Surgery in Bengal : an address to the Bengal branch of the British Medical Association : at the annual general meeting, 14th February 1865.
- Fayrer, Joseph, Sir, 1824-1907.
- Date:
- 1865
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Surgery in Bengal : an address to the Bengal branch of the British Medical Association : at the annual general meeting, 14th February 1865. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![Previous to tlie foundation of the Medical College in 1833 by Lord W. Bentinck, many distinguished British Surgeons had lived and practised in Bengal. As to their names, or the influence that our profession has exercised, from the earliest periods of our connection with India, it is not my duty now to speak, yet we can hardly pass in silence the memorable, though I fear but too little known names of Broughton and Hamilton, to whom, indeed, we may say it is due that we have ever been here at all to spread the knowledge of European Surgery in India. It is rather to that period I would refer which dates from 10th January 1836, when the learned Pundit Moodhoosudhun Goopto, who taught medicine in Sanskrit in the Hindoo College, laying aside the prejudices of caste, and snapping by one bold stroke the bonds of super- stition, dissected for the first time the human body with his own hands, and thus laid among his countrymen the founda- tion of that knowledge of anatomy which is so essential to the Surgeon. We can scarcely now estimate how much is due to this gentleman^s courage and good example; but we can see in the rapid strides that have since that time been made in surgical knowledge, something of the results of a step which has been so beneficial to its progress, that in little more than | thirty years, Calcutta boasts of an Anatomical School, which may be rivalled, but is scarcely excelled, in Europe. When \ I say that 1,200 bodies were dissected in the past year in ] the College, where, thirty years ago, dissection was unknown, ; I say enough to speak volumes as to the spread of anatomi- j cal and surgical knowledge. It is at the same time sub- | ject for regret that recent alterations in Municipal laws as \ to the disposal of the dead threaten serious hindrance to | the Anatomical School, by interfering with the supply of sub- j jects. This, I hope, is only of a temporary nature, the atten- tion of the authorities competent to deal with the subject, having, I believe, been directed to it. Since that date the Medical College has contributed stea- dily every year to the number of qualified Surgeons prac- tising in India, and spreading the benefits of rational medi- < cine to the most remote parts of the Indian Empire. IPs graduates, or those of the University, are found now in all parts of India, practising, not in an antiquated or obsolete](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28520245_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
