement to Native exertion is so strong as that of pecuniary
reward…you will find difficulties disappear in proportion to the encouragement offered to the
Students in this particular”.233 Another report of the same time gives us strikingly different
evidence regarding the effects of pecuniary encouragement to undertake medical education.
This report informs us that, “[c]ertain students of the medical college have volunteered to
attend the poor in cholera cases gratuitously. They were offered 30 Rs. per mensem for the
duty, but refused it”.234

By this time, the responsibility of medical education was transferred from the
domain of the Medical Board (military character) to the Education Committee (general
education). Unlike England then, the emergence of the CMC in the subcontinent can be
traced to the point of departure where medical practice in India shifted from the dominion
of the military to the civil domain. The original staff of the CMC consisted of a
superintendent, Assistant Surgeon M.J. Bramley, with Assistant Surgeon H.H. Goodeve as
his only assistant. “By G.O. No. 10 of 5th August, 1835, Bramley’s official designation
was changed from Supt. to Principal, that of Goodeve from Assistant to the Supt. to
Professor of Medicine and Anatomy; while a Professor of Materia Medica and Chemistry
was added to the staff, Assistant Surgeon W. B. O’Shaughnessy.”235 To note, not at the
time of the foundation of the College, O’Shaughnessy joined on August 1835. After
Bramley’s untimely premature death on 19 January 1837 “the office of principal was
232
Trevelyan, On the Education of the People of India, p. 30.
233
Spry, Modern India, vol. 1, p. 315.
234
Anonymous, “Native Doctors,” Parbury’s Oriental Herald and Colonial Intelligencer 2.7 (July-December,
1838): 27.
235
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 438.
 126

abolished, a non-medical man being appointed instead as Secretary”. 236 To note,

O’Shaughnessy also became secretary par interim of the Asiatic Society, along with Malan
of Bishop’s College, when the indefatigable secretary James Prinsep became ill for a long
time and went to London for the restoration of his health.237
Hence, a clear division was made between areas of administrative and academic
expertise. Administration of the college was invested with a non-medical person, while
academic area was clearly under the control of academic staff. This was an altogether new
development. The civil nature of CMC education became more visible. It was succinctly
expressed in a report on the very first year of the CMC –

We must consider this Institution as a sort of normal College, which will in time
supply teachers of other colleges, by whose means medical science will be rapidly
diffused over all over India, and we must take into account the effect which the
increase of scientific acquirements must have in undermining the fabric of
superstition and ignorance, and elevating the moral condition of the people.238

The ingenuity of the superintendent of the CMC had a large field for exercise, “in
devising means for communicating knowledge introducing the timid Hindoo youth to the use
of the scalpel, without offending the delicate nerves and still more delicate conscience too
sensitively”.239 Webb, in his lecture before the students of CMC, reminded them that the
college was no longer regarded as an experiment, but as an admirable, beneficent and
established triumph, as

the Indian Government has succeeded in a truly wonderful manner in diffusing

through the land the soundest principles of medical science; that Graduates are being
educated at the Medical College in a manner not inferior to some of the most
celebrated schools of medicine in Europe; and that their skill and talents are
successfully exerted for the mitigation of human suffering, in the various Dispensaries
of the Provinces; whilst the magnificent Fever Hospital, which is now being erected in
Calcutta, will not only prove an ornament and blessing to the Metropolis of India, but
become eminently useful to the school of Medicine itself. “Graduates are being
educated at the Medical College in a manner not inferior to some of the most
celebrated schools of medicine in Europe.240

236
Ibid, p. 439.
237
Anonymous, “Supplement to Asiatic Intelligence,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register (New Series)
28.110 (February 1839): 119-128 (121)..
238
Anonymous, “Native Medical College,” Calcutta Monthly Journal and General Register of Occurrences
throughout the British Dominions in the East Forming an Epitome of the Indian Press. For the Year 1837 , Third
Series, II (1836): 75-76 (76).
239
Anonymous, “Native Medical Institutions,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register 17.68– New Series
(August 1835): 225-26 (226). [Emphasis added]
240
Allan Webb, The Historical Relations between Ancient Hindu with Greek Medicine in Connection with the
Study of Modern Medical Science in India, being a General Introductory Lecture Delivered June 1850; at the
Calcutta Medical College (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 1850), 2-3.
 127

In the same lecture Webb again reminded his students with a firm note, denoting the
emergence of a new type of secular social hierarchy – not based on caste, but knowledge:

Here no fees are paid! The finest Medical education is freely offered gratis, to all
comers; of whatever creed, of whatever caste, of whatever clime. No wonder where
all is thus freely given, that we find this goodly gathering of students, of all kindreds,
and countries around us. From the Punjab to the Burman Empire, from Ceylon to the
snowy mountains of the north, our young men assemble here; without any other
jealousy than that of professional honor, any other distinction than that of science. All
are equally welcome, equally rewarded, equally respected, if they do well.241

Again, in the same lecture, with a sarcastic note of ancient Indian surgery, he did not
forget to mention the difference between European mode of lithotomy operation and that of
India, “gentlemen, how vast the difference between the marvelous rapidity and success of this
operation in the hands of your Professor of Surgery, and the rude barbarism of Sushruta.” 242
But he was not dismissive about Indian cataract surgery – “find the operation for cataract is
fairly described by Sushruta. It was generally practised in this country before we arrived. It is
probable too that even at a time when the princes of Europe could find no oculist and were
obliged to send into Asia, this operation was common in India.”243
Webb’s criticism of Indian surgical practice seems to come out of what Christopher
Bayly refers to as the “insecurity of European knowledge” which “was a potent element in
their rages”.244 To mention here that the preliminary examination for the selection of students
on the foundation was held at the house of Mr. J. C. C. Sutherland, Secretary to the
Committee of Public Instruction, on the 1st May. More interestingly, the proto-structure of
the present-day entrance examination was initiated during that time.
Initially, the CMC, often going against the prevailing educational trend of the time,
had created a space for the generation of original, theoretical and insightful scientific
thinking. Gorman noted that the students were just as capable and enthusiastic about
chemistry as they were about anatomy. In his observation, “At a time when a chemical
laboratory in an American medical school was rare, this course with lectures and laboratory
work was the equal of any in a European medical institution. Most importantly, the students
were just as capable and enthusiastic about chemistry as they were about anatomy, and the
testimony of outside examiners gives ample proof as to the rigor of the examinations.” 245 This

241
Webb, Historical Relations, p. 4.
242
Ibid, p. 29. It should be noted that earlier surgeons did not castigate Indian lithotomy with similar dismissive
note, rather had a recognition of its efficacy. In 1829, A. K. Lindsay reported a case of lithotomy, performed by
a native. He commented, “On the whole, the dexterity displayed was very great, and the speedy extraction
rather to be wondered at, considering the apparatus, or, more properly, the want of it.” – A. K. Lindasy, “Case
of Lithotomy, performed by a Native,” Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta (1829):
440-42 (441).
243
Ibid.
244
A. A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870
(New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 281.
245
Mel Gorman, “Introduction of Western Science into Colonial India: Role of the Calcutta Medical College,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 132. 3 (Sep., 1988): 276-298 (287)
 128

success greatly owes to W. B. O’Shaughnessy who was the most original thinker and
scientific accomplishments. Gorman notes, “He was a physician of astonishing scientific and
technological diversity … But his role in initiating a sound medical curriculum by bringing to
Indian youths a modern chemistry course was indispensable to the success of the college.” 246
Importantly, it is worth mentioning that when O’Shaughnessy wrote his famous paper “On
the Preparation of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah, (Cannabis Indica)” he took help from three
experts – Pundit Madhusudan Gupta (of the CMC) and the Pundit Kamalakanta Vidyalanka
(?Vidyalankar), the Pundit of the Asiatic Society, as well as Hakim Mirza Abdul Razes of
Teheran.247 The intercultural exchanges of which I talked about in the introduction were still
in practice in the early years of the CMC. To my observation, after the change in syllabus in
1844-45 sessions, as discussed later on, these practices were hardly found to survive.
This inspiring scenario of chemistry education in the CMC, under the aegis of W. B.
O’Shaughnessy, seems to have declined after the departure of O’Shaughnessy in 1841. Mr.
Robertson taught chemistry during 1846-47 sessions. He gave 97 lectures on inorganic and
organic chemistry, including eleven lectures on heat, light and electricity. He also did more
than 40 practical examinations and demonstrations during the period. He reported that the
giving of eleven lectures on heat, light and electricity, was accompanied by more difficulties,
and caused more labor, trouble, and expense to him than the whole of the rest of the course.
“From the singular deficiency of the College apparatus, and from the broken and dilapidated
state in which the greater part of that little was … a set of Galvanic batteries capable of
exhibiting the usual class experiments, an electric machine that would give the two
electricities, electro-magnetic coils, gasholders for the experiments on heat and light, a model
steam engine, and a good deal of small apparatus of which the college is destitute.” 248 It
should be mentioned here that O’Shaughnessy’s experiment with electro-magnet was
reported in an American journal with this opening note, “It would have been natural to expect
from Calcutta a case of indigo or of gum shellac, rather than a pamphlet upon a matter of
science.”249 Apparently, O’Shaughnessy had an ambitious title of his paper – “On the
Employment of the Electro-Magnet as a Moving Power; with a Description of a Model
Machine worked by this Agent”. The journal ended the review with a skeptic note, “Is
electro-magnetism likely to furnish an equal power from equal means? For us we can see no
chance for its success. It is not in the cards.” 250 Despite this criticism, to note, such innovative
idea emerged from a land of “indigo”, as the journal told.
Notably, as Gorman gives the account, “Considering the life-time records (not only in the
subjects taught), there is an amazing total of 557 books and articles produced, with an
average of 31 per professor. All of them wrote articles and only two chose not to write a
book. Five became Fellows of the Royal Society and five were founders and/or editors of
Indian journals of science or medicine.”251 A contemporary journal reported, “the chemical
246
Ibid, p. 286.
247
O’Shaughnessy, “On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gumjah, (Cannabis Indica): Their Effects on
the Animal System in Health, and their Utility in the Treatment of Tetanus and other Convulsive Diseases,”
Provincial Medical Journal and Retrospect of the Medical Sciences 122 (January 28, 1843): 340-347.
248
GRPI, 1851, pp. 100-101.
249
The North American Review 45.97 (1837): 495.
250
Ibid, p. 499.
251
Mel Gorman, “Introduction of Western Science into Colonial India: Role of the Calcutta Medical College,”
 129

department has, within a twelve month [period], reached such a state of organization, and that
its studies have been crowned with such eminent success, as to supersede the necessity of any
other school of chemistry on the same scale in the colleges in and about Calcutta”.252
Reporters from outside was “astonished and gratified with which the most difficult questions”
were answered by the students.253 O’Shaughnessy proposed to construct, at the CMC, a
galvanic battery of one thousand cups, on Mullin’s principle “for the purpose of exhibiting
the extraordinary experiments recently described by Mr. Crosse and others, for carrying on
original researches in electro-magnetism and galvanism.” 254 He even undertook to conduct
the experiment of “application of galvanism” in case of aneurism.255 Another report from a
contemporary journal will illustrate O’Shaughnessy’s feat –

Dr. O’Shaughnessy was electrifying the higher ranks of Calcutta society with his
galvanic battery, and displayed much zeal and intelligence in explaining the science.
He had lectured with great éclat at Government House; and his lecture-room in the
New Medical College was thronged whenever it opened.256

Truly inquisitive, original and scientific-minded scientist-doctors like O’Shaughnessy and

Goodeve precisely dwelt on their efforts, “as teachers in a new and experimental institution”.
They worked hard to structure the best curricula for CMC students form materials “drawn
from attentive examination of all the British and foreign professional journals”. 257 They tried
sincerely to bring the level of medical education imparted at the CMC at par with European
medical schools.
They jointly stated their desire in a plain way for the recognition of their endeavour in
homeland – “It must not be said of us in Europe, that expatriation has not rendered us
inefficient in the advancement of our profession. We will rather strive to excite among our
brethren of the fatherland some surprise, that amidst the many impediments which beset us
here, we will pursue with unabated zeal the various useful and enobling branches of our truly
philanthropic art.”258
As already said, O’Shaughnessy was an ardent and enthusiastic advocate of science as a
means of bringing India into line with mainstream intellectual trends in Europe. In 1836, in
his “Introductory Lecture” to the students of the CMC, he made it clear that in every bazaar
of India the raw material was to be found from which all the valuable remedies “from the use

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 132. 3 (Sep., 1988): 276-298 (293).
252
Anonymous, “Native Education,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register 23 – New Series.39 (May-August
1837): 12-14 (12).
253
Anonymous, “Native Medical College”, p. 75.
254
Anonymous, “Medical and Physical Society,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register 24 – New Serie.94
(October 1837): 64.
255
O’Bryen Bellingham, Observations on Aneurism, and its Treatment by Compression (London: John
Churchill, 1847), 101.
256
Parbury’s Oriental Herald and Colonial Intelligencer 1.1 (1837): 20.
257
Anonymous, “The Quarterly Journal of the Calcutta Medical and Physical Society,” Calcutta Monthly
Journal, Third Series, III (1837): 16.
258
Ibid, p. 16.
 130

of which your countrymen are now debarred, can be prepared”.259 In a more important note,
unlike Bramley and Goodeve who unfailingly chatised Indian medicine to prove superirity of
Western science and medicine, he adivised his students,

[i]f a youth has been taught to receive nothing as true, but what is the result of
experiment, he will be in little danger of being led away by the insidious arts of
sophistry, or having his mind bewildered by fanaticism or superstition. The knowledge
of facts is what he has been taught to esteem, and no reasoning, however specious, will
ever induce him to receive as true what appears to be incongruous or cannot be
recommended by demonstration or analogy.260

O’Shaughnessy had counted the number of medicines then imported from Europe. It
amounted to several hundred, all of which, except about eighty, might be prepared or grown
in India. Moreover, “For these 80 many efficient substitutes exist in known indigenous
productions.”261 In his book on chemistry for the students of the CMC his idea was about its
applied value. He wrote, “To Chemistry again we turn in cases of murder by poisoning, to
enable us to detect the substance used, and bring the murderer to justice.” 262 Further, “And,
what is perhaps still more pleasing to know, the analyst thus instructed can still more
frequently protect innocent persons labouring under false accusations.” 263 In this sense, he
should be regarded as a pioneer of modern medical jurisprudence in India.264
Arnold comments, “The fruits of O’Shaughnesy’s enquiries, backed by laboratory
experiments, post-mortem analyses, conversations with vaids and familiarity with local
medical practice as well as metropolitan medical jurisprudence, were incorporated into his
Bengal Dispensatory and Bengal Pharmacopoeia.”265 But government was not receptive to
these internationally acclaimed works. They were more interested “in the application of
chemistry to the neds of trade and industry (such as assessing the suitability of Indian clays
for making firebricks and other ceramic goods currently imported at great cost).” 266 As a
result of these meta-scientific works O’Shaugnessy was given the additional title and extra
remuneration of the Chemical Examiner in June 1840. 267 The interest and inquisitiveness of a
scientific mind and the interests of the state fall apart, as almost always historically.

259
W. B. O’Shaughnessy, “Lectures on General Chemistry and Natural Philosophy, Delivered at the Medical
College, Calcutta,” Calcutta Monthly Journal, Third Series: Vol. II (May 1836): 8-18 (16).
260
Ibid, p. 11.
261
Ibid, p. 16.
262
O’Shaughnessy, Manual of Chemistry, Arranged for Native, General and Medical Students, and the
Subordinate Medical Department of the Service, 2nd edition (Calcutta: Ostell and Lepage, British Library, 1842),
xxiii.
263
Ibid, xxiii.
264
For further nice discussion on this issue see, David Arnold, Toxic Histories: Poison and Pollution in Modern
India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
265
Arnold, Toxic Histories, p. 51.
266
Ibid.
267
Ibid, pp. 51-52.
 131

He was also a pioneer of intravenous fluid transfusion for cholera patients.268 In

Calcutta, Dr Stewart half-heartedly tried it for cholera patients, but without any results owing
to his defective procedure, as can be deduced. 269 Stewart’s defective procedure can be well
understood from the reporting at the meeting of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta
– “The right ventricle of the heart was distended with fluid blood containing numerous air
bubbles, a great part of which gushed out with gurgling noise. The same appearance was
observed in the right auricle and superior vena cava.” 270 A committee was also formed “to
experiment upon and report on the extent to which injections into the veins may be practiced
with safety upon animals…”271 O’Shaughnessy was selected as the secretary of the
committee.272 It remains unknown how long this committee functioned. Later on, he diverted
his attention to the use of Indian plants in the treatment of cholera, and, finally, for the
introduction of telegraph in India273.
The first annual report of the CMC was prepared by Bramley. But he could not
present it himself due to his premature death at the age of thirty-six. Bramley’s first annual
report contains some notable features. First, a considerable portion (first seventeen pages out
of thirty-seven) is allocated for detailed discussion on the techniques to build up the physical
and mental mould of his Indian students in conformity with Victorian England’s social
aspirations. Second, only one paragraph is provided for Goodeve’s work, while a good
portion of the report (five pages) speaks for O’Shaughnessy’s experimental endeavour. Third,
Bramley provided a proposal to build a new hospital within the college campus and to unite it
with the college. He specifically differentiated the new education at the CMC from the trends
of instruction that had hitherto existed in India. The new educational curricula included
“Lectures upon General and Practical Anatomy, Physiology, General and Practical
Chemistry, Theory and Practice of Physic, Elements of Medical Botany and Materia Medica,
Practical Pharmacy, together with hospital attendance.”274
Upon taking charge as the principal of the CMC, Bramley felt the “most obvious” of
his initiatory embarrassments”.275 One of the three points he was concerned about was
“Whether it were possible to find a number of youths sufficiently advanced in elementary
knowledge of English”, and another one was “Whether the small stipends were sufficient to
induce young men to devote the best years of their life to the acquisition of a description of
268
W. B. O’Shaughnessy, “Proposal of a Kind of Treating the Blue Epidemic Cholera by the Injection of
Highly-Oxygenated Salt into the Venous System,” Lancet 1 (1831-32): 366-371.
269
Anonymous, “Medical and Physical Society,” Calcutta Monthly Journal (August 1836): 312-13.
270
Ibid, p. 313
271
Anonymous, “Medical and Physical Society”, Calcutta Monthly Journal (August 1836): 312-13 (313).
272
Ibid, p. 313.
273
O’Shaughnessy, “On the Preparation of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah,” Provincial Medical Journal and
Retrospect of the Medical Sciences 6.123 (1843): 363-69; Mel Gorman,” Sir William Brooke O'Shaughnessy,
F.R.S. (1809-1889), Anglo-Indian Forensic Chemist,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 39.1
(Sep., 1984): 51- 64; M. Adams, Memoir of Surgeon-Major Sir O’Shaughnessy Brooke in Connection with the
Early History of Telegraph in India (Simla: Government Central Printing Press, 1889); Deep Kanta Lahiri
Choudhury, “'Beyond the reach of monkeys and men'? O'Shaughnessy and the telegraph in India c. 1836-56,”
Indian Economic and Social History Review 37.3 (2000): 331-359.
274
Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction (hereafter GCPI), 1836 (publication date 1837), pp.
32.-67 (48).
275
GCPI, 1837, p. 34.
 132

knowledge, the benefits whereof were, at the best, prospective, and the effect to the students
and their friends, uncertain.”276
Bramley’s plan was to establish a systematic mode of teaching, and as far as means
and circumstances would permit to frame the general Instruction of the College on the mode
of the English Medical Schools. Possibly, his plan could be facilitated by the fact that the
majority of the students of the originally formed class had received their education at the
Hindu College or at Mr. Hare’s school. He had deep belief in the modernizing tone of
Victorian social and educational values and tried to act according to those values of
modernity. “His discriminatory attentions too, to the students in private, his frequent
judicious companionship at his own residence … had a tendency not only to improve their
address and manners, but to raise them in their own estimation, and that of their
countrymen.”277 The boys who came to him were, as he depicted, “men in intellect, children
in constitution.”278

I found the natural precocity of the minds of those native youths, fostered and forced
into unnatural action, by being employed on speculative subjects before they had been
taught or understood the nature of practical ones. This general taste of all these boys
took, I found, in this respect the same bent and inclination; at the same time their
moral condition remained unimproved, while their bodily powers had been allowed to
deteriorate as unhealthily as their minds had been pampered into luxuriance. In a word
the great object of indirect education, or that undersigned course of training which in
the present day forms so prominent a feature in the educational systems of Europe and
America, had been altogether neglected in the teaching of these youths.279

Regarding bodily power and uniqueness of Indian, as perceived by the British, there
appeared an interesting and similar report in the Lancet, “The European, in his own quarter of
the globe, is laborious, industrious, and ambitious, but transported to Africa or India,
becomes slothful and indifferent, which enables us well to understand that the native Indian,
for example, becomes enfeebled early”. 280 In this observation Indians were without mental
vigour as result of which one can wonder at the adage “it is better to sit than to walk, to lie
down than to sit, to sleep than to wake, and that death is best of all”. 281 Notably, the vigorous
European is counterpoised to the enfeebled Indian, where climate is incriminating factor.
Bramley noted that “One great error in the present system”, what he was induced to
believe was “the propensity to over-educate.” 282 Bramley’s report took 17 pages (out of 65
pages) for the general layout of his educational, moral, physical and ethical issues for the
students of the CMC. He seems to have been somewhat ashamed as the report, he told, “must,

