Reflections

One of my favourite books in the Corbett canon is the “The Maneating Leopard of Rudraprayag”. I still remember the thrill that went up my spine when I first visited Rudraprayag in 1985 and saw the plaque put up under a tree where the leopard that killed hundreds of people in the twenties was finally killed by Jim Corbett. On rereading the book recently, I specifically noticed a paragraph and I quote it here in full: "Three days’ journey up the left bank of the Ganges and you have reached the ancient capital of Garhwal, Shreenagar, a historic, religious, and trading centre of considerable importance and of great beauty, nestling in a wide, open valley surrounded by high mountains. It was here, in the year 1805, that the forebears of the Garhwali soldiers who have fought so gallantly in two world wars made their last, and unsuccessful, stand against the Gurkha invaders, and it is a matter of great regret to the people of Garhwal that their ancient city of Shreenagar, together wit...

Polio has been one of the worst infectious diseases that have plagued mankind. It has existed from antiquity; there are drawings of children affected by what must have been polio in Egyptian tombs and there are literary descriptions which suggest that the Roman Emperor, Claudius suffered from polio. The disease was however first clinically described by an English physician Michael Underwood in the eighteenth century, but it took till 1908 before Landsteiner identified the poliovirus as its causative organism. In the first half of this century, repeated outbreaks took place, particularly in the USA, which led to many deaths and incidentally to the development of the ventilator to help treat victims of bulbospinal polio. We were very familiar with polio in our childhood. One of our friends, who lived in the neighborhood had polio and had to undergo a series of operations in order to correct some deformities that the polio left behind. In later life, he walked with a slight limp, b...

In 1907, the British Medical Journal Published an article entitled: British Medicine in India. It is a long article, but full of interest. I am reproducing a part of it that pertains to the Calcutta Medical College.It gives a vivid picture of the College in that year. "THE CALCUTTA MEDICAL COLLEGE. The foundation of the Calcutta Medical College marked the dawn of a new era. All the knowledge and skill of the West was thrown freely open to the peoples of India, without distinction of race or caste. How splendidly the, seed sown by Lord William Bentinck has grown and fructified is shown not only by the great development of the Calcutta College itself, but by the others at Lahore, Madras, and Bombay, which are, at least in a figurative sense, its offshoots. At present the establishment of a similar college at Lucknow is under consideration. No greater thing was done by Lord William Bentinck for the promotion of the welfare of the many peoples of the vast empire under...

Today is the 21st February, celebrated worldwide as the International Mother Tongue day. This day was notified by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999. It Is a matter of pride for all Bengalis and particularly for the Bangladeshis that this day was designated in recognition of the struggle for their mother tongue that the then East Pakistanis conducted in 1952. The history of this day is not so very well known, even among the Bengalis. It will be instructive to recall the struggle for the Bengali language that took place in 1952. The foundation for this struggle was laid immediately after Independence which left India divided on the basis of religion into a largely Hindu, but secular India and a largely Muslim, but, now almost forgotten, secular Pakistan. Jinnah, the architect of the partition speaking on the occasion of Independence said “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free ...

There have been many pioneer cardiac surgeons, but this story is of one who aspired to be one but could not. In our student days Guyton’s Text Book of Medical Physiology was the book we all read. Not so say that we did not read Best and Taylor or Ganong, and Chandi Chatterjee’s book became very popular when the exams drew near, but Guyton was acknowledged to be the King. The text book, still published long after the original author’s death, is probably still popular among students, but the story of this pioneer physiologist’s life which is not so well known is an inspiration to all. Arthur Clifton Guyton was born in the Southern American state of Mississippi in 1919. His father was the Dean of the Medical School of the University of Mississippi and a well known ENT surgeon. He studied at the Harvard Medical School and began his resident training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He planned to become a cardiac surgeon and was in the final year of his residency training when he wa...