Reflections

David Hare was instrumental in the development of education in India and more particularly in Calcutta. Institutions which he, among others was instrumental in founding and nurturing in the early days include the Hindu college ( Presidency College), the present day Hare School and of course, our very own Medical College. The David Hare block in Medical College where I have studied, worked and lived for more years than I care to remember. As the first Principal of the college has testified, he was its first secretary and literally spent much of his time counseling students, sorting out problems and encouraging the Hindu boys particularly as they were breaking all manner of caste taboos in order to do dissection. The story of Madhusudhan Gupta and his colleagues who broke these barriers in order to start modern medical education in India and Asia is well known. Let me quote Dr Barmley as he wrote in a letter addressed to the Government: "I do not intend to dwell upon my di...

DR Goodeve. Dr Madhusudhan Gupta I recently came across a copy of the Annual Report of the Medical College for the year 1844-45, that is 160 years ago. It was an interesting read and there is much that strikes a chord even today. The report was authored by Dr Mouat who was the Secretary of the college as well as the Professor of Materia Medica and Medical Jurisprudence. The term Materia Medica has now completely been replaced by Pharmacology, but even in our student days there were some senior teachers who still used to use the terminology. At that time there were 9 teachers in the main Instructive section as it was then called. They were Dr Wallich, Dr Jackson, Dr Pearson, Dr O’ Saughnessy ( in whose name the Chemistry medal was still being awarded in our student days), Dr Mouat, Dr Webb , Dr Robertson and of course Madhusudhan Gupta, the first Hindu to dissect human bodies and who is immortalized in a plaque in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre to this day. There were two other India...

The teaching of anatomy was taken very seriously in our student days. The first two years were devoted to its study, a daily lecture being supplemented by a three hour dissection stint during the afternoons and many classes on osteology, viscera and surface marking. Many of us used to enjoy the grind; the knowledge of the origins, insertions and nerve supplies of every muscle and the names of the structures passing through every single obscure hole in the base of the skull used to be exciting to be able to remember. Much of the time was wasted, I now realise, as we used a large amount of time and energy learning by rote many things that were useless in the real world of medicine. However it is undeniable that it also gave us a grounding in learning facts that stood us in good stead ever since. And I do remember, to this day, large amounts of anatomy, 30 years after my anatomy examination; how useful this is something that can be debated. But I want to speak today of two teachers of ...

The Anatomy Museum at Medical College Calcutta Rabindranath Tagore had a tutor, Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya, who used to teach him English and several other subjects at home. This young man was a student of Medical College. Unfortunately he was apparently not a great teacher, and unlike many such teachers, was conscious of his failings. He used to desperately try to ingratiate himself to his students (who also included one of Tagore’s nephews and a brother). On one occasion he brought a dissected larynx from the Medical College in order to kindle their interest in lessons. As a treat, he also took them to the Anatomy Dissection Hall at the Medical College to see the rows of bodies lying there for dissection. Tagore, it is recorded, was not impressed. He looked upon the body of an old woman with equanimity, but the sight of a cut leg lying on the floor made him queasy. I do not know when the present Dissection Hall at the Calcutta Medical College was built, perhaps it did not e...