276
Ibid, p. 34.
277
General Report of the Late General Committee of Public Instruction, of 1840-41 & 1841-42, Appendic No.
X, p. lxxi. [Hereafter GRPI, 1840-42]
278
GCPI, 1837, p. 37.
279
Ibid, p. 36.
280
Anonymous, “Abstract of the Introductory Lecture by Dr. Chowne,” Lancet 1 (1844): 17-18 (17).
281
Ibid.
282
GCPI, 1837, p. 40.
 133

I feel, be submitted with an apology to the Committee for having occupied so much of my
report with matter not immediately connected with the detail of the Medical College.” 283
To mention, during the period the London metropolis contained seven large hospitals
and “the practice of which is open to students on the payment of fees.” 284 Five of the seven
hospitals conducted lectures on the “Theory and Practice of Medicine, Materia Medica,
Surgery, Anatomy, Midwifery, Chemistry, Botany, and Medical Jurisprudence”. 285 We shall
come to see shortly that similar pattern of lecture schedules and subjects taught were
followed in the CMC. The subjects which were not included in the curricula of the CMC
were midwifery and medical jurisprudence.
It should be noted here, the way we presently understand physiology did not appear as
a separate discipline before the 1830s. Though German medical schools started physiological
teaching a few years earlier, it was in the hands of William Sharpey in London that proper
physiology education started in the late 1830s. 286 “In 1836 he (Sharpey) was appointed to the
Chair of Anatomy and Physiology in University College London, from which he retired in
1874.”287 In the pages of the Lancet, it was reported – “Professor Grant will also give a
practical course of lectures on Human Physiology on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at
1 P.M. … the fee for attendance on which is 3l.”288 We must note that while stipends were
given for the foundation students of the CMC, in the University of London it was a fully paid
course. It appears that proper physiology teaching was imparted in the CMC from its very
beginning, as the courses taught in the University of London were closely followed here.
The relationship between physiology and chemistry was nicely explained that the
“physiologist is unable to obtain a knowledge of the constituent principles of the various
solids and fluids of the body, and the modifications they undergo, without the aid of
chemistry”.289
As Bramley’s plan was to establish a systematic mode of teaching which could be
made somewhat equivalent European one, he tried to frame the general Instruction of the
College on the mode of the English Medical Schools. 290 The first course of lectures spanned
from June 1835 to September 1835. During this period students were only instructed in
surface anatomy of the large arteries, the principle muscles and nerves, etc.291 Gradually a
large portion of the class came to witness with considerable interest the examination of the
bodies which had died in the hospitals they visited.292 Bramley’s Introductory Lecture was
delivered on 6 March, 1836 “at which were present the Right Honourable the Governor
283
Ibid, p. 48.
284
Anonymous, “Account of the Schools of Medicine in London,” Lancet 1 (1834): 3-22 (3).
285
Ibid, p. 3.
286
See the articles in two parts by D. W. Taylor, “The life and teaching of William Sharpey (1802-1880)
'Father of Modern Physiology' in Britain – part I,” Medical History 15.2 (1971): 126-53; “The life and
teaching of William Sharpey (1802-1880) 'Father of Modern Physiology' in Britain – part I,” Medical
History 15.3 (1971): 241-59.
287
Taylor, “The life and teaching of William Sharpey (1802-1880) 'Father of Modern Physiology' in Britain –
part I”, p. 128.
288
Anonymous, “Account of the Schools of Medicine in London”, p. 14.
289
Anonymous, “Abstract of the Introductory Lecture by Dr. Chowne”, p. 18.
290
GCPI, 1837, pp. 48–49.
291
Ibid, p. 50.
292
Ibid, p. 54.
 134

General, the Honourable Mr. Shakespeare, and a crowded audience.” 293 It embraced a lucid
exposition of the value of the study of anatomy – “a perfect knowledge of which was to be
acquired in the dissecting room only.”294 Corbyn remarked, “Without this knowledge no man
could become a thoroughly enlightened practical surgeon and physician”. 295 It seemed that
poor people “dying in the hospitals” became virtually coterminous with becoming subjects
for dissection – this trend would become a cause for some concern regarding the projected
utility of the hospital. Concern was expressed, for example, in A.R. Jackson’s evidence
before the Committee for Fever Hospital on 25 May, 1837, that

…if once the idea gets abroad into the minds of the Native population, that the
Hospital is a part of the College establishment, and the source from whence subjects
for dissection are to be supplied to it, its usefulness for the purposes of a General
Hospital of relief to the sick Natives is at an end.296

Bramley admitted that dissection is seldom approached by the uninitiated even in

Europe. An English report noted the “natural feeling which leads men to treat with reverence
the remains of the Dead; and the same feeling has prompted them, in almost all times and
countries, to regard with repugnance, and to persecute, Anatomy..”297 In 1849, for example,
“two youths who had been studying at the Medical College, (as mentioned in last year’s
printed report) had absconded … Dr. Mouat supposed that their dread of the practical duties
of the Dissecting Room, and their dislike of the Bengal climate, had been the true reasons of
their sudden departure.”298 Thus, the relentless and continuing efforts to indoctrinate native
students into the “white coat” ceremony of practical anatomical teaching, which had been
continuing since the work of the NMI did not see immediate fruition.
The summer session of the CMC (April–September) was occupied primarily by
lectures on basic sciences. The second regular anatomical course did not commence till
October 1836.299 Throughout this period, examinations were held regularly “on each Sunday,
and these were generally conducted in the presence of medical gentlemen” who came on
Bramley’s invitation.300 Bramley did not want to put the dissecting knife into the hands of the
students until they had acquired some familiarity with the nature and situation of the parts
and, also, “not until their moral training had been so ripened as to admit of the final.”301

293
Frederick Corbyn, “Mr. Bramley’s Introductory Lecture,” The India Review and Journal of Foreign Science
and the Arts 1 (1837): 290.
294
Ibid.
295
Ibid.
296
Appendix C. Evidence taken by the First Sub-Committee upon the Fever Hospital and Municipal
Improvements (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 1838), clvi.
297
Report from the Select Committee on Anatomy (Ordered by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 22 July
1828), 3.
298
Report of the General Report on Public Instruction in the North-Western Provinces for 1849-50 (henceforth
GRPI), from 1st May, 1849, to 30th April, 1850, p. 24. [Emphasis added]
299
GCPI, 1837, p. 53.
300
Ibid, p. 50.
301
Ibid, p. 53.
 135

Before going into details of the first dissection,302 and detailed picture of the classes
and how they were structured and taught a few issues should be taken into consideration. The
government of Lord William Bentinck, though it saw the inadequacy of the Native Medical
Institution and the Medical Classes in the Sanskrit and Madrasa Colleges to impart a sound
medical education, could not, without doubt, realize the nature and extent of the machinery
that was necessary to fulfill that object. It saw the necessity of the English language being
made the medium of instruction in a Science which, having its foundation in anatomy and
physiology, could be said to exist at the time only in Europe, and could therefore be
communicated adequately only through one of the European languages. But it evidently had
no idea of the complication and vastness of the science itself, no idea of the various collateral
sciences which converge towards it and which must be taught before medicine and surgery
can be at all taught. If it had that idea, no financial consideration, we believe, would have led
it to launch the Medical College with only two men in the tutorial staff. But it was well that
such was the case. “It is probable that the expenses of a full-fledged college would have
appalled the authorities and postponed indefinitely its establishment.” 303 A report in the India
Journal of Medical Science (July 1836) – seemingly a public voice – stated:

We have however yet to learn what system of medical education is to be adopted at

this college. Is it intended to cultivate the science of medicine and surgery in all their
branches, under the exclusive guidance of Messrs. Bramley and Goodeve! If so, we
do not hesitate to say that the n. cans are disproportionate to the ends proposed to lie
attained by such an excellent institution. That Messrs. Bramley and Goodeve are men
of education and high professional talents no one can for a moment question: bit is it
to be supposed that these two gentlemen can teach the several branches of medical
education in this country, which in Europe occupy the constant toil of at least live
professors! Besides professors of anatomy, there should be those of materia medica,
botany, pharmacy, .chemistry, midwifery, surgery, as well as a clinical lecturer, and
one on the practice of medicine. We well remember that Carpue a professor of
anatomy in London, with two hundred pupils, considered the duty of teaching
anatomy only so arduous that he had no spare time for any other occupation. Brookes
also devoted the whole of his time to this one branch of medical education … To
guard against such an evil we would recommend him to suggest to the higher
authorities the necessity of more teachers.304

Such types of protests were not without some positive effect. Apparently, as a result
of such dissenting voices, after the assumption of reins of Government by Charles Metcalfe,
Again, there was protest from the above mentioned Journal:

302
Regarding the controversy around the first dissection see, Jayanta Bhattacharya, “The first dissection
controversy: introduction to anatomical education in Bengal and British India,” Current Science 101.9 (20110:
1227-1232.
303
Mahendralal Sircar, “Calcutta Medical College – part IV,” Calcutta Journal of Medicine 6.7 (July 1873);
251-57.
304
Ibid, pp. 252-53.
 136

The above course is well planned; and in Anatomy, Physiology, General Chemistry,
Natural Philosophy, &c. we have no reason to doubt, the students will be well taught ;
but in the other departments, namely, the important branches of Surgery and Practice
of Physic in India, we cannot admit that any one of the incumbent professors are
sufficiently qualified to instruct.305

To make the issue more comprehensible, the Journal elaborated:

Now we are willing to admit that each and all of these gentlemen may be thoroughly
acquainted with the principles of Cullen; they may be well versed in the arguments
and subtleties of Brown and Darwin; endued with the doctrines of revulsions, of
Broussais, familiar with French pathology; fresh from the theatre of Anatomy and the
laboratory of Chemistry; and may have witnessed the whole of the clinique of Europe;
but when they come to India their knowledge is bounded. Here they are to receive and
not to afford instruction!
In tropical surgery and diseases they are wanting in practice and experience; these are
the defects, and against which alone our commentary in directed.306

Seemingly, because of such protests and realization on behalf of the government some
changes were done accordingly as early as 1837:

the staff increased and re-arranged, by Bengal Civil Order No. 33. of 1st Feb., 1837,
which made the following appointments, Goodeve retaining the professorship of
Medicine and Anatomy, and O'Shaughnessy that of Chemistry and Materia Medica.
Assistant Surgeon C. C. Egerton to be Professor of Surgery and Clinical Surgery.
Surgeon N. Wallich, Supt. Botanical Gardens, to be Professor of Botany.
Assistant Surgeon T. Chapman, to be Lecturer on Clinical Medicine.
Assistant Surgeon J. McCosh to officiate as Lecturer on Clinical Medicine.
Mr. R. O'Shaughnessy to be Demonstrator of Anatomy.
Mr. David Hare to be Secretary.307

According to Bramley, four of the most brilliant students, whose names were not
disclosed for the fear of social repugnance, did the first dissection on 28 October 1836. These
four students were Umacharan Set, Rajkrishna De, Dwarakanath Gupta and Nabin Chandra
Mitra comprised the first batch of students to take part in dissection. Amongst them,
Rajkrishna (Raj Kisto) Dey “is stated to be the first Hindu student who dissected the human
body.”308 Later on R. Havelock Charles emphasizes:
305
Ibid, p. 253.
306
Ibid, p. 254.
307
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 439.
308
Centenary of Calcutta Medical College (Calcutta, 1935), p. 13. This fact is further substantiated by Sircar’s
information obtained from Umacharan Set and Dwaraknath Gupta – “all agree in stating that Babu Raj Kisto
Dey was the individual who was the first to plunge the scalpel into the dead human body, and to whom therefore
the meed of being the pioneer of dissection in Bengal is due.” – The Calcutta Journal of Medicine 1873, 6 (6,
June 1873): 211.
 137

I think it but right to mention the names of the students of this first class that studied
human anatomy in India. They were: Umacharan Set, Dwarkanath Gnipto, Rajkisto
Dey, Gobind Chunder Goopto, Kallachand Dey, Gopalchander Gupto, Chummuin
Lal, Nobin Chunder Mitter, Nobin Chunder Mookerjee, Buddinchunder Chowdree,
and James Pote. I do so for two reasons; first, to honour those who, throwing aside the
trammels of prejudice, withstood firmly the strong moral pressure brought to bear on
them by the outraged feelings of a kindred whose customs are the of a crystallized
econservatiam; type and, secondly, that although I835 is not so very long ago, these
men have practically been forgotten…309

Prior to the period of 28 October, 1836, as Bramley informs us, actual dissection had
not been practiced by the class. 310 But the preparatory ground for this act and gradual
escalation of academic excellence were being steadfastly done. “A course of lectures was
accordingly commenced…introductory to a series of lectures on osteology which were
delivered tri-weekly until the 30th September following.”311 During this phase “[n]ot the
slightest repugnance was shewn at any time in this proceeding; indeed the youths appeared
rather to exalt in overcoming their national prejudices in these matters.” 312 We should
remember at this juncture about the acculturation processes – ocular or visual, verbal and
psychic – starting from the days of the NMI and the medical classes at the Sanskrit College
and Madras.
To prepare the youths “Examinations were also held regularly on each Saturday, and
these were generally conducted in the presence of medical gentlemen who on my invitation
frequently took part in them.”313 It is interesting to note here that routine examinations were
held in the presence of medical personnel outside the CMC. It may be the forerunner of
present day introduction of “external” system of examination. In these initial months one
significant departure occurred from the mode of teaching at the NMI – “Brain and organs of
sense were separately.”314 It was not any kind of exclamation of a student like Durshun Lall,
as we have seen before. As a result of such training

were a student questioned on the meaning of such a term as sterno-cleido-mastoideus,

there is scarcely one who would not readily explain that it signified a muscle whose
origin and insertion was denoted by its name, as Sterno to the Sternum or chest bone;
cleido to the clavicle or collar bone, and mastoideus to the mastoid, or nipple-like
process of temporal bone. The same means to prevent superficial learning were
throughout this course rigorously adopted…315

309
R. Havelock Charles, “The Progress of the Teaching of Human Anatomy in Northern India,” British Medical
Journal (September 30, 1899): 841-844 (841).
310
GCPI, 1837, p. 53.
311
Ibid, pp. 49-50.
312
Ibid, p. 50.
313
Ibid, p. 50.
314
Ibid, p. 51.
315
Ibid, p. 52. [Emphasis added]
 138

Bramley notes another interesting feature prevailing in Bengal – “the superstitious

fears of the dead which prevail in England did not exist here.”316 However, finally,

on the 28th October (1836) … which may be regarded as an eventful era in the annuls
of the Medical College, four of the most intelligent and respectable pupils (whose
names have already been discussed in detail), at their own solicitation undertook the
dissection of the human subject, and in the presence of all the Professors of the
College and of fourteen of their brother pupils, demonstrated with accuracy and
nicety, several of the most interesting parts of the body; and thus accomplished,
through the admirable example of these four native youths, the greatest step in the
progress towards true civilization which education has yet effected. At this first
attempt, all their companions present assisted, and it was delightful to witness the
emulation amongst them … since this time dissections have been regularly practiced
by all the senior class with one solitary exception…317

Bramley admitted that the “probable publicity of this document, forbids my making
the disclosure.”318 Gopal Chunder Roy also testifies similar social sentiments, “Great was
the agitation amongst the community to oppose this laudable plan…Ridiculous rumours
were set afloat to detract the reputation of the institution, as of children being kidnapped
and sick persons killed to furnish bodies for dissection.” 319 Out of this practical dissection
by Indians, the majority of the students could be “considered on a par with the pupils of the
English schools of medicine, possessing the same, if not more abundant, opportunities for
its acquisition, equal intelligence, zeal, and industry.”320 A few years later, Dr. Goodeve
reconfirmed that the most important blow which had yet been struck at the root of native
prejudices and superstition was made possible by the establishment of the CMC, and the
introduction of practical anatomy “as a part of the professional education of Brahmins and
Rajpoots, who may now be seen dissecting with an avidity and industry which was little
anticipated by those who know their strong religious prejudices upon this point twenty
years since.”321 Lectures and instruction on the “Theory and Practice of Physics” afforded
the pupils an insight into pathology and explained to them the nature and cause of disease
in general.322
Moreover, these lectures, as Bramley puts it, “afforded the pupils an insight into
pathology, explained to them the nature and the cause in general, laid down the objects to
be pursued in removing it, or palliating it, without, however, entering at length into the
details of therapeutics.”323 Regarding “Hospital Attendance”, “arrangements were made for
their attendance at the Native Hospital, the General Hospital, the Eye Infirmary, and the

316
Ibid, p. 53.
317
Ibid, p. 55. [Emphasis added]
318
Ibid.
319
Gopal Chunder Roy, “On the Past and Present State of Medicine in India”, p. 547.
320
GCPI, 1837, p. 55.
321
Gooedeve, “Hindu Medical Students (letter to the Editor of the Lancet),” Lancet 1 (1847): 189-90 (190).
322
GCPI, 1837, p. 56.
323
Ibid, p. 56.
 139

Kolingh Dispensary”.324 Most of them were anxious and ready to assist in the various
minor operations and “some of them performed with confidence and dexterity.”325
As the cornerstone of hospital medicine, it was academically necessary to make the
students accustom to the disagreeable sights and impressions to be met with amongst the
sick in the hospital. Bramley reported, “I am happy to say that they availed themselves
fully of the benefits which that excellent Institution (CMC) affords … observing closely
the cases, noting carefully their symptoms, and treatment, and receiving with great
attention the remarks made to them upon the disease they witnessed.” 326 Visual and
psychological acculturations, initiated at the NMI, were now carried on with a greater
extent and momentum. Thus, although the NMI was abolished the process of acculturation
continued with the CMC.
A new medical person was in the making. Since the opening of the session “Practical
Pharmacy”, “a class of sixteen students has been held three times a week for instruction in above
department.”327 They were studying in a foreign language and, in the study of “Practical
Pharmacy”, the pupils had to “prescribe in the language and signs of the British
Pharmacopoeia.”328 Bramley had also combined “private with public instruction”, which
enabled him “to form a correct judgment of the capacity and progress of each
individual.”329
He admitted that to “complete the course of instruction, the lectures on Surgery still
remain.”330 In the classes on “Chemistry and Materia Medica” delivered by
O’Shaughnessy, which commenced in January 1836, “several of the young men… evinced
a strong desire to become experimentalists themselves, and were known to purchase at (to
them) enormous expence (sic), various tests and articles of apparatus with which they
repeated at their homes the experiment they witnessed in the lecture rooms” and “guided by
these data Doctor O’Shaughnessy with my full concurrence decided on a plan of instruction
calculated to enable the students to acquire the most minute information on every department of
chemistry…”331 Moreover, “twenty of the most distinguished pupils were instructed in the
manipulation of apparatus, preparation of reagents, &c. being the repetition of the
experiments performed in the Professor’s Lectures … and with the mode of preparation of
many of the most useful mineral remedies”.332 Importantly, “It is worthy of remark too that
no servants were allowed to the class, the practical pupils themselves making the fires,
cleaning the vessels employed, applying clay lutes, &c.”333
Strengthened by these developments, Bramley, with a happy and emphatic note,
reported:

324
Ibid.
325
Ibid.
326
Ibid, p. 56.
327
Ibid, p. 57.
328
Ibid, p. 58.
329
Ibid, p. 58.
330
Ibid.
331
Ibid, p. 59. [Emphasis added]
332
Ibid, p. 60.
333
Ibid. [Emphasis added]
 140

Dr. O’Shaughnessy is prepared to furnish an estimate and plan for the supply of all
essential apparatus in the general as well as practical department. The expense will be
found so small, especially when contrasted with the benefits to be derived from the
supply, that I earnestly solicit the sanction of the Committee to the proposed
expenditure. With respect to the course of instruction on material medica, also
conducted by Dr. O’Shaughnessy, it has not yet proceeded to a sufficient length to call
for any detailed notice. 334

To remember, such a spirit of experimentation had been first kindled by the

instruction in making new chemical substances by students of the NMI. Bramley tried his
best to adopt the system of concourse of chemistry, medicine and botany followed in “all the
medical institutions of France, and where it ha[d] been adopted in England, the satisfactory
results that have been produced by it” as one of the “leading principles of the College.” 335
It was reported that only within six weeks “since the opening lecture was delivered
and this medical class formed, and yet these intelligent students showed a theoretical and
practical knowledge of general anatomy, and osteology, in particular, which excited the
wonder and delight of every person present.” 336 Following all these remarkable initial
developments, it was reported regarding the significance of the CMC, “if there were no other
fact to which we could appeal in contradiction of this unqualified assertion (Indian
superstitions and prejudices), the Hindoo and Medical Colleges would alone go far to supply
an ample refutation.”337
The laboratory contained a magnificent Galvanic battery, presented to the College by
public subscription in 1837, an enormous electro-magnet, and pharmaceutical preparations
illustrating English and Hindu drugs were also in the laboratory.338 Gorman notes, “[a]t a
time when a chemical laboratory in an American medical school was rare, this course with
lectures and laboratory work was the equal of any in a European medical institution”.339
Significantly, few years later, to bolster the desire for higher academic achievements,
instead of giving a medal for brilliant results as was the conventional practice, there was also
a proposal to give a microscope and several volumes of standard medical works to the
students.340 Through such activities, students were supposed to be drawn more towards the
science of medicine and not to its merely speculative domains. Some of the more advanced
students of the CMC, inspired by the spirit of O’Shaughnessy and Goodeve, formed the
“Chemical Demonstration Society” to perform and independently dabble in experiments.

334
Ibid, p. 61. [Emphasis added]
335
Ibid, p. 61.
336
Anonymous, “Native Medical College,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register – New Series, 19. 74 (1836):
105-106.
337
Anonymous, “Native Medical College – Principal Bramley’s Address,” Calcutta Monthly Journal, Third
Series, II (1836): 107-09 (108).
338
Centenary Volume, p. 18.
339
Gorman, “Introduction of Colonial Science into Colonial India”, p. 287.
340
Appendix N – “Medical College – 9 th Year,” The Sessional Papers Printed by Orders of Lords, or Presented
by Royal Command, in the Session 1852-53 (16 0 & 170 Victoriae), Arranged in Volumes, XXIX (Reports from
Select Committees of the House of Lords, and Evidence, 1852-53): 513-525 (517).
 141

They performed all the experiments in illustration of their learning.341 “They meet on every
Friday evening when one of them previously selected by the Professor, lectures on a subject
assigned to him, and performs all the experiments in illustration of it. Most of the pupils
attend this meeting and a new lecturer is chosen every week.” 342 Bramley’s premature death
as well as O’Shaughnessy’s early dissociation with the institution seems to have put an end to
such initiatives. In 1837, in his letter to Sutherland, Secretary of the GCPI, David Hare
categorically emphasized clinical training in the hospital for better exposure to Indian
diseases and not only European ones.343 Moreover, this new teaching was supposed to bridge
the chasm between the “native hospital being exclusively intended for Surgical cases” and
“the General Hospital for instruction in all Medical diseases”, and “to them, perhaps, this
class of maladies (medical) forms the most important branch of their practical professional
studies.”344 Finally, on 1st April, 1838, “a small hospital, with thirty beds, and one out-patient
dispensary, were opened in connection with the new College, for clinical instruction.”345
Both surgeons and physicians incarnated in one person was a novel experiment, as
will be expounded in another chapter, in Indian soil. It may be safely said, at the risk of being
repetitive, the century-long dichotomy between the physician and surgeon seemed to get
resolved through the production of new graduates from the CMC – who were trained to
become physicians and surgeons at the same time. In this way the CMC embodied one of the
distinct hallmarks of hospital medicine. Gorman’s observation, in another context,
substantiates this view, “Unlike their counterparts who had emigrated to England and were
largely unable to better the entrenched English medical system, they were free in India to
utilize the ideas they had learned as students.”346 He further notes:

In England proper, medical education in the first half of the nineteenth century
was in transition as the London and provincial teaching hospitals rose in
ascendancy over private medical schools. During this unsettled period, these
later famous hospital schools had problems of development and organization,
and were no better off in this regard than the Calcutta Medical College. The
latter fortunately took University College as its model and hence was more
Scottish than British. Every consideration leads to the evaluation of the
Calcutta Medical College as being on a par with the best medical schools in
Europe in the time frame of this study (1835-1858).347

In an earlier observation, Lord Bentinck had declared that “all the foundation pupils
[should] be expected to practise human dissection and perform operations upon the dead
body, or be discharged.”348 A few years later, Dr Mackinnon reported, “Post Mortem

341
Anonymous, “Miscellaneous,” Calcutta Monthly Journal, Third Series, 3.31 (June 1837): 433.
342
Ibid.
343
GCPI, 1837, pp. 163-167 (163-64).
344
Ibid, p. 164.
345
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. II, p. 427.
346
Gorman, “Introduction to Western Science into Colonial India”, pp. 296-97.
347
Ibid, p. 297.
348
Philips, Correspondence of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, vol. 2, p. 1403.
 142

examinations were performed by each of the students in my presence and they wrote
descriptions of the result” in which “they all evinced practical knowledge…and an
acquaintance with the healthy and morbid appearances of the different structures and
organs.”349
In 1838, there were two divisions of classes – “General Classes” and “Junior
Classes”.350 “General Classes” comprised (1) “Materia Medica and Practical Phrmacy, by Dr.
O’Shaughnessy, thrice weekly from 1st May to Ist October, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays, at 3 P. M.”, (2) “Practice of Medicine, by Dr. Goodeve, Wednesdays, Fridays,
from 1st May to 1st October, at 3 P. M.”, (3) “Physiology, by Dr. Gooedeve, on Mondays, at 3
P. M.”, (4) “Clinical Surgery and Surgical Operations, by Dr. Egerton, on Tuesdays and
Thursdays, at 1 P. M. from 1st May to 1st October”, (5) “Clinical Medicine and Hospital
Practice daily”, (6) “Medical Botany, by Dr. Wallich, twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays
at 10 A. M.”, and (7) “Anatomical Demonstration by Mr. R. O’Shaughnessy, on Wednesdays
and Fridays, from 1st May to 1st October”.351 Besides these activities, “Weekly Public
Examination, on Saturday at 1 P. M. at which Medical Gentlemen and the Public generally
are invited to be present” were held. 352 Furthermore, “the students were required to practice
the operation of Vaccination under the guidance of Indian Vaccinators.”353
A secondary Hindustani class “for the instruction of native doctors for the army was
instituted, with a staff of native teachers lecturing in the vernacular, with effect from 1st Oct.,
by G.O. No. 136 of I2th Aug., 1839”,354 chiefly through O’Shaughnessy’s exertions. Here,
“[t]he pupils were required to dissect, and were taught entirely on European principles and
were employed, at the same time, on practical hospital duties”. 355 Crawford comments, “This
class was a resuscitation of the School of the Native Medical Institution, which had been in
abeyance for the four years, 1835 to 1839.” 356 Though a Hindustani class, lectures were given
in Urdu. Moreover, in 1839 also for the first time “free students” were allowed to be
admitted. They were without any stipend or obligation. 357 This was also the year when
students from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) came to the CMC.
1838 – The Watershed in the Development of the CMC358
Foundation of the CMC aroused much social sensation, and as we have seen in the
previous pages, much fanfare too. In October 1838 came the real test of learning in the new
institution. The test in the form of oral and practical examinations was done meticulously.
Possibly no written examination was taken till the period. The reason is unknown to me. But
there is no evidence that written examinations were taken. Following the examination the
349
General Report on Public Instruction, in the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency, from 30 th September
1852, to 30th January 1855, 1855, p. 96.
350
David Hare, “Medical College, Calcutta,” Parbury’s Oriental Herald and Colonial Intelligencer 2.10 (July-
December 1838): 2267-268 (267).
351
Ibid, p. 267.
352
Ibid, p. 268.
353
Centenary Volume, p. 21.
354
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 441.
355
Centenary Volume, p. 17.
356
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 441.
357
Ibid.
358
Detailed accounts are to be found in the Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction (GCPI),
1839, with Appendix.
 143

College Committee and the Sub-Committee (of Public Instruction) for looking into the
matters of the College made some relevant and lasting observations which were taken into
account by government and, accordingly, changes were brought into the functioning of the
CMC. Anyone interested in the development of medical education and hospital medicine in
India must find an intriguing picture in these occurrences. H. T. Prinsep, the then Secretary to
the Government of India, wrote in a letter (10 April, 1839) to the General Committee of
Public Instruction

I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your Secretary’s Letter No. 161, dated the
21st ultimo, submitting a Report on the state and progress of the Medical College and
upon the best means of turning to account the services of the four youths who have
passed examination, with suggestions as to the future arrangement of the Institution.
2nd. In reply, I am directed to transmit to you the accompanying copy of a resolution
this day passed by the Hon’ble the President in Council, and to request that you will
in order to make the reports on the Medical College complete, submit a list of the
students and establishment made up to the date of the examination, and showing the
number and names of stipendiary and other students for each year since the
commencement of the Institution.359

To mention, in the 1st Annual Report of the CMC, David Hare, while proposing for a
hospital as the utmost for clinical instructions, wrote to J. C. C. Sutherland Secretary of the
General Committee of Public Instruction, “It is scarcely necessary to point out how admirably
this hospital would fulfill the objects we contemplate in recommending the formation of such
an establishment as part of the Medical College … In this Hospital separate wards should be
kept for the patients necessary to form the subjects of clinical lectures on medicine.” 360
In 1838, a “Clinical Hospital” was attached to the CMC. “In the course of the past
year the liberality of Government has added materially to the efficiency of the Institution by
the sanctioned annexation of Clinical Hospital adapted to the reception of eighty patients, and
of a Laboratory for general purposes.”361 In 1839 it was recorded that “70 patients, both
Europeans and Indians, suffering from medical and surgical diseases, were under treatment,
and that the outdoor dispensary, which was established in 1839, attended to 200 patients
daily.”362
A secondary vernacular class, chiefly through O’Shaughnessy’s exertions, was
opened in 1839. Here, “[t]he pupils were required to dissect, and were taught entirely on
European principles and were employed, at the same time, on practical hospital duties.” 363
More specifically, O’Shaughnessy submitted a proposition “of which the object was to annex
a secondary Medical School to the College, with the in particular, of creating a better class of
candidates for subordinate Medical services attached to the native army.” 364 There is a long

359
GCPI, 1839, Appendix, p. 99.
360
GCPI, 1837, Appendix, pp. 165-66.
361
GCPI, 1839, Appendix, p. 87.
362
Centenary Volume, p. 17.
363
Ibid, p. 17.
364
GCPI, 1839, Appendix, p. 88.
 144

list of exchange of letters between the College Committee and the sub-Committee appointed
by the Education Committee, dating from 6 th April 1838 to 3rd September 1838.365 It was
categorically noted that the abolition of the NMI and medical classes at the Sanskrit College
and Madrasa created a vacuum in the supply of native doctors. “As … the Medical College
had failed to supply a prominent object its institution, our sub-Committee for this Institution
deemed it necessary to obtain an explanation of the cause.”366
There emerged a sensitive situation when “the College Council stated, that the
Students (of the CMC) had received a medical education, which had raised their attainments,
(and consequently their views) beyond the more humble qualifications required for Native
Doctors” was an impediment to the supply of native doctors for military purposes. 367 The
students of the CMC objected “to service with the army generally in the line of their
profession”.368
Finally, the College Committee proposed that the supply of subordinate Medical
Officers for the native army “should be secured either by the institution of a secondary and
Vernacular school, or the establishment of a Military and Stipendiary class.” 369 In its reply,
dated 25th June, 1838, the Sub-committee (whose views were adopted by the General
Committee of Public Instruction) informed that “it was disposed as an experiment to annex a
secondary school in the Medical College in which Medical Science, and practice to the extent
prescribed by the course proposed by the College Council, might be taught in the
Hindustanee dialect.”370 In its letter of the 3 rd September, 1838, the College Council proposed
that 40 Military Native Surgeons (eleven from the CMC) should be attached to the army, and
distributed to the head quarters of divisions. “1 st Class (21) as jamandars, and receive a salary
of 60 rupees with palki or house allowance. 2nd Class (11) to rank with subadars, and receive
a salary of 100 rupees. 3rd Class to rank with subadar major, and receive a salary of 150
rupees.”371 Service and salary was structured in a definitely visible way and there was parity
between the two.
It becomes glaringly evident that this mode of training in the proposed Secondary
Class of the CMC was of purely for military purposes. It was an effort in the direction of
compensating the vacuum arising out of the abolition of the NMI. Moreover, the students
would receive less amount of training than the students of the CMC of the English class.
More importantly, both the English class and the Secondary class came under the purview of
the Education Committee, with two distinctly different purposes – the former was civil nature
and was not under any compulsion for military services, while the latter one was meant
primarily for army.
Prior to that, some changes were made in the faculty and distribution of courses in the
CMC. From the letter of H. T. Prinsep on 1 st February it becomes evident. In his letter to the
“Committee of Public Instruction”, he wrote:

365
Ibid.
366
Ibid, 88.
367
Ibid. [Emphasis added]
368
Ibid.
369
Ibid, Appendix, p. 89.
370
Ibid.
371
Ibid, Appendix, p. 90.
 145

His Lordship in Council has appointed Dr. C. C. Egerton to be professor of surgery

and clinical surgery, on a salary of 400 Rs. out of the funds of the college in addition
to that assigned to him for superintending the Ophthalmic institution. Mr. Egerton will
resign the medical charge of the Orphan School now held by him. Dr. T. Chapman
recently appointed Assistant Surgeon in the General Hospital will give lectures on
clinical medicine, drawing a salary of 200 Rs. per month from the college. Until he
joins his appointment in the General Hospital, the duty will be performed and the
salary drawn by Dr. MeCosh his locum tenens. The Governor General in Council has
further appointed Dr. Wallich lecturer on Botany in the Medical College, and he will
receive from the funds of the college an allowance of 50 Rs. per mensem to cover the
expense of a boat. Mr. B. O'Shaughnessy has been appointed demonstrator to the
dissecting room (an officer understood to be much wanted in the college) and to give
assistance to the chemical lecturer, on a salary of 150 Bs. per mensem; lastly Mr. D.
Hare has been nominated Secretary of the Medical College with a salary of 400 Bs. to
cover (with the aid of such establishment of clerks, &c. as was allowed to Dr.
Bramley) all charges of accounts and correspondence, and the general business of the
College.372

Sircar commented, “No new subject, properly speaking, was introduced by the above
arrangement into the curriculum of studies. But the addition to the professional staff certainly
made way for the more efficient teaching of the subjects that used to be taught by the
previously existing limited number of professors.”373 But, it must be said that the appointment
of Dr. Wallich to the chair of Botany introduced regular and systematic and therefore more
efficient instruction in the subject, and by affording relief to Dr. O'Shaughnessy enabled him
to devote more attention and time to, and therefore more efficiently to teach, the subjects of
Chemistry and Materia Medica than he could do before. Again, the appointment of a lecturer
on Clinical Medicine at the same that it made instruction in this branch more efficient, made
instruction in Anatomy and Medicine equally so, by relieving Dr. Goodeve.
Sircar again draws our attention to the lacunae lurking in the actual functioning of the
CMC –

The college was established, on the ruins, so to say, of the Native Medical Institution
and the Medical classes of Sanskrit and Madrissa Colleges, at the recommendation of
the Committee appointed for the purpose. But the recommendation of that Committee
in all its details was not followed. Otherwise the College would not have been opened
with only two professors (one of whom was also to act as the general head) to teach
the whole circle of the medical sciences on the model of Europe.374

This criticism seems to be valid from the fact that the 1 st annual examination of the
CMC was held in October, 1838 – only two years and ten months after its foundation. Either
the Government had so far forgotten the report of the Committee or was so ignorant of the
372
Sircar, “Calcutta Medical College – part V,” Calcutta Monthly Journal 6.8 (1873): 291-296 (295).
373
Ibid, p. 296.
374
Sircar, “Calcutta Medical College – part VI,” Calcutta Monthly Journal 6.9 (1873): 334-341 (336).
 146

system of Medical Education in Europe, that they thought this period was enough to have
made pupils acquainted with the medical sciences in all their details and thus rendered fit to
take independent charge of public dispensaries, to which they were supposed to appointed as
sub-assistant surgeons
On the 17th October Government appointed, for the examination of candidates, a
Committee, consisting of Surgeon Samuel Nicolson, Surgeon to the General Hospital,
Surgeon John Grant, Apothecary to the Hon'ble East India Company, Surgeon James Ranald
Martin, Presidency Surgeon and Surgeon to the Native Hospital, and Assistant Surgeon
Duncan Stewart, Superintendent General of Vaccination. The College itself was deemed the
most suitable place for the examination, which commenced on Tuesday, the 30th October. It
lasted for more than one week. The report which contains the most accurate account of the
happenings in details was a “Special Report in regard to this College.”375
On the 1st April, 1838, the number of students was 72 – “Foundation Students forty-
eight, of whom one was Christian, and the rest Bengali Hindus, - a non-Stipendiary twenty-
one, of whom ten were Christians, and the rest Bengali Students”. 376 The total expenditure for
twelve months ending 30th April, 1838, was Rs. 47,566 and 13 pi and 2 annas.377
The lectures “embraced as usual these branches: Anatomy and Physiology and
Chemistry, Materia Medica, Practice of Physic, Clinical Instruction, Anatomical
Demonstrations, Surgery, Botany.”378 It was further reported that amongst the new
developments since the foundation of the CMC (1835) was “the annexation of a Clinical
Hospital, notice in our last report as an essential want, and the Institution of Provincial
Dispensaries, have received the sanction of your Honor.”379
As an important note, sanction of “the transmission to London of the most proficient
pupils, for the observation of Medical Institutions in Europe, and attainment of diplomas”
was reported. Since 1838, it was for the first time that the need for sending students to
London for better and higher medical training was perceived, which was finally materialized
in 1845.
Annual examination of 1838 was of “thorough searching and strict character” as the
necessity for a “more protracted character and strict examination than usually obtains in
England”. The report lets us know, “in India the social anomalies, the habits and associations
of the students are peculiarly adverse to the full and active developments of their moral
powers” as “in the faculty of retention they are inferior (to European counterparts). 380
Each candidate had attended:

Three courses of anatomy and physiology, two of actual dissection, three of

chemistry, one of natural philosophy, two of material medica, and two of general and
medical botany, two of the practice of physic, and two of the principles and practice
of surgery, and one of operative surgery.381
375
GCPI, 1839, Appendix, p. 58.
376
Ibid, p. 59.
377
Ibid.
378
Ibid, Appendix, p. 60.
379
Ibid.
380
Ibid, Appendix, p. 70.
381
Ibid, Appendix, p. 72.
 147

What is conspicuous by absence here is clinical training. The report notes, “[t]his
amount of instruction appears to us to embrace all the essential branch of a complete Medical
Education with the exception midwifery; for the tuition of which there is no provision in the
Institution.”382 The business of the day was carried on by “Messrs. Corbyn, Grant, Martin,
and Stewart, in the presence of the Professors of the College, and Messrs. Green and
Macintosh, of the Bengal and Madras Medical Service, who came as spectators of the
proceedings.”383
The number of students appearing in the examination was eleven – namely (as the
names spelt in the Report), Umachurn Set, Dwarakanth Gupta, Rajkisto Dey, Gobinchunder
Gupta, Kllachand Dey, Gopalchunder Gupta, Chumun Lall, Nobinchunder Mitter,
Nobinchunder Mookerjee, Buddunchunder Chowdree, and James Pote. 384 Amongst these
examinee, special mention was made of Gobinchunder Gupta who “gave a very
dissatisfactory reply to the question of how he would perform the operation of trachectomy
(sic).”385 Two students – James Pote, a Christian, and Badan Chandra Chaudhuri, a Brahmin –
withdrew from the examination.386
On the first day, in the examination of anatomy and physiology, four candidates –
Unachurn Set, Dwarakanath Gupta, Rajkisto Dey and Gobinchunder Gupta – were first
examined. Each candidate was examined “for upwards of half an hour by himself, being
admitted one by one, and afterwards led to the dissecting room, where they were they were
made to demonstrate the parts in various sections of the subject, which they did most
creditably.”387 Unachurn Set, Dwarakanath Gupta, Rajkisto Dey and Nobinchunder Mitter
were led to the operating room and they performed various operations on the dead body “in
pretty good style”.388 On the fourth day 2nd November, 1838, notably, with the exception of
Nobinchunder Mitter other candidates (Kllachand Dey, Gopalchunder Gupta, Chumun Lall
and Nobinchunder Mookerjee) did not know how to “strap the tourniquet”. 389 On the fourth
day, Unachurn Set, Dwarakanath Gupta, Rajkisto Dey and Nobinchunder Mitter said that
they had “assiduously practised the capital operations of surgery during two years on the
dead body, and many of the minor ones (no particulars of which were specified).” Moreover,
Unachurn Set and Rajkisto Dey “performed the operations of amputation (on the dead body)
in a very neat and satisfactory manner.” 390 In the examination, “Chemistry and Physic” and
“Chemistry and Materia Medica” were two different subjects. After the examination the
Committee, having evaluated the entire situation, specifically pointed out the lack of clinical
teaching in curricula,

382
Ibid.
383
Ibid, p. 72.
384
Ibid, Appendix, p. 73.
385
Ibid.
386
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 440.
387
GCPI, 1839, Appendix, p. 72.
388
Ibid, Appendix, p. 74.
389
Ibid.
390
Ibid, Appendix, p. 76.
 148

In the more practical branches of education we have no doubt equal excellence will
become manifest, when the students have had prolonged opportunities (which hitherto
they had not) of studying the practice of medicine and surgery by the bed side of the
sick, means (hospital) which the institution now happily has within itself. It is our
opinion also, that the Durromtollah (Dharmatala or Esplanade) Native Hospital might,
to a certain extent, be rendered available for this purpose.
To Unachurn Set, Dwarakanath Gupta, Rajkisto Dey, and Nobinchunder Mitter, we
have unanimously come to the decision of granting letters testimonial that we
consider them competent to the practice of medicine and surgery, we beg to
recommend them accordingly to the liberal consideration of Government as the first
Hindoos, who rising superior to the trammels of prejudices and obstacles of no
ordinary character, have distinguished themselves by attaining to a complete medical
education upon enlightened principles … in one year less than the period assigned in
General Orders of 28th January 1835, these young men have by diligent application …
acquired such a measure of general medical knowledge as to bear them creditably
through a very rigid examination.391

Crawford notes that five students passed. They were “all without delay provided with
appointments, as Sub-Assistant Surgeons, the first four in the hospitals of Dakka,
Murshidabad, Patna, and Chittagong, respectively, the last in Patna Opium Agency.” 392 In
Bengal G.O. of 12th April, 1839 (C.G., 8th May, 1839), Uma Charan Sett was posted to
Agra, Raj Kishan Deb (who was called Raj Kisto Dey) to Delhi, and Shama Charan Datta to
Allahabad.393

391
Ibid, Appendix, p. 77.
392
Ibid.
393
Ibid. [fn]
 149

[One of the earliest certificates issued by the Medical College of Bengal is

reproduced above.]

Despite such a feat of the students and the College Council, the Committee cautioned
“[n]evertheless, as a general rule, we consider that the period of study ought not to be less
than four years, save as respects any of the original eleven candidates who appeared before us
on the 30th October…”394 They also suggested that “in future each student should attend not
less than three courses of the practice of surgery, three of the practice of physic, and materia
medica, and two of operative surgery.”395 Moreover, it was suggested, “we recommend that it
be always within the reach of one of the European medical gentlemen belonging to the
service…”396 Regarding Native Doctors, educated at the NMI, it was observed that they were
“persons that could not be trusted out of sight of the European medical staff, being only
smatterers, and incapable of any but the most subordinating mechanical duties.” 397 Here lies
the fundamental and paradigmatic difference between Native Doctors and the new graduates
– native doctors could never be allowed to be out of sight of European surveillance owing to
their paucity of knowledge.

394
Ibid.
395
Ibid.
396
Ibid, Appendix, p. 78.
397
Ibid, p. 81
 150

New medical graduates were advised to “keep regular case books as records of their
practice with their house patients.”398 It was also suggested that “at the end of five years they
should undergo another examination”.399 Moreover, “they be supplied before quitting the
presidency” with books which included – Philips Translation of the London Pharmacopoeia,
Thomson’s Elements of Materia Medica Therapeuti, Dr. O’Shaughnessy’s Manual of
Chemistry, Cloquet’s Anatomy by Knox, Sir C. Bells, Institutes of Surgery (just published),
Dr. Geo Gregory’s Elements of Medicine, Twining on the Diseases of Bengal, Cooper on
Dislocations and Fractures, and Clarke’s Commentaries on the Diseases of Children.400
As a continuation to our previous and very brief discussion of case records and their
historical importance, it may be added here that patient records, as Risse argues, are
“surviving artefacts of the interaction between physicians and their patients in which
individual personality, cultural assumptions, social status, bureaucratic expediency, and the
reality of power relationships are expressed.” 401 In Indian context, taking individual case
records were in actual practice making a new type individual in the guise of patient and
somewhat extricated from his social embeddedness. It was for the first time in the history of
health in India that the big question of where the patient to be treated – at the domestic setting
or in a hospital – was assuming a concrete shape. It also became a historical determinant in
the direction of future medical and health activities.
An evaluation of the situation which arose as a consequence of the above mentioned
facts can be done. As the first batch of medical graduates were exposed for the first time to
the crucial moment of taking up independently social and medical responsibility of the
individual and the social as well, it was pragmatically quite likely that these men be “within
the reach of one of the European medical gentlemen”. But, it is also indicative of not losing
the reign of control over Indians. Interestingly, keeping of “regular case books as records” is
also significant in the sense that for the first time in Indian history individuals came to be
recorded and kept under the surveillance of medical personnel and medicine. Bentinck sailed
for India along with a copy of Bentham’s Panopticon, as we have seen earlier. Might be, as a
historical antecedent, Foucault’s “Panopticon” was set into motion institutionally. And, as a
positive note, supplying the graduates with important textbooks was definitely a sign of
regular academic exercise – continued medical education (CME) in modern terminology.
Notably, the practice of free scientific experiments, beginning especially with
O’Shaughnessy, may have led to the rise of the spirit of nationalism – scientific free thinking.
The Report under my consideration talked at some length about the report submitted
by the committee which was appointed by Bentinck. According to this Report (1839), “the
report (of 1834) was submitted as a mere preliminary measure; and as a general proposition
to be followed up with minute details in another report”. 402 But it was never materialized. It
was noted in the Report, “The Medical College, as founded by Lord William Bentinck, was
an Institution falling far short of the plan contemplated by the Special Committee for inquiry;

398
Ibid, Appendix, p. 78.
399
Ibid.
400
Ibid.
401
Guenter B. Risse, Reconstructing Clinical Activities: Patient Records in Medical History,” Social History of
Medicine (September 1992): 183-205 (189).
402
Ibid, Appendix, p. 83.
 151

since instead of several Lecturers or Professors, there was only to be one and an Assistant,
subject entirely to the Professor’s orders”.403 Quoting the 15th paragraph404 of the G.O. (of 28
January, 1835) enacting the foundation of the CMC, the Report commented that “there is a
great want of definitiveness, since the mode of tuition in that walk differs in different
kingdoms of Europe.”405
As evident from the Report of 1839, the Special Committee recommended “Lectures
should be delivered on the following subjects: (1) Anatomy with description of the human
body, (2) Chemistry, (3) Materia Medica, (4) Practice of Physic, (5) Surgery and Midwifery,
(6) Clinical Lectures and Medico-Legal Medicine … there should not be less than three
independent professors, and a Superintendent or Rector to have a general supervision of the
whole.”406 It is important to note that from the very beginning of the CMC there was
recommendation to incorporate clinical lectures, midwifery and medico-legal medicine
(which is now known as forensic and state medicine or FSM) in the curricula. But it was not
implemented. One reason may be haste in the institutional resolution of the Anglicist-
Orientalist debate and to materialize it in a somewhat rudimentary way. Whatever is the
reason, “[w]ith all the due deference then to the good intentions of the Government, it is clear
in regard to what the College was expected to do, that the means were not adapted to the
end.”407 More specifically,

In fact an obvious mistake appears to have pervaded the whole arrangement, which
was, that because medical students in Great Britain, attended certain Hospitals, and
Infirmaries to perfect themselves in practical medicine and Surgery, all that was
requisite for the native students of the Calcutta Medical College, to same end, was to
walk the wards of the General Hospital &c; whereas in the British Institutions the
practitioners who go round the wards, and afterwards lecture upon the diseases in
them, are the teachers of the pupils who walk these hospitals; and have a positive and
very substantial interest in teaching them; while on the other hand in Calcutta, the
very presence of the pupils at the several departments alluded to, would most
probably be deemed rather troublesome, and have a tendency to a certain extent to
interrupt routine, while the incumbent benefited in no way from the additional
interruption or inconvenience … Need it be matter of surprise that the experiment
should have proved a failure? Were not the seeds of such a result sown in the scheme
itself?408

We shall come to see later on how this lacuna of “walk the wards” was overcome
within a short period of 2 years. In a more trenchant note the Committee castigated the
scheme outlined in the G.O. (of 28 January, 1835), “It is possible that the unextended (sic)

403
Ibid.
404
“That all foundation-pupils be expected to learn the principles and practice of the medical sciences in strict
accordance with the mode adopted in Europe.”
405
GCPI, 1839, Appendix, p. 84.
406
Ibid.
407
Ibid, Appendix, p. 85.
408
Ibid.
 152

incomplete institution as constituted by Lord William Bentinck, and utterly deficient in

practical means (save as respects Anatomy) might have furnished annually, as required, a
certain number of half educated Native Doctors.”409
The college (CMC) underwent an important modification after the departure of
Bentinck. New appointment of a professor of chemistry was made and the assistant in
anatomy and physiology was promoted to be an independent professor, along with the
addition of a curator of the museum. “After Principal Bramley’s death, the institution was
constituted a College indeed by Lord Auckland, who further enlarged its scheme, by
nominating Professors of Surgery and Botany, and a Demonstrator of Anatomy.” 410
Seemingly as an extension of such a castigatory note, the very foundation of the CMC and its
future was anatomized rather harshly and placed under a big question mark:

Hence it follows that one of two courses become incumbent, viz, to abolish the
Medical College at once as an (sic) useless drain upon revenue; or to maintain it upon
the same broad and statesman-like foundation upon which the present government ahs
constituted it, believing it to be normal school of civilization and beneficence
obviously intelligible in its scope and tendency to the people, and therefore calculated
to enhance the claims of British rule to their gratitude. We need scarcely remark that
the last is course which we ardently hope, and trust the Government will follow.411

Historically, CMC took the second course. It might be precisely owing to sheer need
of economy of medical education, as it was reported that the “state would obtain by it, a
cheap class of well educated Native Medical Officers on whom the climate would make no
impression, while at the same time, that it might render a large addition to the junior Medical
Staff unnecessary, it would give a new impulse to European Medical Science, or in other
words to civilization, in India.”412
It becomes quite obvious that “a new impulse to European Medical Science” is made
equivalent to “civilization in India”. Moreover, the cheap Indian medical officers would cut
down the cost of bringing up or importing junior British medical staff, and, as the new
graduates of the CMC were attuned to Indian climate, it would be possible to avert the
increasing loss of British medical personnel. In the same breath, seemingly as a sop to these
aspirant graduates and to implement a far-sighted plan, recommendation was made to send
“eight of the elite of the pupils’ to Europe “to complete their education, with reference to
turning their talents and acquirements to a higher account”. 413 But there were two vexing
questions – (1) whether the period of study in Europe should be two or three years, and (2)
whether six or eight pupils should be sent. Dr. O’Shaughnessy thought six would be
sufficient. The Sub-Committee calculated the expenditure according to O’Shaughnessy’s
suggestion.414

409
Ibid, Appendix, p. 86.
410
Ibid, Appendix, p. 86.
411
Ibid, Appendix, p. 87.
412
Ibid, Appendix, p. 91.
413
Ibid.
414
Ibid, Appendix, p. 92.
 153

Entire cost of this enterprise was estimated to be £4293. The break-up was like this –
Voyages to and from for six pupils – £600; Clothes and necessaries, pocket money – £660;
Board for two years – £960; Library, Lectures, Diploma – £850; Allowance for passage for
Professor in Charge – £200. If two more pupils go 1/3 of expense for six would be – £1023.
Thus, the total cost came to be around £4293. 415 In another estimate the cost came to
be £5893 or 58,930 Indian rupees.416 “The experiment under consideration” was believed to
be “that successfully tried in Egypt by Clot Bey.” 417 After all these suggestions, criticisms and
definite plans for the future development of the CMC, the Committee commented,

The result has proved beyond cavil that the Hindoo by proper arrangement may be
reconciled to a course of tuition, utterly at variance with preconceived notions, his
prejudices, and his superstitions. It has proved that in capacity of acquirement the
Hindoo is in no way inferior to the European. … the Hindoo will pass successfully
through an ordeal of reiterated examination that would be deemed formidable even by
the European. It has proved that what holds in other countries, also governs the mind
in India, and that the remuneration of educated and uneducated labour must always
differ in the ration of enlightenment, and the claims which knowledge has to higher
rate of wages.418

Two issues should be taken into considerations – (1) the notion of Hindoo (or Hindu)
and India has been employed interchangeably, which invariably figures out an imagery of
Hindu India (and, consequently, communal divide in later periods), and (2) as “knowledge
has to higher rate of wages”, instead of traditional hierarchy of caste, religion and the
ownership of land a new secular social hierarchy was in the making. Thus the CMC and its
full-swing operation also did play an important role in the making of modernity and nation
state in India. And, for this purpose, it was urged that it is “all very well to refer
philosophically and theoretically to Anatomy and Surgery as Sciences”.419

1840 and Afterwards

The “Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction … for the Year 1839-40”
started with the statement – “Since our last report very important changes have been
introduced into this Institution. An additional class (which has been already discussed) has

415
Ibid, Appendix, p. 92. One British was then equivalent to 10 Indian rupees. So, in Indian currency it would be
about 43,000 rupees.
416
Ibid, Appendix, p. 93.
417
Ibid. For a brief note on Clot Bey – born in Grenoble in 1793 Clot was first a doctor in Marseilles with great
success and honour. But for unclear reasons he had to resign, and then decided to be recruited in Egypt, where
he was soon called “Clot-Bey” (Bey = officer)”: he contributed greatly to modernizing Egyptian medical
system: he founded the School of medicine, that of pharmacy, and that of obstetrics, and promoted hygiens and
variolisation. For quick appraisal see, Gerard N. Burrow, “Clot-Bey: Founder of Western Medical Practice in
Egypt,” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 48 (1975): 251-275; H. Ruf, “Antoine Barthélémy Clot-Bey, a
physician from Marseille founder of Western medicine in Egypt,” History of Science and Medicine 45.1 (2011):
71-80.
418
Ibid, Appendix, p. 95.
419
Ibid, Appendix, p. 97.
 154

been formed for the purpose of educating Native Doctors for employment in the Army, and at
Civil Stations.”420 The report made it clear that “the requisite supply of these subordinates has
entirely ceased since the abolition of Dr. Tytler’s Native Medical School, and the demand for
their services, in the Native Regiments especially, has become urgent.” 421 The plan of this
arrangement and its details were drawn up by Dr. O’Shaughnessy. The students attending the
class resided “on the premises of the College, and receive a monthly allowance five
rupees”.422 The new graduates of the CMC were employed for the instruction of these
students. They were namely Sib Chunder Kumacar, Chimunlall, and Navakrishna Goopto.
“With the aid of these teachers the secondary pupils are taught the rudiments of Anatomy,
Pharmacy, Medicine, and Surgery. The instruction differs from that of Dr. Tytler, in as much
as the subjects are taught practically, by the aid of the Dissecting Room, Laboratory, and
Hospital.”
Following Ackerknecht, what was discussed at the beginning of the chapter regarding
hospital medicine is visible in this report, even for the secondary class. It was reported that a
“large Female Hospital, intended to embrace the advantages of Lying-in-Hospital with
instruction Midwifery, has been commenced, and is now ready to receive patients. The
Hospital has been built by a very liberal public subscription, raised at the suggestion of the
College Council.”423 It should be noted that midwifery was originally excluded in the
curricula of the CMC, which was finally included following strong admonition by the Special
Committee in 1839. Moreover, a good part of philanthropic institutions was heavily funded
by public donation. Colonial state and the British government were only the mediator.
The Report goes on, “The Male Hospital, which was opened in 1839, continues to
receive an abundant supply of patients of all classes, Europeans, as well as Natives. It usually
contains about 70 Medical and Surgical cases; some of the latter especially are often most
important.”424 Further

The readiness with which natives of every caste from the Brahmin downwards, avail
themselves of the Hospital without objection to the religion or caste of any of the
other occupants of the same ward, or even of the next beds, offers a convincing proof
of the little necessity which exists, in similar Institutions, for separating the native
patients from each other, on account of religious prejudices … The location of these
patients in the College Hospital has greatly bettered the condition of the sick
themselves, and it affords a very important additional means of instruction to the
Students.425

Importantly, effacing the barrier of caste, religion and race the operation of this new
hospital-centered medicine gave rise to a unique category of secularity as well as such kind

420
Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction, of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, for the
Year 1839-40, 1841, p. 33. [Hereafter GCPI, 1841]
421
Ibid.
422
Ibid, p. 34.
423
Ibid, p. 35.
424
Ibid. It should be noted that Crawford provides the date 1st August, 1838, for the opening of the hospital.
425
Ibid, pp. 35-36.
 155

of arrangements provided material objects and basis of clinical teaching which was virtually
non-existent till the first annual examination in 1838.
There was also a dispensary attached to the hospital and remained open from 6 to 10
A.M. It was placed under the charge of Nobinchunder Mitter (graduate of the first batch in
1883). From 200 to 300 patients were treated daily. The dispensary was visited by Dr.
Goodeve every morning. “The most requisite addition to the Hospital, however, was a
European Apothecary and Steward; who have since been appointed.” 426 In their letter on 16th
March, 1841, T. Smith (1st Member, Medical Board), C. Campbell (2nd Member, Medical
Board) and T. Tweedie (3rd Member Medical Board), wrote to Auckland, “The reports of the
different Superintendents bear creditable testimony to the zeal and acquirements of the Sub-
Assistant Surgeons”.427 But the Report cautioned about the fact that “as almost all of them are
natives of Bengal, and consequently strangers both in point of customs and language to the
people of the Western Provinces … some time must be allowed for the softening down of
mutual prejudices.”428 Interestingly, these Bengali sub-assistant surgeons, through the conduit
of their medical activities, reached as far as Delhi and Agra. To talk in lighter vein, “Bengali
colonization” of a great part of India began to take place through modern medicine and public
health works. As the Report informs us, “Some of the Superintendents have reported having
turned their attention to the introduction of Country Medicines – for improvements, however,
in this department we must look to the Sub-Assistant Surgeons”.429
Sub-Assistant Surgeons were sent to 11 dispensaries throughout the country – (1)
Dacca Dispensary (Sub-Assistant Surgeon Nobin Chunder Paul), (2) Chittagong (Rajkisto
Chatterjee), (3) Pooree Dispensary and Pilgrim Hospital (Neelmoney Dutt), (4)
Moorshesabad (Punchanan Sreemony), (5) Patna (Ram Eshur Awustee), (6) Benares City
Hospital and Secrole Dispensary (Ishun Chunder Gunguli), (7) Allahabad (Shumchurn Dutt),
(8) Cawnpore Dispensary (Ramnarain Doss), (9) Bareilly Dispensary (Jodub Chunder Sett),
(10) Delhi Dispensary (R. Henning), and (11) Agra Dispensary (Umachurn Sett). All the Sub-
Assistant Surgeons employed in the dispensaries treated medical cases and, also, surgical
ones usually at the outdoor setting. But a good number of indoor patients were also there,
who were admitted for treatment for both medical and surgical reasons. An example can be
had from the Cawnpore Dispensary – number of inpatients 251, of which 173 were cured, 2
were relieved, 11 absconded and 41 died – daily average being 29. Of all these patients the
“[n]umber of Out-patients 1143, of which 1146 were said to be cured – daily average 73.”430
Amongst all the sub-assistant surgeons employed in various dispensaries, Shumchurn
Dutt (Allahabad Dispensary) seems to have done most magnificently. He performed the
following operations – 1 operation of amputation below the knee, 1 of the penis, 6 for
cataract, 3 for fistula in ano, 1 for fistula in pereneo, 8 paracentisis abdominis, 8 for ectopian
pregnancy, 2 for the removal of encysted tumours. 431 By any standard, it was a quite laudable

426
Ibid, p. 36.
427
Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, p. clxxiii.
428
Ibid. For full description of individual dispensaries, modes of treatment there, surgeons and sub-assistant
surgeons performing their duties in the dispensaries see, GCPI, 1841, Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, p. clxxiii-clxxx.
429
Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, p. clxxiv.
430
Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, p. clxxviii.
431
Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, pp. clxxvii-clxxviii.
 156

feat. More emphatically speaking, all these operations were done by young Indian medical
graduates in pre-anesthesia days of surgery.
Several of the graduates did not enter into the government services. “Dwarakanath
Goopto has established himself in extensive practice (sic) in Calcutta, and besides head
partner in a well conducted and flourishing Apothecary’s establishment.” 432 Ramcoomar Dutt
and Gonchunder Goopto had also successfully established themselves as practitioners and
apothecaries in Calcutta.433 “These establishments”, as the Report argued, “are calculated to
prove of great public benefit by reducing the cost of the drugs used in the practice (sic) of
medicine to the means of the large classes of the community who, from the consideration of
economy, were hitherto compelled to use cheap nostrums and poisons of the Bazar.” 434
Gopall Krishna Goopu took his employment in Assam in a tea garden. Nobinchunder
Mookerjie was also employed by the Assam Tea Company on a salary of 150 rupees per
mensem. Shibchunder Kurmokar and Navakrishan Gooptu were employed as teachers in
Secondary School of the CMC. They gave the “greatest satisfaction to the College
Council”.435 Another graduate Nobinchunder Mittre was put in charge of “College out-door
Dispensary…continues to merit the approbation of the Council for the admirable manner in
which he discharges his duties.”436
The reader should note that with the expansion of general market of economy the
scope of different employments of different grades became a reality. It was altogether
inconceivable in pre-colonial India. Post-1830s India saw a rapid and vigorous spurt in
economy and transportation. It led to the formation of railways and other companies, which
also needed skilled labour and learned expertise. The CMC graduates were readily available
for these new employments at lower cost. In a visibly confident and jubilant note, the Report
observes, “the advantages of the College are gradually extending themselves to the
community at large, and giving farther promise of the ultimate value of the Institution, as a
part of the Educational Establishment of the country.” 437 The glory of the College was not
confined to India only; students came from Ceylon, Arracan and other areas. Christian and
Armenian inhabitants of the city sent their boys to the CMC. Ceylon Government sent 10
Christian students to the college. They were provided with quarters. Like the students of the
secondary class, who were provided accommodation within the premises of the CMC, Ceylon
students were also provided quarters for their accommodation. It was reported in the Asiatic
Journal, “Six pupils have arrived at the Medical College from Ceylon … they are lodged and
boarded at the College; at the expense of the Government”. 438 In simple terms, it means that
in the history of modern education in India residential system came in the offing for the first
time. The need for residential system of education for better learning, which was a reality by
1840, also was drawn to attention in the Report of 1839.
The Report (1840) ended with a note of sorrow:
432
Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, p. clxxx.
433
Ibid.
434
Ibid.
435
Ibid, Appendix, No. VII, p. clxxx.
436
Ibid.
437
Ibid, p. 37.
438
Anonymous, “Excerpta,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register (New Series) 28.110 (April 1839): 264-265
(265).
 157

The General Committee beg to express to your Lordship the deep regret with which
they learned the death of Rajkrishna Dey, undoubtedly the most distinguished Student
of the Institution. The cause of Native Medical Education has received a heavy blow
by the loss of this young man, who promised to become so great an ornament to the
profession amongst his countrymen.439

The “General Report of the Late General Committee of Public Instruction, for 1840-
41 & 1841-42” is important for a number of reasons – first, the changes which were
recommended by the report of 1839 were materialized to a great extent; second, these
changes began to be codified and extended for the future; and third, from clinical point of
view, O’Shaughnessy, to my knowledge, did the first “controlled clinical trials” in the CMC.
In the report of 1840-41, there is a list of students of the English according to the caste
of Hindu pupils. Caste distribution is comprehensible from that list – Brahmins 14, Writers
15, Baidya or Doctor caste 4, Druggists 1, Bankers 3, Weavers 2, Rajak (washer caste) 1, and
Satgope or Sadgop caste (good milkman) 2. From this list it is understandable that castes of
lowest and humbles origins could access one of the most elite institutions of British India, by
sheer dint of merit. What I have termed secular social hierarchy is manifested in this
distribution of castes. Evidently, from the list, Brahmins gained ascendency in education.
At the beginning of the report stress was put on clinical training at the exhortation of
the Governor General in Council himself. 440 The results of the examinations of 1840-41 was
declared on 18th December, 1840. Unlike previous examinations based on oral and practical
examinations, it started with “answering in writing without any assistance”. 441 The question
was a very much clinical one – “Describe the usual cause, course, and treatment of small pox,
the prophylactic means of preventing its spreading, with the degree of their success.” 442
Examinations on “Theory and Practice of Physic” were held on two successive days (6 th and
7th days). The General Committee of Public Instruction confirmed the Report of the
Examiners and Assessors of the Medical College, and College Diplomas were given to the
seven students – Madhusudan Goopto, Jadobchander Dharrah, Chumun Lal, Rajkisto
Chatterjee, Gobindochunder Goopto, C. T. Imley, and Navakrishna Goopto.
“The Sub-Committee after the Report resolved that a Clinical Lecture should be given
at least, once a week, by one or more of the Professors, on any of the important diseases in
the Hospital.”443 It was also mentioned that the “Professor of Chemistry should be requested
to give a few lectures on medico-legal Medicine.” 444 Medico-legal medicine was introduced
in curricula for the first time. Midwifery was introduced earlier. Intriguingly, the spectre of
variolation seems to what medical education and clinical learning even in 1840. Otherwise
“the prophylactic means of preventing its spreading, with the degree of their success” could
not figure out in the question.
439
Ibid, p. 38.
440
General Report of the Late General Committee of Public Instruction, for 1840-41 & 1841-42, 1842, p. 77.
[Hereafter GRPI, 1842]
441
GRPI, 1843, p. 78.
442
Ibid, p. 78.
443
Ibid, p. 83.
444
Ibid.
 158

In the report, the real state of clinical education was revealed in clear terms without
any ambiguity:

The College Council further explained that in the Clinical Classes the want of system
in the mode of Instruction hitherto pursued, had been justly dwelt on, and it was not a
matter of surprize (sic) to the Council that the classes should evince deficiency in
these Departments, but the Council reminded the Committee that an Hospital was
only added to the College a few months before the Examination, that no provision
was made for a regular Clinical Teacher in the Medical Department … moreover,
allowance was claimed to be made for the difficulty in arranging and bringing into
practical work any Hospital opened for the first time under circumstances so peculiar
as those in which the College Hospital was founded.445

As an important note, “With reference to the occasional and night residence of the
Clinical Clerks, the Council observed that one at least of Ceylon pupils was Clerk to each
ward, that these youths always slept within a few yards of the Hospital, and rendered the most
zealous and useful aid whenever they were summoned”. 446 In regard to medico-legal
instruction Dr. O’Shaugnessy, since he was appointed as professor, “had given several
lectures on Toxicology (one of the most important branches of Medical Jurisprudence) in
each of his courses, and that in 1840, had given six lectures of this kind.” 447 For clinical
learning, the Sub-Committee suggested, “a Lecture should be given once a week, by the
Professors of Medicine and Surgery, on any of important diseases of the Hospital.”448
The Examiners and Assessors reported the result of the annual examination for 1841
th
on 4 January, 1842. Seven of the students who were examined in that year for letters
testimonial, joined the college when it was first opened more than six years ago. As an
additional note, “The new Stipendiary Students of the Medical College, are now carefully
examined by the Sub-Committee, as their knowledge of English and of Arithmetic, being
fully sufficient to enable them thoroughly to follow the Professor’s Lectures delivered in that
language.”449 The examination consisted – (1) candidates answering several medical
questions in writing without any assistance, and (2) an oral examination.450
Some changes in the staff and curricula took place. “Among the Professors, the much
regretted departure of Mr. Egerton and Dr. O’Shaughnessy for Europe, caused the
appointment of Professors Raleigh and Mouat. The chairs of Anatomy and Medicine,
previously held by Professor Goodeve were divided; the latter was given to Professor
Jackson, and a chair of Midwifery and Diseases of women and children instituted, and
entrusted to the Professor of Anatomy.” 451 The opening of the Female Hospital and reception

445
Ibid, p. 84.
446
Ibid.
447
Ibid, p. 85.
448
Ibid, Appendix No. X, p. lxxvi.
449
Ibid, p. 90.
450
Ibid, p. 91.
451
Ibid, p. 92.
 159

of patients within its walls was deemed, quite logically, “one of the most important and
gratifying occurrences of the past year”.452
Some caveat still loomed large. They were irregularity and delinquencies of the
students for which stringent measures like imposing fine and punishment were thought of and
implemented to. On the other hand, many students came from a long distance. The
Committee evaluated the situation quite sympathetically:

Many of the lads lived at a great distance from the College (in several cases six miles,
and in one eight) and having no means in their village in ascertaining the exact time,
were oftener after than before the time appointed for calling the roll, and were
consequently reported absent, although they were in fact in the College during the day
specified, and attending to their studies … in order to protect the really industrious
and meritorious students from the bad impression caused by the constant appearance
of their names in the absent list, the system of calling the roll had been somewhat
modified.453

The number pupils attending Dr. Wallich’s teaching of botany at the “bed side of
nature” (somewhat like bed side teaching in hospital), which has been fully recognized “in
every European School”.454 Regarding the students of anatomy and physiology, men of high
castes and good family “are now to be found pursuing a study, which but a very short times
since, was nearly an insurpassable (sic) barrier to the acquisition of medical knowledge as
taught among the more civilized and enlightened nations of the Western World.” 455 It
appeared desirable to the Sub-Committee that a “Summer and Winter course should be
delivered. The former to consist of 40 Lectures on Medical Botany, and the latter of 20
Lectures upon the Principles of General Botany.”456
At this juncture, it may be mentioned that a certain kind of “entrance examination” for
admission into the CMC (as already has been mentioned before) was set into operation. In
this report of 1841-42, the Sub-Committee was hopeful of receiving a number of new
entrants from several institutions at the close of annual examinations. The Committee tried to
fix the minimum requirements for the primary test – “The qualifications expected in such
pupils were – proficiency in English Literature and Arithmetic, and ability to compose and
converse readily in English … This plan has been followed more than once, but hitherto the
success has been but partial.”457
Caste and traditional social barriers were dissolving fast in regard to medical as well
as general scientific education. This was further substantiated by the report of Mr. R.
O’Shaughnessy. Pupils pursuing the study of practical anatomy afforded the College Council
much satisfaction. It was observed that “No pains, it was stated, had been spared, and no
opportunity passed over, of rendering the students sound practical Anatomists; and in this

452
Ibid.
453
Ibid, p. 94.
454
Ibid.
455
Ibid, p. 95.
456
Ibid, Appendix No. X, p. lxxvii.
457
Ibid, Appendix No. X, p. lxxxiii.
 160

respect some of them were equal to any students of their standing in the best European
Schools.”458 What is understood that the CMC was no more an experiment, it was a concrete
reality, and it was not local as well. With its highest acquirements it emerged as a global
institution, as compared to the best European Schools.
“In the Cases of Medicine, the Report of Professor Jackson was equally satisfactory,
as regards the conduct and attention of the Students.” 459 Each clinical clerk was required to
interrogate and examine the patient on his admission, 460 “to exercise him in forming correct
and accurate diagnoses of disease”.461 It was almost identical with the system pursued in the
celebrated Ecoles Clinique of Paris and Strasburgh.462 Moreover, if any errors were
committed “they were immediately indicated by the Professor, and thus the foundation was
laid for forming a judicious and sound practitioner”.463
One more important fact must be adduced here. “Dr. Goodeve shewed that although
the Lying-in-Institution had been open six months, and was opposed to the most deep-rooted
of all the prejudices of Eastern Nations, the number of cases treated had been equal to those
of an extensive charity in a populous district of London, viz. the Westminster Lying-in-
Hospital.”464 While the frightful mortality during parturition was, according to the reports of
the Municipal Committee, 20 per cent, in the CMC Female Hospital it came down to a
meagre figure in the ration of 3 per cent. To be sure, Government sanctioned the proposed
appointment of Prosonocomar Mittre (Prasanna Kumar Mitra) as Resident Surgeon of the
Female Hospital of the CMC.465 Dr. Goodeve submitted “Return on Female Hospital” on 7
February, 1842. According to his report, the Female Hospital was opened on 1 April, 1841,
followed by the Midwifery Ward in June, 1841. He reports, “since that time there have been
admitted 31 cases, of which 20 were discharged, 1 died, and 10 remaining”. 466 From
Goodeve’s information, “The Women admitted into the Midwifery Hospital are, at present, of
a very inferior class, chiefly Hindoos and Mohomedans.”467 In his observation, “this Hospital
is established in opposition to the very strongest prejudices of Asiatics of all classes, that it
has existed little more than six months … has already received … nearly equal the average
delivered during the same period in the Westminster Lying-in-Hospital.”468
The most significant development occurred as three female students got admitted in
midwifery class. Goodeve reports, “Within the last few weeks, three Female pupils,
European and Eurasian, have entered, and very anxious for knowledge: means have been
458
Ibid.
459
Ibid, p. 96.
460
Examination included inspection, palpation, auscultation and percussion – the four pillars of clinical
examination.
461
GRPI, 1840-42, p. 96.
462
Ibid.
463
Ibid.
464
Ibid, p. 97.
465
Ibid, p. 104.
466
Ibid, Appendix No. XI, p. lxxxvii.
467
Ibid. One can remember Ruth Richardson’s Death, Dissection and the Destitute (Chicago, London:
University of Chicago Press, 2000) in this regard. From the perspective of dissection in England, she
comments, “The hospital seems to have extended the offer of preferential hospital admission to the sick poor of
parishes agreeing to grant the hospital exclusive use of parish dead.” (p. 242)
468
GRPI, 1840-42, Appendix No. XI, p. lxxxviii.
 161

taken to furnish them with elementary knowledge, but for them, as well as for the male class,
the great desidartum is a sufficiency of cases of any description.”469
Such strong figures socially circulated, along with the votaries of modern medical
education through newspapers, articles and journals. Gradually, male midwifery attained the
status of social standing. It was of no lesser standing, I believe, than the first dissection,
because it dealt with issues of deeper social textures. In tandem, traditional dais and old
midwifes began to be increasingly marginalized. They were stripped off their craft – all were
subjugated to objective scientific knowledge, there remained no room for experiential
knowledge of the society. The “Printed Rules of the Clinical Clerks and Assistants of the
Hospital” was published. CMC was structured in more and more disciplined way. The Rules
stated that “the eighteen senior Students will each in turn, for one day, take the night duties of
the Hospital being provided with a room and lights.”470 Interestingly, what is now called
rotating house job was initiated in the 1840s.
As a final note, with the sanction of the College Council Dr. O’Shaughnessy had the
privilege of having the charge of a few patients (number not mentioned). He had been “able
to carry on extensive and useful researches on the Native remedies of the country; and
therefore begged to be allowed a few patients – a request that was immediately acceded
to.”471 Possibly, this was the first thoughtful and well-designed controlled clinical trial (CCT)
in Indian medical history. Ruefully, Dr. O’Shaughnessy left CMC for Europe only a few
months after. Had he been there to conduct further trial it would be a guess what results could
come out!
What was a single question on small pox in writing for the first time in the 1841-42
session, became 11 questions in writing in the 1842-43 session – “The first day’s examination
was employed by the candidates in answering without any assistance, eleven questions in
writing, which embraced subjects on the different branches of their studies.” 472 The single
topic on small pox expanded into “subjects on the different branches of their studies”. The
pace of development in the CMC was quite impressive. Like previous years anatomical
teaching went on efficiently – “Each of the candidates dissected and demonstrated a region of
the body and performed an operation. Their dissections were neatly executed, their
demonstrations accurate, and their operations dexterously performed.” 473 It was also
mentioned that since the publication of the last annual report only one change had occurred
among the professors – William Griffith replaced Dr. Wallich, professor of botany, for his
ailments. But many alterations had been made in the buildings of the college. “New quarters
are likewise being provided for the Apothecary and Staff Surgeant, immediately adjoining the
Hospital”.474
Before leaving for Europe, in April 1842, Dr. Wallich conducted a public
examination, with the assistance of the College Council, in practical botany “with a view to
adjudicate two prizes, bestowed by the Earl of Auckland, prior to his departure – the one a

469
Ibid.
470
GRPI, 1840-42, Appendix No. X, p. lxxiii.
471
Ibid.
472
General Report on Public Instruction, in the Bengal Presidency, for 1842-43, p. 74. [Hereafter GRPI, 1843]
473
Ibid, p. 78.
474
Ibid, p. 79.
 162

handsome Compound Microscope, the other a similar instrument of less value. The
examination was viva voce, an upon a numerous collection of plants brought up fresh from
the Botanic Garden.”475 Three students appeared – Satcouree Dutt, Mr. Ondaatje (from
Ceylon) and Prosonnocoomar Mitter (who became the Resident Surgeon of the Female Ward
and the first recipient of Goodeve Scholarship). Satcouree Dutt was first.
Professor Goodeve, as the report informs, was happy with the progress made in the
anatomical department during the past years. He pointed to the want of an adequate supply of
dissecting instruments for the increasing extent of the anatomical class. R. O’Shaughnessy,
demonstrator of the anatomy department, brought prominently to the notice of the College
Council, the paucity of instruments allowed for dissection.476
A quite interesting phenomenon happened in this session. Most of the old anatomical
instruments previously supplies had been worn out, broken or lost. Students had a role in this
regard. “To prevent the occurrence of neglect, the Council of Education sanctioned a deposit
of two Rupees from each dissecting student, from which any deficiency, not caused by fair
wear and tear, is to be made good: thus giving the students a personal interest in the proper
use and preservation of the instruments supplied by Government.” 477 It is intriguing to note
that since the days of the NMI (1822) so many maneuvers were made to wean away pupils
from social superstition and prejudices and, primarily to induce Indian students to the rituals
of dissection, the stipendiary system was introduced. After the trammels of the first dissection
were overcome, within a short span of 7 years the Council of Education was confident
enough to make each dissecting student a “deposit of two rupees”. The new medicine began
to transform into an omnipotent power under the control of the state. It was later codified in
the Rule and Regulations of the Bengal Medical College (1844).
Rustomjee Cowasjee, Esq. of Calcutta, donated to the College Council a sum of
Company’s rupees 600 “to be devoted to the purchase of a gold medal”. 478 It was an evidence
of the “high estimation in which European Science is held by the Native Community”. 479 The
regular attendance of the students, the care of the patients paid by the Dressers and the
cleanliness of the hospital were all mentioned. In the class of “Operative Surgery” each
student had performed with his own hand all the operations on the body as well as those upon
the eye, as reported by Mr. R. O’Shaughnessy. 480 Mr. A. Robertson gave a complete and
excellent course of lectures which “in addition to the subjects usually taught, embraced the
preparation of all the chemical articles of the Pharmacopoeia, with their various tests, which
were repeated as of the as possible to render the pupils perfectly familiar with them.” 481
Raja Kissennath Roy donated to the funds of the hospital a sum of 700 rupees. The
Goodeve Scholarship was awarded to Prasanna Kumar Mitra, to whom seven written
questions were proposed. In fact, he was the only candidate to appear in the public
competition in this regard.482
475
Ibid, p. 80.
476
Ibid, p. 81.
477
Ibid, p. 82.
478
Ibid.
479
Ibid.
480
Ibid.
481
Ibid, p. 84.
482
Ibid.
 163

Some of the Ceylon students showed creditable proficiency in different branches of

medicine – Mr. Wambeck in chemistry, Mr. Ondaatze in botany, Mr, Loos in practice of
medicine, Messrs. Wharton, Anthoniz and Kelaart in surgery, and Mr. Toussaint in practical
anatomy and attendance upon the Lying-in-Hospital. Among them, Messrs. Toussaint,
Ludovice, Hallowell and Wharton “volunteered to take charge of cholera stations, and
performed the duty in a satisfactory manner”.483
It is interesting to note, “The regulations for the admission of Free Students were
modified during the past year, and no candidate is now enrolled until he has passed an
examination in the studies considered necessary for commencing the pursuit of medical
science; such as reading, writing, arithmetic, as far as the rules of proportion, geography, &c,
sufficient to comprehend the lectures generally.”484 It seems to be the precursor of what we
talk about “entrance examination” today. Definite screening procedure began to take shape.
Since the above regulations were brought into operation, 9 free students had been admitted.
What is more intriguing is the fact that:

The College Council stated that Baboo Doorgachurn Bonnerjee, late Head Master of
Mr. Hare's School, and Ganindramohun Tagore, a distinguished pupil, and scholar of
the Hindoo College, and son of Baboo Prosunnocoomar Tagore, together with the
Apothecary to the General Hospital, were attending the lectures delivered in the
College, as amateurs, and for the sake of the information to be acquired by so doing,
affording a gratifying proof of the estimation in which the institution, and the
branches of science taught within its walls, are beginning to be held among the
members of the native community, and of the subordinate department of the medical
service, who have not enjoyed the benefits of a professional education in Europe, and
would be otherwise compelled to be content with the scanty amount of knowledge
which can be acquired in a regimental hospital.485

English as well as European medical knowledge disseminated well beyond the walls
of the CMC to the native community at large. Indian elites did carry the agency. At the end of
the annual examination, twenty foundation and free students were recommended “for the
letters testimonial of the College”.486
In the report of 1841 (GCPI, 1841) we found an estimate of 11 dispensaries
throughout the North-Western Provinces. Within a span of 2 years the number of dispensaries
increased to 14. The new dispensaries were Bhowanipore Dispensary (sub-assistant surgeon,
Callachund Day); Furruckabad Dispensary (sub-assistant surgeon, Sadoochurn Mullick) and
Jubbulpore Dispensary (sub-assistant surgeon, Samachurn Dutt). “The total number of in-
door patients treated in all the above mentioned Dispensaries was 1,391, of whom 912 were
cured, 54 absconded, 232 died, and 193 remained under treatment. Of out-door cases, 46,766
were treated; and of these 39,749 cured, 5,718 did not return, 175 died and 1,124 remained

483
Ibid, p. 86.
484
Ibid.
485
Ibid, pp. 86-87.
486
Ibid, p. 88.
 164

under treatment The whole expense amounted to Rupees 20,958-8-7.” 487 In 1843, as it
appears from the estimate given, about 50,000 people were treated as out-door cases in
different parts of India.
Following these operations of health and medicine there emerged, as I believe, the
following significant changes in Indian social life. (1) People witnessed the benefits of
Western medicine, especially in surgical cases; (2) they had to participate in and,
consequently, internalize the new techniques of medicine which heralded the age of public
health in India, (3) the social dissemination of Western medical knowledge gained a steady
momentum both at the level of Indian elites (as is the case of CMC lectures for the public)
and general population (through dispensaries) as well, and (4) medicine, by drawing
population into its surveillance both at the individual level (as case records in hospitals and
dispensaries) as well as social (public health and other cohorts), attained new relevance in
social life in the interests of the state and acquired political status. 488 In other words,
Bentham’s Panopticon via Bentinck and Auckland reached out to heterogeneous Indian
society. Medicine, like state, was the homogenizing process. One example of how medicine
and state were tied up happily during the days of the Great Mutiny (1857) is provided by
Chuckerbutty – “Out of the large body of Native Doctors and Sub-Assistant Surgeons who
have issued from this institution (CMC), only two or three have been proved to have actually
joined the ranks of rebellion, although the vast majority of them were exposed to the same
temptations as the sepoys of their regiments.”489

More specifically speaking,

The approaching departure of Professors Goodeve and Raleigh, has been deemed an
eligible opportunity for remodelling the system of instruction pursued at the Medical
College, so as to bring it within the regulations of the Royal College of Surgeons of
England, that the Institution may be duly registered and recognized, and those of its
pupils who may hereafter visit Europe for the purpose of graduating or obtaining the
diploma of Surgeons, may be enabled to derive the benefit of the time passed here,
being allowed to count in England, instead of their being compelled to spend four
years in other schools and hospitals, as they are at present.490

In eight years, from 1837 to 1844, nearly 3500 bodies were dissected.491 This was an
incredible figure! There seems to have been a never ending supply of unclaimed bodies of
hapless poor Indian people. “Every one (sic) knows that this city contains thousands of poor

487
Ibid, p. 94.
488
S. G. Chuckerbutty writes, “The Lieutenant Governor of Bengal has stated in his speech at the late
distribution of Prizes to students of the Medical College, that he was firmly convinced that education was the
surest means of securing the fidelity of the subjects to the Sovereign, and he quoted statistics to prove the truth
of this doctrine as applied to India even in her present troubles.” – S. G. Chuckerbutty, Popular Lectures on
Subjects of Indian Interest (Calcutta: Thomas S. Smith, 1970), 77.
489
Chuckerbutty, Popular Lectures, p. 82.
490
GRPI, 1845, P. 101.
491
Allan Webb, Pathologia Indica, or the Anatomy of Indian Diseases, 2nd edition, in 2 parts (London: Wm. H.
Allen & Co., 1848), 237.
 165

strangers, of all ranks, without wealth, connexion, or friends, who when afflicted with
disease, fly from the city, and receiving medicine, and the prescribed regimen elsewhere,
recover: but some die on the road, and many perish for want of two pice worth of medicine.
Those who live from hand to mouth cannot obtain proper food or medicine, and for them
there is no relief. Those who have no attendance, and no means of obtaining medicine, perish
of course by hundreds in the city.”492 An exemplary and more stunning figure can be had
from the report of 1851 (from 1st October 1849 to 30th September 1850)493:

One year later, in 1851, the number of bodies dissected was 722 – an increase of
number by 100.494 Buckland noted that a large proportion of the corpses, instead of being
burnt, were either thrown into the river, or consigned for dissection to the Medical College
hospital, to be afterwards disposed off in the same way.495 This was possibly the reason why,
unlike in England, there was no need for a replica of the 1832 Anatomy Act in colonial India.
The body was colonized and cadavers were plentiful. Harrison remarks, “In Britain, the
supply of bodies for dissection was still severely restricted, but there was no such constraints
in the colonies, where cadavers were plentiful.”496
Along with the revision of the medical curriculum, the system of examination was
modified so that it would be “more nearly assimilated to that which obtains in most European
Universities.”497 In addition to a written and a practical examination in the dissecting room,
every final student was subjected to a special trial for twenty minutes at least. The ordeal was
much more difficult and extended than that for the Diploma of the Royal College of Physicians

492
James Peggs, India’s Cries to British Humanity … (London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1832), 203. [Emphasis in
the original]
493
GRPI, 1851, p. 138.
494
GRPI, from Oct. 1850 to 30th Sept. 1851, 81.
495
C. E. Buckland, Bengal under the Lieutenant Governors; being a Narrative of the Principal Events and
Public Measures during Their Periods of Office, from 1854 to 1898, in 2 volumes, I (Calcutta: S. K. Lahiri &
Cop., 1901), 296.
496
Mark Harrison, Medicine in an Age of Commerce: Britain and its Tropical Colonies, 1600-1830 (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 4.
497
Anonymous, “Annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal; Session, 1844-45”, p. xliii.
 166

and “embraces everything required from a Graduate of the University of Edinburgh”.498 To

quote from report of 1844-45:

The means of instruction, dissecting-rooms, museums, library, laboratory, &c. are

such as fairly to entitle it to rank with any of the provincial schools of Great Britain,
or the second class schools of medicine, in the Capitals of England, Scotland or
Ireland. The chief and insuperable drawbacks to its present recognition, are the
divisions of the courses of lectures, and the time occupied by some of them: it being a
rule of most European Colleges, that no single Professor shall teach two distinct
branches of medical science, except in the cases of Anatomy and Physiology, and
Materia Medica with Medical Jurisprudence, and that none of the systematic courses
of lectures shall consist of less than 70 lectures or demonstrations upon each subject
… the chairs of Anatomy and Midwifery may be separated: that the teaching of the
elementary chemistry required, be united with the course of pharmacy given by Mr.
Robertson, and that gentleman's services, be separated from the present courses of
Chemistry and Materia Medica, in which no practical assistant would then be
required; and that for his present salary under the style of “Lecturer on Chemistry and
Practical Pharmacy,” Mr. Robertson should give the courses required by the Royal
College of Surgeons of England … That every student should, in addition, compound
in the dispensary of the Medical College, under the superintendence of Mr. Daly, the
House Surgeon and Apothecary: that the present anomalous and useless appointment
of Lecturer on Minor Surgery should be abolished, and the whole course given, as it is
in most European Schools, by the Professor of that branch of medical study … In
addition to the above, the College Council beg to recommend, that the present
Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica, be directed to give annually a course of
lectures upon those parts of Medical Jurisprudence, not treated in the toxicological
department of the Materia Medica lectures, and that his designation be changed to that
of “Professor of Materia Medica and Medical Jurisprudence.”499

The College Council deemed of great importance that “every course of lectures
should be of the nature and duration, adopted as the standard of the Royal College of
Surgeons.”500 To bring the CMC curricula at par with the Royal College of Surgeons, the new
chair as well as new discipline of Medical Jurisprudence was created. Number of lectures of
different subjects, depending on their importance in medical learning, was standardized and
was made more focused. Medical curricula in India became more efficient, productive, and,
above all, more modern.
Even during the period of changes in syllabus and curricula, economy of education
remained a primary concern of the East India Company – “The above changes would be
attended with no additional expense to Government; would secure to pupils a larger amount
of instruction they can receive under the existing system; and would aid in placing the
Medical College of Bengal upon a proper footing, as compared with similar Institutions in
498
Ibid, p. xliii.
499
GRPI, 1845, p. 101.
500
Ibid, p. 101.
 167

Europe.”501 In accordance with arrangements sanctioned by the College Council, and the
“Regulations of the Royal College of Surgeons”, College Council stated, “the following will
be the extent and divisions of the courses of lectures, to be hereafter given in the College
during each Session”:

Anatomy and Physiology – 120 lectures, viz. three lectures a week during the hot, and
four during the cold weather, from the 1st of November to the 15th of March
inclusive.
Demonstrations and Dissections – The latter from the 15 th of October to the 15th of
March inclusive; the former by three demonstrations a week, during the entire
Session, viz. from the 15th of June in one year to the 15th of March of the succeeding
year.
Surgery – The course to commence on the 15th of June, and consist of not less than
70 lectures.
Theory and Practice of Medicine – Same as above
Chemistry and Practical Pharmacy – ditto
Materia Medica and Therapeutics – ditto
Midwifery with practical illustrations – ditto
Botany – ditto
Medical Jurisprudence – The toxicological portion to be given with the regular course
of Matera Medica; upon the remainder, one lecture a week from the 15th of October
to the 15th of March inclusive.
In addition to the above every pupil will be required to compound medicines in the
College Dispensary for at least six months, under the charge and direction of the
House Surgeon and Apothecary, who has been authorized to grant certificates of
proficiency for the same.502

Within the inner quadrangle of the CMC, a small botanic garden was grown. It
contained most of the medicinal plants “growing in the Honorable Company’s Gardens (the
Botanical Garden, Shibpur), all of which were furnished by the late Mr. Griffith.” 503 When
the Special Botanical Examination for the late Ram Comul Sen’s medal was conducted plants
were shown from this garden – Sesbania grandiflora, Calotropis procera, Clotropis giganta,
Beaumontia grandiflora Pardanthus chinensis (leaves only), Sciodaphyylum pulchrum (leaves
only), and Amoora Rohitoka.504
In a similar way, the system of examination underwent changes:

The system of examination has likewise been somewhat modified, and more nearly
assimilated to that which obtains in most: European Universities. Each Professor now
examines in his own department, the subject being dictated and determined only by
the superintending examiner and assessors, with whom alone rests the decision as to
501
Ibid, pp. 101-102.
502
GRPI, 1845, p. 102.
503
Ibid, p. 108.
504
Ibid, p. 126.
 168

the passing or rejection of the candidate. Besides a written and a practical

examination in the dissecting room, every final student is subjected to special trial for
twenty minutes at least, in each and every department of study pursued within the
walls of the College. The ordeal is much more difficult and extended than that to
which candidates for the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons of England are
subjected, and with the exception of Latin, Natural History, and Medical
Jurisprudence, embraces every thing (sic) required from a Graduate of the University
of Edinburgh.505

What it signifies is the examination procedure included a combined method (written,

practical and oral or viva voce) of examination on the one hand, and giving definite marks to
candidates on the other. Another important change that occurred during this session was the
change in title of the students passing out of the CMC. Previously, it was the “letters
testimonial” which was conferred upon the successful students. From this session it was
changed to the “Graduate in Medicine and Surgery, Bengal Medical College”. It was granted
by Government “to all passed students of the Institution, both to give them a status and
consideration among the native community.”506 There was also change of period of
examination.

The period originally fixed for, conducting the annual and general examinations of the
College, having been found to interfere seriously with the practical duties of the
dissecting room, and to curtail a season already scarcely, sufficiently extended to
enable any pupil to become an expert and proficient anatomist and operative surgeon,
was recommended to be changed from the 1st of November to the 15 th of March, –
which was adopted by Government, and has now come into operation for the first
time. The regular session of the College in future will commence on the 15th June of
each year, and continue uninterruptedly to the 15th of April of the ensuing year,
Sundays and Native Holidays excepted – thus affording nine months for lectures, and
one for examination in all departments.507

While the changes occurred to meet the three examining bodies of England –
University College, Royal College of Surgeons, and the Society of Apothecaries – these
bodies “recognised the medical education given in Calcutta as qualifying for their
examination.”508 In the report of 1844-45, it was specifically noted, “One of the most
important and gratifying occurrences of the past year, has been the munificent offer of
Dwarkanath Tagore, to take to England and educate at his own expense, two pupils of the
Medical College … three students volunteered unconditionally to go, viz. Bholanath Bose,
Surjee Coomar Chuckerhutty, and Dwarkanatlh Bose – a fact so highly creditable to their
spirit and anxiety to profit by the liberality of their distinguished countryman, as to deserve

505
Ibid, pp. 123-24.
506
Ibid, p. 123.
507
GRPI, 1845, p. 123.
508
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 441.
 169

special record.”509 Finally, the fourth student Gopaul Chunder Seal was added. Dr. Goodeve
succeeded in raising an additional sum of 7,500 rupees for a fourth student. Out of this sum
of 7,500 rupees, 4,000 rupees were munificently donated by the Nawab Nazim of Bengal. 510
Gopaul Chunder Seal and Dwarkanatlh Bose had their education in the General Assembly’s
Institution of David Hare, Bholanath Bose was a pupil of Lord Auckland’s School at
Barrackpore, and Surjee Coomar Chuckerhutty was a Brahmin of Comillah. 511 Nothing was
said about his school background in the report. Regarding their voyage to London the
Council of Education expressed their opinion in following terms – “Independently of this, it
has long been deemed an object of very great interest and importance, to induce some of the
lads educated in the Medical College to visit Europe; since two former efforts to persuade
them to throw aside the prejudices of caste, as they had already done in the pursuit of
practical anatomy, had failed.”512
College Council seems to be more concerned with the positive social effects this
voyage could generate.513 It was joyously noted in the report of the 11 th Year – Session 1945-
46 – of the CMC that “[a]mong the most gratifying, striking and important events of the
session which has recently closed, has been the recognition of the Bengal Medical College by
the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the University of London, and the Worshipful
Society of Apothecaries. This is the first instance of any of the educational institutions of
British India being granted the privilege of preparing pupils for the academic and
professional rewards of corporate and chartered bodies in England.” 514 It was no doubt a great
achievement of a medical college of the colonies. This recognition meant that less time would
be required to pass the examinations of those reputed institutions. Early training in the CMC
could be regarded at par with those institutions. It was clearly expressed:

The pupils of the medical college will be permitted hereafter to present themselves for
examination before any of the bodies above-mentioned, for the purpose of obtaining
the degree, diploma, or license, which they respectively afford, by passing through the

509
Ibid, p. 118.
510
Ibid, p. 119.
511
Ibid, p. 119.
512
Ibid, p. 118. In 1842, four passed students of the English Class – two of them Brahmins – volunteered to
proceed in medical charge of transports to China, and to serve throughout the campaign. “Their offer was
rejected, and an opportunity lost that may not recur for years, which in its immediate influence would have been
greater than even the voyage of the pupils who accompanied Dr. Goodeve to England, since the actual danger of
war was superadded to the dread of the sea, so firmly implanted in the mind of every Hindu.” – Annual Report
of the Medical College of Bengal. Thirteenth Year. Session 1847-48, p. 19.
513
Regarding the four most illustrious students of the CMC, they showed their brilliance and merit in University
College, London, in the same way as in India. Bholanath Bose stood 3 rd for the Botanical examination among
more than 70 students. He missed the 2nd position only by two marks. Gopal Chunder Seal was selected by no
other Professor Quain to dissect the subjects for his lecture – a post of considerable honour in the anatomical
class. Suraj Coomar Chuckerbutty has by his zeal and attention so completely won the regard and approbation
of Dr. Grant, the distinguished Professor of comparative anatomy. Dr. Grant had also presented him with copies
of all his own works, and many of the most important treatises on this subject published in this country and in
France, moreover he took Chuckerbutty with him to Paris. (Dr. Goodeve’s Report on the progress of the
students in London, see, GRPI, 1846, p.111.
514
GRPI, 1846, p. 110.
 170

particular course of study indicated and required by each. The college possesses the
means of affording all the purely professional instruction necessary, without residence
or study in any other country or institution; the value of the boon accorded can
therefore scarcely be over estimated.515

At a later period Fayrer noted that the “old and somewhat vague title of Graduate of
Medical College has given place to that of Licentiate, or Doctor of the University, and the
qualifications accorded by these degrees are similar to those of British Universities.” 516 With
a view more intimately to assimilate the courses of lecture to the system adopted in Europe,
and at the same time to allow the students the largest possible amount of time to devote to
practical anatomy during the short winter session, it was decided to divide the session into
two parts – the one extending from the 15 th of June to the 15th of November, the other from
the 15th of November to the 15th of March.517 Though there were significant changes in pre-
clinical and clinical training, hospital and out-door dispensary attendance remained
unchanged.518
It is also interesting to find out the holidays in the 1845-46 Session – “it was resolved
to diminish the great, unnecessary, and inconvenient number of native holidays”. 519 In
addition to “ten days at the Doorgah Poojah”, only 9 days were allotted for holidays – for
“Dole Jatrah 1 day, Sreeram Noboomy 1, Churruck Poojah 1, First Rath Jatrah 1, Second
Rath Jatrah 1, Junmo Ostomy 1, Moholoyah 1, Deparneetah 1, Juggo Dhuttree Poojah 1”.520
In the report o 1844-45, it was informed that “a correspondence had been opened with
the Fever Hospital Committee upon the subject of expending their funds in establishing a
central Fever Hospital in connection with the Medical College.” 521 Fever Hospital was a
historical as well as material necessity to complete the dynamics of hospital medicine, both
academically and structurally. In the report of 1845-46, it was stated, “During the past year
the subscriptions for this great object have increased considerably, as will be seen by the
following brief statement:—
Total subscriptions 34,038 rupees 7 annas 9 paise
Amount of subscription realized 33,876 rupees 7 annas 9 paise
Outstanding 162 rupees 0 anna 0 paise
--------------------------- 34,038 rupees 7 annas 9 paise”522
Out of this 34, 038 rupees 10,000 rupees or one-third of the whole sum was donated by
“Rajah Sutto Churn Ghosal of Benares, who in addition to the munificent sums which he and
his family have already contributed to charitable and benevolent purposes”.523
It should be again stressed that the policy of modern medical education and, also,
general education was enacted by British government. But materialization of the policies was
515
Ibid, p. 110.
516
Fayrer, “An Introductory Address,” p. 7.
517
Ibid, p. 113.
518
Ibid, p. 113.
519
Ibid, p. 114.
520
Ibid, p. 114.
521
GRPI, 1845, p. 132.
522
Ibid, p.114.
523
Ibid, 115.
 171

actually turned into reality by private subscriptions from Indian elite and rich people.
Another significant incident of the 1845-46 Session was the participation of Dr.
Carew, Vicar Apostolic of Bengal, in the smooth and elegant running of the Female and
lying-in hospital. He sent two “lay-sisters of charity” who did carefully “superintend the
dieting, clothing and general economy of the hospital, without interfering with or
participating in its purely medical arrangements.”524
Annual examination of the final year students began with a written examination.
Before the examination “each student was directed to draw a lot, upon which a subject for his
essay was inscribed, the subjects chosen being portions of surgical anatomy”. 525 In anatomy
examination, “each student was given the ligaments, and other passive organs of locomotion
of a joint to dissect, and demonstrate … the subjects of the dissections and demonstrations
and examinations being determined by lot.”526
One important addition to this session’s curriculum was medical jurisprudence. “The
subject of forensic medicine has been taught regularly for the first time during the past
session.”527 In addition to the toxicological lectures contained in the course of materia medica,
“it embraced all the subjects detailed in the college regulations, with the exception of
insanity”.528 Regarding medical jurisprudence, it was hoped, “instruction communicated will
enable the further graduates of the college to become efficient instruments for the detection,
and consequent ultimate prevention of much crime now perpetrated with impunity ‘.529
Regarding clinical instructions – in both medicine and surgery – the College Council,
evaluating the results of the final examination made their observations:

In regard to the important subject of clinical instruction, the College council are of
opinion, that it is as perfect as the present means at the disposal of the college will
permit of, and this they are quite aware is very inadequate to the demands of so large
a school. The pupils in rotation perform the duties of clinical clerks and dressers, and
keep reports of cases, which are periodically submitted to the council.
The College dispensary is utterly inadequate to teach them all, or even a little of the
compounding requisite, and the number of cases which the hospital wards are capable
of containing, is too limited to afford an extended or complete, field for clinical
observations, more especially in the surgical department.
Under these circumstances, the council are unable to suggest any more complete
means of providing instruction in the deficient departments, until the establishment of
the fever hospital, or extension of the college in its various practical departments,
shall enable them to do so with some prospect of success.530

As we can clearly see, the question of establishing a fever hospital, which could
accommodate fairly good number of patients, within the premises of the CMC was urgently
524
Ibid, p. 116.
525
Ibid, p. 129.
526
Ibid, p. 130.
527
Ibid, p.135.
528
Ibid, p. 135.
529
Ibid, p. 136.
530
Ibid, pp. 140-41.
 172

sought for, and the question was more or less clinched. I shall take up this issue of fever
hospital some time later.
The method of giving marks in a definite way to the candidates at the final
examination began in the 1846–47 session. In awarding the number of marks, the written and
practical examination was valued as equal – each at fifty marks apiece; so that the aggregate
of both examinations would be calculated at one hundred for the highest number. “In
awarding the number of marks, we have considered the value of the written and practical
examination as equal – each fifty marks so that the aggregate of both examinations is
calculated at one hundred for the highest number.”531 By this plan of a practical and written
examination professors “were enabled to test more fully the comparative merits of the
students. One might excel in knowledge gained from books, another in that of actual
dissection; but it would evidently require both to gain a high number.” 532 In the aggregate of
both the written and practical examinations the highest number obtained was 79 by Dinanath
Das, a junior student. In the senior class eight gained more than 50 marks, and five more than
60, and four more than 70.533
Another significant issue pointed out in this report was “attaching an Ophthalmic
Hospital to the Medical College, in which no practical means at present exist of teaching the
pupils the nature and treatment of a class of diseases most abundant and destructive in all
parts of India.”534 Following changes in the 1844–45 Session, the period of study in CMC
was extended from four to five years for better clinical and surgical training.535 According to
Crawford this was “a reform which was carried out Great Britain forty-five later.”536
Moreover, “For the purpose of instructing them in the process of vaccination, a
teekadar has been specially attached to the College, and the establishment of the Fever
Hospital, will complete the amount of practical and clinical instruction furnished, so as to
render the Institution in all these respects, fully equal to the best provincial schools in Great
Britain and Ireland.”537 It is intriguing to note that even during period of the mid-1840s,
modern medicine had to struggle with indigenous variolation. As a consequence, teekadar
was specially attached to the College. It was also the fact that small pox was a deadly and
menacing disease during the time. By the time, for the instruction of the pupils, the College
“possesses at present two hospitals, that for males capable of containing 112 beds, the lying-
in and female wards having accommodation of 60 patients”. 538 There were three specific
changes in the system of curricula and examination – (1) “Sundays and Native Holidays
excepted – thus affording nine months for lectures and one for examination in all
departments”; (2) the system of examination was somewhat modified and “more nearly
assimilated to that which obtains in most European Universities”; and (3) besides a written
and a practical examination in the dissecting room, “every final student is subjected to special
531
GRPI, 1847, p. 97.
532
Ibid, p. 97.
533
Ibid, p; 97.
534
Ibid, p. 73.
535
Centenary Volume, p. 25.
536
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 442.
537
GRPI, 1845, p. 103.
538
“Miscellaneous Notices – Annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal; Session, 1844-45,” Calcutta
Review III.VI (January-June, 1845): xxxiii-xlvi (xxxvii).
 173

trial for twenty minutes at least, in each and every department of study pursued within the
walls of the College”.539 The quality of the oral or viva voce examination was equal to that for
a graduate of the University of Edinburgh.540 But it should be kept in mind that all these
efforts were devoted finally “to render the Institution in all these respects fully equal to the
best provincial schools in Great Britain and Ireland.” 541 Importantly, some cautionary notes
regarding the degeneration of the students were uttered in the Report:

It is currently reported, and, we are grieved to add, very generally believed, that many
of them sadly degenerate in their private morals, and become the unblushing
advocates of materialistic, atheistic, and other such like dogmas, which are not less
revolting in the eye of the enlightened reason that they are injurious to the best
interests of man.542

The reference frame of the “degeneration” was “enlightened reason”, not any
indigenous value. All these changes show the dynamic character of medical education in its
initial years. Duncan Stewart, “in reply to the question of the relative advantages of
Dispensary and Hospitals”, reveals his faith that an essential part of Medical education had to
be conducted in the practical domain of the “Hospital, since there alone…can Clinical
instruction be given with propriety”. 543 To substantiate the importance of the hospital for a
wholesome medical education, Martin pointed out that attendance on large bodies of sick “in
their own houses would be obviously impracticable, even were it desirable”.544
With the passage of time, by 1841, the gender question related to admission as a
patient (not as student, to emphasize) to the CMC was almost resolved as well. As we have
already seen, “A large Female Hospital, intended to embrace the advantages of a Lying-in-
Hospital with instruction in Midwifery” was built and was “ready to receive patients”. 545 It
could accommodate more than one hundred patients. In 1850, the policy was worked out “to
encourage women to resort to the Institution for delivery”, and, for this purpose, it became
necessary to hold out many little advantages to them (‘for the present at least’) “in the shape
of clothes for themselves and their children when they depart, allowances for tobacco”. 546 Dr.
Goodeve, who was then the professor in charge of the hospital, wrote, “The number of
patients has continued to increase during the past year (there are at this moment twenty
women awaiting their in the Wards, and I expect others daily), in yet larger proportion than

539
Ibid, p. xliii.
540
Ibid.
541
“Miscellaneous – Annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal; Session, 1844-45,” p. xxxvii. Regarding
comparison of the CMC with the Provincial Schools, also see p. xxxvi of the Report.
542
Ibid, p. xlv. [Emphasis added]
543
Appendix C. Evidence taken by the First Sub-Committee upon the Fever Hospital and Municipal
Developments, 1838, p. xcvi. [Italics in original]
544
Appendix C. Evidence taken by the First Sub-Committee, p. xciv.
545
GCPI, 1841, P. 35.
546
General Report on Public Instruction, From 1st Oct. 1849 to 30th Sept. 1850, 1851, 129. [Hereafter GRPI,
1851]
 174

formerly, and I have no doubt, if properly managed and supported, the already established
utility of this Institution will rapidly advance in importance.”547
Providing such “advantages” might have arisen out of a threat from the indigenous
practice of midwifery. Poor people were allured to institutional delivery, and this led to a
gradual marginalization of indigenous practice of midwifery. Madhusudan Gupta (evidence
before Municipal Enquiry, 2nd Sub-Committee, 4 March, 1837) reveals that “[s]uch women so instructed
and employed, would readily find employment at a moderate charge among Hindu women of
all castes and ranks, at their own houses, by which I am well assured, many of their lives, and
those of their children, would be saved.” 548 He further added, “Employment would be
afforded for a great number of Midwives in such as Hospital. The number of women taking
advantage of the institution would be such, as to afford employment for a great number of
Midwives.”549 He seems to strongly emphasize, “Neither the Hindoo women, nor their
families have at present any objection to their being attended by European Doctor, except on
the score of expense. But the misfortune is, there is no security that what he prescribes is
administered: educated Hindoo Midwives would remove this difficulty.” 550 In his final note,
he observed, “I have no doubt that if Midwives were educated and supported in the manner
above mentioned, so as to be able to attend at Native houses for small fees, the result in
extirpating the present mischievous system in the treatment of lying in women would be the
same (as happened in case of native vaccinators).”551
Hence, the introduction of the new midwifery practice not only marginalized
indigenous ones, but also created newer spaces of employment.
After nine years of successful experiments and operations of the CMC, in 1844 the
Rules and Regulations for the Bengal Medical College was codified. No stipendiary
student was permitted to present himself for final examination until he had completed five
sessions of study in the College – “when he will be required to produce certificates of
attendance upon all the courses of lecture, specified in Section 8; and likewise of having,
during that period, performed the duties of clinical clerk and dresser, for not less than
eighteen months, collectively.”552 A copy of attendance certificate is reproduced below.

547
GRPI, 1851, p. 129.
548
Abridgement of the Report of the Committee Appointed by the Right Honourable the Gobernour (sic) of
Bengal for the Establishment of a Fever Hospital, and the Inquiries into Local Management and Taxation in
Calcutta (Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press), 1840), reprinted 1845, p. 89.
549
Ibid, p. 89.
550
Ibid, p. 89.
551
Ibid.
552
Rules and Regulations of the Bengal Medical College, 1844, reprinted 1849 (Calcutta: J. C. Sherriff, Military
Orphan Press), p. 3.
 175

Having passed the graduate examination each would be provided with a certificate
reproduced below.

After 1844, when the new medical education was free from its initial uncertainties,
enrolment expanded: along with stipendiary students those who were referred to as “Free
Students” were allowed into the CMC. It was claimed that “[t]he number of students wishing
to obtain a complete medical education at their own expense shall be unlimited”. 553
Moreover, “Diplomas and certificates bestowed on the free students, shall be the same
as those granted to Sub-Assistant Surgeons at the annual examination … Any student found
to be absent, from whatever cause, shall be fined, by the College Council”. 554 It is to
emphasize that the notion of specialization was invisibly ingrained within the changing
dynamics of the CMC. According to Crawford, “Chemistry, separated from Materia Medica,
March, 1842. Ophthalmic Surgery, separated from Surgery, 1842. Anatomy and Physiology,
separated from Midwifery, Feb., 1845. Medical Jurisprudence, instituted 1850. Descriptive
and Surgical Anatomy, a lectureship since 1837, became a full chair in 1855. Dentistry,
instituted May, 1861.”555 When smaller and more focused area of knowledge, stripping it
from a larger area, is produced specialization set in.
The Military Class was also brought under the regulations and placed under the
control of Pundit Madhusudan Gupta. The internalization of Western medicine advanced
further with the replacement of European teachers by Indian ones in the Military Class. For
example, the subject of anatomy and surgery was taught by the “Superintendent, and
Practice of Medicine with Materia Medica by Baboo Shibchunder Kurmokar”556.Prior to
this, Dr. Goodeve reported the “zealous and valuable assistance received from
Prosonnocoomar Mittre, Samachurn Sircar, Satcouree Dutt, and Mr. Kriekenback, in
preparing the subjects to illustrate his lectures.”557 The secrecy with which the first
dissection was carried out in 1836 was no longer necessary in 1844: “A certain number of
553
Ibid, p. 5.
554
Ibid, p. 6.
555
Crawford, History of Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, p. 440.
556
Rules and Regulations of the Bengal Medical College, p. 20.
557
GRPI, 1840-42, P. 95.
 176

the senior students shall, during each dissecting session…themselves dissect and become
practically acquainted with the anatomy of the human body”.558 Additionally,

The number of cases allowed for the dissecting class shall be in the ratio of one case
for every two students; the department being furnished in addition with three cases
for the teachers, second-hand capital cases for exhibiting all operations on the dead
subject, a post mortem case, and such a number of spare saws, injecting syringes,
&c. as may be required; the same to be specified to the Council of Education, at the
commencement of each dissecting season.559

Not only dissection, dressing, compounding and clinical training, the students were
also taught “to read prescriptions and the instructions given by the Medical Officers, for
the administration of medicines during their absence”.560 Though the proposal was
originally made in the report of GRPI (1843), it was for the first time codified that every
dissecting student was to “deposit a sum of two rupees in the office of the College, to make
good any loss or destruction, to which the instruments may be subjected, independent of
fair wear and tear”.561
The hospital attached to the Medical College was divided between the departments
of surgery and medicine, holding in all 112 beds. The everyday functioning of this hospital
was detailed meticulously and the “ritual” of admission was described as follows:

On the admission of a patient into hospital he shall be sent to bed, his clothes should be
removed, and taken care of, and he shall have a hospital dress of clean linen put on. He
shall be immediately seen by the House Surgeon who, in cases of emergency shall
prescribe, or otherwise wait until the daily visits of the Professor, which take place at one
o’clock, when the plan of treatment will be laid down. The disease shall be noted on a
ticket with diet, date of admission, &c.562

A general register of all the cases admitted in hospital “shall be kept, and available
for statistical purposes”.563 As an outcome of these rituals and procedures the ‘person’ of
the patient began to disappear and, in turn, began to be known as a number: “Enter and you
will find East Indians and West Indians, Bengalees and Madrasees…they are of all classes;
and (as all patients are distinguished not by name, but by numbers), were one to ask for
“Now Number Sahib”…”.564 It must be noted here that as soon as a sick person entered a
hospital ward he got transformed into an altogether different role of the patient. He
558
Rules and Regulations, 1844, p. 20.
559
Ibid, pp. 23-24.
560
Ibid, p. 20.
561
Ibid, p. 23.
562
Ibid, p. 30.
563
Ibid, p. 32.
564
Ranabir Ray Choudhury, ed., Calcutta: A Hundred Years Ago (Calcutta: Nachiketa Publications, 1988), 4.
[Italics added] Note also the argument of Ulrich Trohler regarding quantification and statistics gathering – the
flagship of hospital medicine. See, Trohler, Quantification in British Medicine and Surgery 1750-1830, with
special reference to Its Introduction and Terapeutics, Ph.D thesis, University of London, 1978.
 177

becomes the receptacle of faulty pathology, chemistry and physiology as well. His reality is
not compatible with the reality of the hospital ward. Though his body was carefully taken
care of by the doctor, his sufferings remain unheeded. The doctor is the only tenuous link
between the patient and his persona submerged within him.
The significant exception in the secular nature of the new medicine was determined
by its colonial context where differences were often noted by caste and racial inscription.
The daily charge for “the diet of each patient”, for example, was for “Europeans four
annas, and for Natives one annas” 565. In another clause, the Rules says “residences within
the College compound shall be found for those pupils who may be sent from the Upper
Provinces, to prosecute their studies at the Medical College”. 566 Residential education was
becoming a reality for better learning of medical education on the one hand, and to impart
an all India character to the new medicine and the Medical College.
Te entire examination procedure underwent a great reshuffling. For English Class,
the examinations were of three kinds – (1) General Examinations to test progress, (2) Pass
or Diploma Examinations and (3) Examinations for Honors. 567 Eight subjects were
included in the curricula – anatomy and physiology, botany, chemistry, midwifery,
surgery, material medica, medicine, and medical jurisprudence. “The first Pass
Examination shall be on the subjects of – Anatomy and Physiology, Botany, Chemistry and
Materia Medica. It shall be conducted and the results reported by Professors of Anatomy,
Botany, Chemistry, and Materia Medica, jointly. The Examination shall be partly written,
and partly practical in three subjects.” The Final Pass or Diploma Examination shall be on
the subjects of Medicine, Surgery, Midwifery, Medical Jurisprudence. Practical Anatomy
and Operative Surgery in the Dissecting Room.” 568 Those students who succeeded in
passing the First Pass examination were allowed to contend for Honors.569
What all these meant for was to make an independent physician with “their own
enquiries”:

The great aim will be to make all the lectures and instruction as practical as possible,
and to give the students that knowledge which will enable them to make their own
enquiries with a case, to form their own diagnosis and determine on the plan of
treatment, without having their mind confined by nosological arrangements, or by
treating a disease according to its name, rather than by the general symptoms, period
of disease, habits and strength of the patient.570

Here, the diagnosis of a disease is seemingly translocated from textbook pages to the
specificity of Indian climate and nature. It was a great requirement for the period to know
epistemology and ontology of tropical disease, which will later lead to the formation of
another branch of knowledge – Tropical Medicine.

565
Rules and Regulations, p. 40.
566
Ibid, p. 10.
567
Ibid, p. 35.
568
Ibid, p. 36.
569
Ibid, p. 36.
570
Ibid, p. 33.
 178

In 1847, Balfour felt that perhaps one of the most striking features of the present
history of India was the wonderful success with the opening of Dispensaries. 571
Dispensaries, in his view, were held by the great majority of the people with increasing
favour. They were manned by graduate sub-assistant surgeons of the CMC. Thus, it was
through the dispensary that a space for modern public health was opened up in a true sense.
The success of these strategies was also dependent on the internalization of certain rules of
behaviour by the population at large. “Medicine thus acquired political status inasmuch as it
gained a new relevance to the interests of the state”.572 Sykes reported about 94,618 patients
who were relieved in the Charitable Dispensaries of India in 1847.573
Importantly, ether anaesthesia was administered on 22 March 1847, while chloroform
was applied on 12 January 1848 – within two months after its first introduction in London. 574
Among the prominent points of interest referred to “were the extraordinary success of some
of the graduates of the College in the performance of the formidable operation of lithotomy,
and the valuable results which had followed the introduction of chloroform into the practice
of surgery”.575 Dr Jackson crushed large stones in the bladder by making the patient
insensible to pain by chloroform. One hundred and thirty two operations were done in the
Native Hospital during the years 1848 and 1849.576 On 7 February 1849, J. Jackson of the
CMC, who was professor of Medicine, even corresponded with Simpson (the discoverer of
chloroform) “describing the administration of chloroform in a case of severe pain”.577 As
further evidence, it was later reported,

Although anaesthetic agents were not employed in the natural cases generally, they
were occasionally used with marked advantage, and all those cases which required
manual assistance to promote delivery, were treated under their influence. Chloroform
was the medicine used in every instance except one, in which Ether was given,
because none of the former fluid was at hand … the mortality in these cases operated
upon under their influence was unusually and remarkably small.578

James Esdaile of the Indian Medical Service is famous in India for his experiments on
mesmerism, with the aid of which he purportedly performed a number of surgical operations
without the use anaesthesia. He was the civil surgeon in Hooghly and Principal of the He
began his experiments on mesmerism in 1845 and performed the first operation on the 4 th
April of that year. In fact, Esdaile himself made such a trial of the use of ether in the hospital
in Calcutta which had been placed at his disposal. He concluded that:
571
Selections from the Records of the Government, North-Western Provinces, Allahabad, 1866, p. 116.
572
Jacyna, “Medicine in Transformation”, p. 82.
573
W. H. Sykes, “Statistics of the Government Charitable Dispensaries of India, Chiefly in the Bengal and
North-Western Provinces”, Journal of the Statistical Society of London 10.1 (Mar., 1847), pp. 1-37.
574
S. Anantha Pillai, Understanding Aanesthesiology (Calcutta: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers, 2007), 13.
575
GRPI, 1851, p. 122.
576
Webb, The Historical Relations, p. 29.
577
Sir James Young Simpson, James Young Simpson Collection, reference and contact details – GB779 RCSEd
JYS 1-1882, Location RS RI; RS R2, Plans chest, letter no. 156.
578
Annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal. Fourteenth Year. Session 1848-49 (Calcutta: J. C. Sherriff,
Military Orphan Press, 1849), 20. [West Bengal State Archives]
 179

By cautious and graduated doses, and with a knowledge of the best antidotes, I think
it extremely probable that this power will soon become a safe means of procuring
insensibility, for the most formidable surgical operations even.
All mesmerists ... will rejoice at having been the means of bringing to light one truth
more, especially as it will free them from the drudgery required to induce mesmeric
insensibility to pain ...579

Nevertheless, Esdaile retained his faith in the superiority of mesmerism and continued
to practice it until he left India in 1851. Duncan Stewart, of the CMC, also mentioned the
successful introduction of new anaesthetic agents in his report. “Chloroform was given in two
obstetric cases of operative procedure with perfect safety and success in the presence of
several of professors, and a number of the students of the CMC”. 580 This report was sent for
publication in the Register of Indian Medical Science. The CMC, like its European
equivalent, became a space for new scientific experiments. All these experiments were
transmitted throughout India and, also Europe, through publications like the Transactions of
the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, Quarterly Medical Journal and, later, the
Indian Medical Gazette. Hospital medicine thus gained its universal character beyond its
European origin to the extent that in some ways the peripheral location of the colony had a
large role in influencing the development of the field in central metropolitan England.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Medical Board had set forth some objections
“as to the incapacity and failure of Native Sub- Assistant Surgeons, subsequent to their
being placed in charge of Government Dispensaries”.581 To this Lord Hardinge, seemingly
as a reproach to the objections, wrote a long a letter to the Medical Board. Part of which can
be reproduced here.

In the letter, paras: 26 to 31, I remarked upon the disparaging terms in which the
Medical Board reported on the qualifications and professional value of Native Sub-
Assistant Surgeons educated at the Calcutta College, and I stated at length my firm
belief, that confidence, though perhaps slowly, will, in the end, be fully felt in their
medical practice. To these remarks I may add, that the result of subsequent enquiries
has convinced me of the correctness of the opinion I then expressed. In the
neighbourhood of Jubbulpore and Saugor, and in the Nerbudda Territories generally, I
am credibly informed that the Native population appreciate most highly the services
of the Native Sub-Assistant Surgeons at the several dispensaries, and travel from
remote parts of the district to have the benefit of their advice and treatment. Several
applications have been received from Native chiefs, to be supplied with Sub-
Assistant Surgeons.
*** ***
Nearly a month was thus occupied, during which time I was satisfied to entrust the
Medical charge of the party, with all the Native servants and followers, to the Native
579
Victor Robinson, Victory over Pain: A History of Anaesthesia (London: Sigma Books, 1947), 74.
580
GRPI, 1848, Appendix E. No. VII, p. cli.
581
GRPI, 1848, p. 88.
 180

Doctor attached to my Head Quarters, who, as I before mentioned, is frequently called

in by European gentlemen.
A copy of a letter No. 76, from the Medical Board, dated the 14 th December 1844, is
submitted herewith for reference, wherein after some preliminary remarks, the Board
observe, that Native Sub-Assistant Surgeons in charge of Government Charitable
Dispensaries have effected great good, and recommend their employment in such
charges, and in the care of detached Native Jails ; and indeed, with regard to the
medical treatment of European Officers and their families the Board hardly questions
the fitness of the Native Sub-Assistant Surgeons, although they have doubts as to their
services being ‘so much appreciated or liked as those of a European Medical
Officer.’582

Hardinge raised a very terse question, “If these opinions, so favorable to the
qualification of the Sub-Assistant Surgeons given by the Medical Board in December 1844,
be contrasted with the terms in which the Board speak of the same class of individuals on
the 1st December 1846, the difference is indeed very remarkable.”583
He finally added,

These remarks, so condemnatory of one of our most valuable institutions for

advancing the civilization of India, might be applied to any class of students in
any profession in Europe; amongst the cadets of the Military College, or of the
Royal Academy at Woolwich, many young men pass admirable examinations for
their commissions, who, in after life, frequently disappoint the expectations formed
of their ability in their youth. The same result occurs with those who have taken
honors at Oxford and Cambridge, and I apprehend that, if an able Assistant Surgeon
were placed at a Salt Chokee in Bengal, with two or three European patients on
whom to exercise his professional skill, that he would at the end of 14 or 16 years'
probation, when promoted to the rank of Surgeon, be no exception to the general
rule applied by the Medical Board to Native Sub-Assistant Surgeons. This opinion
of the Medical Board is fortified by two cases of incompetency of Sub-Assistant
Surgeons employed at detached stations.
****
I trust, however, that the Institution of the Medical College, now in its infancy, will,
as it advances to maturity, overcome such objections as those recorded by the
Medical Board on this occasion.584

It is interesting to note here that Hardinge did not hesitate to compare the
acquirements of the CMC graduates with those of Oxford or Cambridge, or even down here
to “Salt Chokee” European Assistant Surgeons bereft of active clinical engagement. He was
all out against denigrating those young Indian medical graduates.
The reason may be due to the fact that “there has been a gradual falling off in the
582
Ibid, pp. 88-89. [Emphasis added]
583
Ibid, p. 89.
584
Ibid, pp. 89-90.
 181

numbers of Medical Students, as the inducements offered are insufficient to attract them, and
the Deputy Governor is of opinion that, in order to render the Medical College useful as a
certain source whence a yearly supply of well qualified Native Sub-Assistant Surgeons may
be drawn, equal to the responsibility of independent charges, a prospect of higher emolument
than is at present allowed, must be held out.”585
The Annual report of the CMC for the 17 th year – Session 1851-52 – was important
for more than one reason. First, three Indian representatives were included as members of the
College Council. They were Rasamay Dutt, Ramgopal Ghose, and Ashutosh Deb. Second, a
proposal for the establishment of a class of Native Doctors in connection with the CMC was
submitted to the Council of Education for consideration. Third, malpractices during
examination became e definite issue which was reported.586
Regarding Bengali Class following decisions were taken jointly by the College
Council and the Council of Education.

A Bengali Class to be educated on the same plan, and to the same extent as the
Hindustani Class, shall be established in the Medical College.
It shall consist in the first instance of 50 pupils, who shall each receive a monthly
stipend of 5 rupees; and of as many free students as may be willing to study at their
own expense.
The pupils shall be selected from all respectable castes, the preference in selection
being given to those possessing the highest qualification. A due proportion of stipends
will be reserved for Mofussil pupils.
All candidates shall be examined by a committee composed of the Principal and two
Professors of the Sanscrit College, to ascertain that they possess a competent
knowledge of the Bengali language and literature, so as to read and write it with
fluency and facility.
*****
They shall remain at least two years in the Institution, shall practise dissection of the
human body, and attend the hospitals and out-door dispensary in the same manner
and for the same purpose as the pupils of the Hindustani class.
They shall not be required to live on the premises, but must attend daily from 10 a. m.
until 4 p. m.
****
Native Zemindars and the Governors of Charitable Institutions shall have the
privilege of sending students to be educated in the Bengali Class for subsequent
employment by them. These students shall be supported by the persons
recommending them.
All students shall pass such an examination for a diploma as shall be hereafter
determined on, and such of them as shall be selected for the purpose shall be
transferred to any appointment in Bengal which the government may select, to be
placed under Deputy Magistrates, to be attached to Jail Hospitals, or to be employed
585
Ibid, pp. 90-81.
586
Annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal. Seventeenth Year: Session 1851-52 (Calcutta: F. Carbery,
Bengal Military Orphan Press, 1852). [West Bengal State Archives] (Hereafter GRPI, 1852)
 182

as Vaccinators, &c.587

To be sure, like Hindustani or Military Class (Secondary or Vernacular as well) as

was established in 1839, on 1st July, 1851, a Bengali class was established. Evidently, these
had two categories – stipendiary and free. The number of stipendiary students was restricted
to 50, while that of free students had no specific limit. The most distinguishing feature
between this new class and the Military or Hindustani Class was the nature of service. The
students of this new Bengali Class were destined to have their civil jobs, while the students of
the Military Class were for purely military purposes. Pass-outs from the former were to be
“placed under Deputy Magistrates”, but those of the latter were deployed under military rules
and regulations. Like dispensaries, these students became another conduit for dissemination
of the beneficial effects of European medicine – turning out to be the benevolent face of
imperialism.
Interestingly, like the students of the Military Class, they were also required to
“practise dissection of the human body” and attend the hospitals and dispensaries. Hence they
became medical trained youths of lesser denomination, but useful enough to come to the
relief of village people. Moreover, they had the privilege to be sent by “Native Zamindars
and the Governors of Charitable Institutions” and, on completion of their study, they were
subsequently employed by their patrons. After the full-scale victory of the European
medicine, this new experiment was taken up by government to address local needs.
Rhetorically, it was a “local” medicine of lesser creditability juxtaposed to “global” European
medicine of universal credibility.
It was reported, “In the examinations of some of the classes unfair practices were
detected, which rendered it necessary to punish the offenders. The offence has heretofore
been so rare in this College that no special provision regarding it is contained in the rules of
the institution. The Council are of opinion that future offenders should be expelled.”588 In
addition to this “a larger number of junior diploma candidates was rejected”.589
The session from 1st October 1849 to 30th April 1850 reports an intriguing situation.
“In June last, the greater part of the class (English class) mutinied, refused to perform their
duties until their imaginary grievances were redressed, and took oaths to disobey all
authority, unless their improper and unreasonable requests were complied with.” 590 As a
remedial measure college authority expelled “seven ring leaders” and “all who took part in
the disturbance punished”.591 It should also be noted that the discipline of “Ophthalmic
Medicine” was added to curricula since 1850, making the curriculum an almost complete
one.
According to the report, “The large hospital referred to in former reports is now
nearly completed and is expected to be ready for the reception of patients in a few months.”

587
GRPI, 1852, p. 4.
588
GRPI, 1852, p. 5.
589
Ibid, p. 5.
590
GRPI, 1851, p. 131.
591
Ibid, p. 131.
 183

[General view of Medical College Hospital in the year 1878 located on the College Street,
Calcutta. This Corinthian building was completed in 1852.]

Conclusion
The foundation of the CMC, I argue, not only gave birth to hospital medicine and
modern medical education in India, but it also influenced education in India in general terms.
They obtained B.M. degree and one of them obtained his M.D. degree there. In 1845, four of the
students of the CM – Bhola Nath Bose, Gopal Chandra Seal, Dwaraka Nath Bose and Soorji
Coomar Goodeve Chuckerbutty – made their voyage to England and, supposedly, overcame
“the dread of the sea, so firmly implanted in the mind of every Hindu”. 592 These students
were accompanied by Dr. Goodeve. In mid-1847, Goodeve sent a report regarding their
brilliant performance, profound interest and hard labor to reach at the zenith of professional
acquirements. Goodeve told about them, “They have obtained these distinctions not by favor
or indulgence, but by severe labor, and by submission to those rigid tests of proficiency,
which the highest scientific authorities have devised to regulate their studies, and by which
they authorise the admission of candidates to the privilege of exercising the Medical
profession.”593 He further stressed that “[w]e must look rather to the powerful effects upon
civilization in India, which must be produced ultimately by successful termination of this first
expedition of Hindu youths to England itself, in search of European knowledge.” 594 It was
such a measure, as Goodeve argues, which “encourage Natives of the East to frequent the
Schools of Europe for more civilized world … in the end, raise these nations to that higher

592
GRPI, 1848, p. 96.
593
Ibid, p. 84.
594
Ibid, p. 86.
 184

standard of morality and religion, which is so requisite they should substitute for their present
degraded condition.”595 Such spectacular was Chuckerbutty’s performance that in addition to
his regular grant of £780 he received the grant of the sum of £150.
Gorman notes three important effects of this sojourn. First, it showed in a dramatic
and conclusive manner that Indians could master science and medicine on a level with
Europeans. Second, after these students received their degrees from the University of London
and their diplomas from the Royal College of Surgeons and returned to India, they served as
disseminators of modern science and became role models for future Indian scientists. Lastly,
their example set the stage for a veritable flood of Indian students to England for study in all
fields, a movement which continues to this day, Gorman comments, “The British had invaded
and conquered India politically and geographically, but now the Indians had done so in
England academically.”596
The CMC produced trained graduates who extended the applications of modern
medicine and public health, as shown above, throughout India. Lord Hardinge, as we have
just seen, was convinced of the impact of dispensaries and eulogized it597 as a way that
would extend the benefits of modern medicine. In this way the CMC may have also played
a strong role in the future of public health in India.
The birth of the CMC converged with the years during which the heated Anglicist-
Orientalist debate would be resolved – from here on English would become the language
of higher education. The CMC was also possibly the first Indian institution to work on the
plan of “suitable [residential] accommodations” within “the precincts of the College”. 598
Residential education was considered one of the most essential and important features in
the normal training of teachers in the schools of Germany, Holland, Switzerland and
France. It is because:

The whole system of Education in India will necessarily be incomplete, until pupils
are brought under the internal control and management considered so essential in
Europe to form the habits, improve the morals, and give a tone to the manners of
youth at an age when impression produce a lasting effect, and exert a beneficial or
prejudicial influence upon the future career of the individual, in proportion to the
good or evil training to which he may have been subjected.599

Moreover, “The Native Medical Student in his own home, is exposed to every
influence resulting from ignorance, superstition, the prejudice of caste, and similar means of
weakening the effects of intellectual and moral training, which he is undergoing in our
schools and colleges.”600 A few years later, Sir John Fayrer, while addressing the students
of the Medical College in 1863, reminded his students “you are at a disadvantage as
compared with students in European Colleges, your previous mode of life, the society in

595
Ibid.
596
Gorman, “Introduction of Western Science into Colonial India”, p. 290.
597
GRPI, 1848, p. 88.
598
Ibid, p. 100.
599
GRPI, 1847, p. 82.
600
Ibid.
 185

which, as boys, you have mingled … have most probably been unfavorable to the study”.601
Interestingly, in this depiction, the environment of the CMC is counterpoised to the
social environment the student belongs to. In a miniature scale, two civilizations seem to
co-exist – one in the institution, the other in the society. The former is located at a higher
rung of civilization to which the student must be elevated to complete his training. Here, the
internal environment of the CMC serves as a kind of noise- and turbulence-free laboratory
environment where all experiments can be done without external influence or interference.
As a result of these efforts, “two houses in the immediate vicinity of the Medical College
have been hired for their accommodation, the building of quarters within the precincts of
the institution being under consideration of Government.”602
The advocates of the new medical education saw themselves as the historical agents
and visionaries for a new future of India. Sykes confidently proclaimed the successful
colonization of the subcontinent via western medical pedagogy: “we shall have left a
monument with which those of Ashoka, Chundra Goopta, or Shah Jehan, or any Indian
potentate sink into insignificance’ and, at the same time, ‘those of Auckland, as protector,
and of Goodeve, Mouat, and others, as zealous promoter of scientific Native medical
education shall remain embalmed in the memory of a grateful Indian posterity”.603 Notably,
in this “new history”, pragmatic and successful people like Auckland, Goodeve and Mouat
were mentioned to the occlusion of W. B. O’Shaughnessy, the person with an original
inquisitive mind who was on advocate of the spirit of free thinking.
Despite the European intervention, Chuckerbutty emphasized, “granting all the
praise and honour due to hard-working and intelligent professors, the European medical
officers were at best birds of passage, and could not, therefore, permanently improve the
position and prospects of the profession out of the service.” 604 In a move to replace these
“birds of passage”, internalization of modern medicine was of prime importance.
Following the European method, he began his trials with “iodide of potassium” at the CMC
in the treatment of aneurism.605 When Chuckerbutty took charge as second physician to the
CMC in 1860, he found an Irish sea-man patient of 50 years age, named Leary. Among
other complications, he had a pulsating tumour in the upper notch of the sternum. The
pattient was treated with “iodide of potassium with decoction of cinchona”. He recovered.
But, finally, the patient died of “a fresh attack of bronchitis”. At the post mortem
examination, on opening the chest, Chuckerbutty found an aneurismal tumour.
Chuckerbutty tried his iodide treatment on two other European patients – Bateman and
Collyar – “both suffering from aneurism”.
Notably, in Chuckerbutty, we find the man at the bed side of the patient, giving
experimental therapeutics to his patients, and corroborating symptoms of the living through
601
Fayrer, “An Introductory Address,” p. 6.
602
Annual Report of the Medical College of Bengal. Thirteenth Year. Session 1847-48 (Calcutta: W. Ridsdale,
Military Orphan Press, 1848), 26. [West Bengal State Archives]
603
W. H. Sykes, “Statistics of the Government Charitable Dispensaries of India”, p. 23.
604
Chuckerbutty, “Address in Medicine: The Present State of the Medical Profession in Bengal (delivered on
February 3rd, 1864),” British Medical Journal 2 (July-December 1864): 88. Chuckerbutty, Popular Lectures, p.
143.
605
Chuckerbutty, “Iodide of Potassium in the Treatment of Aneurism,” British Medical Journal 2 (July-
December 1862): 61-64, 85-86.
 186

post mortem after death. These were the hallmarks of the new medicine – hospital
medicine.
It is important that Chuckerbutty preceded similar British trials in this regard. His
trial was published in BMJ in July 1862, while the British one was published in January
1863.606
It should be mentioned here that some kind of searching innovatively for new
indigenous drugs was also well received by the new graduates. Sykes observes, “Another
important duties these young men had to perform, was the discovery and application to
remedial purposes of native medicines, many of which were known to be very efficacious,
although unknown to our pharmacopoeia.”607
Chuckerbutty strongly advocated for compulsory registration of medical graduates.
This was to counter the presence of unqualified imposters: “[e]very druggist and chemist,
every apothecary and quack, every sluggard, fool, and rogue, enjoys as yet full liberty to
style himself a doctor and prescribe for the sick”. 608 Regarding his suggestions to the
authority he seems to ask his readers, “Does it not show some kind of check? Does it not
loudly call for the interference of the legislature, and extension of the English Medical Act
to India? … Let us hope, therefore, that the day is not far distant when these evils will be
put down by the strong arm of the law”.609
In 1864, he enumerated 29 types of different medical practices prevalent in Calcutta
610
alone. If Chuckerbutty embodies the agency of modern medicine, Mahendralal Sarkar
(Sircar) and Bholanath Bose represented two other distinctly visible trends. Sarkar, who was
himself a brilliant graduate of the CMC and post-graduate of the University of Calcutta,
championed homeopathy of a distinctly “Indian” kind. He was also the founder of the Indian
Association for the Cultivation of Science (1876). In his journal he explicitly advocated:

Our ideal of civilization is incompatible with arbitrary restrictions upon the liberty of
thought and private judgment and with prejudices of every description. And it matters
not whether the restrictions come from the legislature or from public opinion, or
whether the prejudice exists among priests or among men of science. If judged by this
standard no Europen country can be said to be civilized, we cannot help the inference
… The one thing which can secure this blessing to mankind, this toleration, this
freedom from prejudice to knowledge. The more we know, the more we know that we
do not know…611

He further added, “It is impossible to say whether that day shall ever come when we
shall be able (we do not say allowed) to take the reins of the government of our country in
606
William Roberts, “The Successful Use of Iodide of Potassium in the Treatment of Aneurism,” British
Medical Journal 1.108 (24 January, 1863): 83-85.
607
W. H. Sykes, “Statistics of the Government Charitable Dispensaries of India, chiefly in the Bengal and
North-Western Provinces,” Quarterly Journal of the Statistical Society of London 10.1 (1847): 1-37 (8).
608
Chuckerbutty, “The Present State of the Medical Profession in Bengal”, p. 111.
609
Ibid, p. 111.
610
Chuckerbutty, “The Present State of Medical Profession in Bengal”, p. 111.
611
Sircar, “On the Desirabilty of Cultivation of the Sciences by the Natives of India,” Calcutta Journal of
Medicine 2 (August, 1869): 286-291 (286).
 187

our own hands.”612 His is the true spirit of the cultivation of science by the natives on their
own initiative.
Contrarily, Bose, I would propose, advocated for a hybrid of “allopathy” and
homeopathy. He wrote two books, A New System of Medicine and Principles of Rational
Therapeutics. About these two books the reviewer in The Philadelphia Medical Times
described in the following manner: “[t]o those who view the present system of medicine as an
inchoate mass of empiricism, and who are searching for something new and startling, we
recommend the above works”.613 The reviewer further comments, “The New System is truly
new. To study its leadings we prefer to notice rather the Rational Therapeutics. It is possible
that a more severe study and repeated readings might alter our opinion, but it is hard on an
uncertainty to undo the work of years and reduce the mind to the utter blank required before
the system can be understood.”614
His final remarks were, “We do not, however, condemn these books, lest they prove,
unpromising as they seem, to contain a germ of true thought which may lead some day to the
sorely-needed new system of rational medicine; but we fear we shall not as a science mount
up all at once through tubulo and pertubulo tones and the vegetative tone to the general tone
of perfection.”615
Bose seems to have problematized the prevailing medical practice by emphasizing
the distinction between disease and sickness.616 Notably, he used a unique term ‘kyaitis’ – a
hybridization of the Sanskrit kaya, meaning body, and “itis” from modern pathology,
signifying inflammation.617 Was he incorporating the concept of svasthya of Indian
connotation?
As late as 1868, it was regretted that though under “British rule … [native medical
practitioners] have disappeared altogether from political life, and socially have little or no
standing in European society”, and yet in native society, “all over the country, these men
(Hakeems and Vaidyas) still hold their own, and are greatly respected”.618 Why did such
undesired results come up? The essay reminds its readers, “it must be remembered that there
are only four medical schools in the whole of this presidency (North-Western Provinces),
with its 80, 000, 000 inhabitants; and two of these, with about 100 students between them, are
only from ten to twelve years’ standing.”619 Chuckerbutty’s proposal for registration and
certification gained a strong ground in this regard, “It would be wise to enroll all hakeems
who signified their readiness to join, and to register them in each district, granting a stamped
certificate or diploma”.620

612
Ibid, p. 289.
613
E. W. W. “Reviews and Book Notices,” Philadelphia Medical Times 8.270 (March 30, 1878): 307-308 (307).
614
Ibid, p. 307.
615
Ibid, p. 308.
616
Bholanath Bose, A New System of Medicine, entitled Recognizant Medicine; or, the State of the Sick
(London: J. & A. Churchill, 1877). To remember, Bose, as already described, was one of those four brilliant
students who made their first sojourn to London for higher learning and acquired high distinctions there.
617
Bose, Principles of Rational Therapeutics, Commenced as an Enquiry into the Relative Value of Quinine and
Arsenic in Ague (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1877), 17.
618
Anonymous, “A Plea for Hakeems,” Indian Medical Gazette 3.1 (1868): 87-90.
619
Ibid, p. 88.
620
Ibid, p. 88.
 188

Possibly, out of desperation, Buckland wrote about the great difficulty to convince
natives to take English medicines properly and regularly, and to submit themselves to
reasonable treatment. He lamented, “how much of the effect is lost when medicine is given
to a set of ignorant and doubting people in the villages”, who probably “do their best to
destroy the valuable properties of the English drugs by combining with them (as they
fancy) the prescriptions of the kabirajes or the wise and aged women of the village”.621
We discern some epistemological fissures from inside as well as outside the
modern medical cosmology in India. But modern medicine became the referent against
which all other medical praxes could be measured. Alavi shows how, when the legitimating
contexts of pre-colonial practitioners of Unani medicine were lost, Unani practitioners
dispersed into qasbas and towns of the North Indian countryside, where their ideas, terms
and culture contested colonial medical drives in the period of high nationalism.622 In an
asymmetrically overdetermined space a great part of Ayurvedics endeavouring to be
modern (navya-ayurveda), unscrupulously copied anatomical illustrations from English
handbooks and replaced English terms with Sanskrit names.623
The techniques of perpetuating the impact of modern medicine new apparatuses and
newer mode of operations emerged. One of the strongest techniques, as we have already seen,
was the operation of dispensaries. In 1946, the sub-assistant surgeon of the Allahabad
dispensary wrote:

The Hindoo villagers, who form the largest portion of our patients, both extern and
intern, and who, when they come for treatment, generally bring their families with
them, objected to live in the hospital bungalow, as much through the fear of losing their
caste, as of being obliged to be separated from their dear ones. To obviate this
difficulty, the late magistrate, Mr. R. Montgomerie, had raised a large hut, divided into
seven rooms; one of those has been made the hospital cook-room, and the other six
allotted to the village patients, where they lived with their families and friends very
comfortably.624

In the face of all these maneuvers, as a consequence, the core of Ayurveda – the
repository of traditional knowledge of healing, health, in harmony with human being and
macrocosm – was reconstituted. For all these historical phenomena, the CMC emerged as
an event as well as a historical process. In this historical process, it was emphasized:

This country presents a vast field of for such researches … it were greatly to be
desired that the knowledge of medicine were not confined to those who mean to earn
their livelihood by practicing it as a profession, but that it formed a part of every
accomplished native gentleman’s ordinary education … We should not wish the
Mofussil school-boy to pour over Dr. Graves’s lectures, Quain’s Anatomy or

621
Proceedings of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, No. 367, 6 July 1872 (West Bengal State Archives).
622
Alavi, Islam and Healing, pp. 98-99.
623
Francis Zimmermann, The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), pp. 166-167.
624
Sykes, “Government Charitable Dispensaries of India”, pp. 11-12.
 189

Carpentor’s Physiology, but we assert that such a course of physiology as is

absolutely necessary for the appreciation of its fundamental principles, and their
bearing on daily conduct, should be an important part of the curriculum of native
education.625

By instilling “appreciation of its fundamental principles” of modern medicine and

“their bearing on daily conduct” from the very beginning of school education and, also,
forming “a part of every accomplished native gentleman’s ordinary education”, modern
medicine and its techniques, medicine began to reconstitute the essence of traditional life. In
some sense, it was the beginning of “medicalization” of life since the last half of the 19 th
century. It was a unique phenomenon. It was enhanced by the positive characteristics of the
CMC students to acquire Western medical learning with great zeal. O’Shaughnessy described
these attributes in his words thus – “He is quick of perception, patient in reflection, adroit and
delicate in experimental manipulation; and with these endowments, his full success in this
study may be most confidently foretold.”626
CMC and hospital medicine, along with its extension through public health
programs, built the fountainhead of this apparently irreversible historical flow.

625
Anonymous, “Hindu Medicine and Medical Education,” Calcutta Review 42 (1866): 106-126 (124-125).
626
O’Shaughnesy, Manual of Chemistry (Calcutta: Ostell and Lepage, 1842), xxiv.