MEDICAL COLLEGE EX STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION UK
Calcutta Medical College - original B&W by Samuel Bourne 1854
28th January, 1835 : The Native Medical Institute abolished and the establishment of a dedicated Medical College for imparting western medical education promulgated by Lord Bentinck.
1st June, 1835 : First classes commence on the property owned by Ramcomul Sen in present day Indian Coffee House; generous grants by Dwarkanath Tagore and Rustomjee Cowasjee.
1835 – 1836 : Joseph Bramley, a pioneer of medical education appointed principal with Henry Goodeve as assistant surgeon and William Brooke O’Shaughnessy as professor of chemistry; native staff included Madhususdan Gupta, Nabinkrishna Gupta and Ramisswar Avasti and David Hare as the secretary whose tireless efforts bore fruit.
1835 – 1841 : William Brooke O’Shaughnessy does pioneering work on intravenous hydration in cholera, on cannabis effects and laid the first telegraph line in CMC premises, the first time in the world in 1939 before Baltimore in 1841; he can also be regarded as the father of systematic vivisection in India for medical purposes and one of the very early ones in the world.
10th January, 1836 : First human cadaver dissection in the history of medicine in India by Pandit Madhusudan Gupta in a cadaver supplied by Messrs Bathgate and Company, Edinburgh.
28th October, 1836 : First human cadaver dissection by native medical students in India under the tutelage of Madhusudan - Umacharan Sett; Dwarakanath Gupta; Rajkrishno Dey and Nabinchandra Mitra.
1837 : Nathaniel Wallich formerly of the Danish settlement in Serampore and Hooghly and sometime prisoner of war in the East India Company, appointed as professor of Botany; he founded the Botanical Gardens and the Indian Museum in Calcutta; CMC became one of the first institutions in the world to separate medicine from surgery.
1838 : The first batch of students pass out; Henry Goodeve publishes cases from the CMC in the Lancet; the first publication by a medical college in the colonies.
1845 : Four students Surya Coomer Goodeve Chuckerbutty, Gopal Chandra Seal, Bholanath Basu and Dwarkanath Basu go to England for higher studies with the generous help by Dwarkanath Tagore, the Indian government and by the Nawab of Murshidabad Sayid Mansurullah. They were the pioneers who sailed beyond the seven shores after Raja Rammohun Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore from the colonies. Bholanath Basu subsequently became the first Indian MD from UCL, London; Dwarkanath Basu became the first MRCS and Chukerbutty the first to be inducted in the prestigious Indian Medial Service.
1846 : The training in CMC recognised by the Royal College of Surgeons, the University College of London and by the Royal Society of Apothecaries.
1846 : F J Mouat becomes the professor of Materia Medica and taught medical jurisprudence as a separate subject; he will later take a lead role in education in the empire playing a key role in the establishment of universities in India and in prison reforms; he was commissioned by the government to study the feasibility of establishing the Andaman Islands as a penal colony after the Mutiny in 1857.
1847 : Hugh Falconer, the father of the theory of punctuated equilibrium in evolution appointed professor of botany; he discovered the use of cinchona for the treatment of malaria for the first time; this was previously researched by William Brooke O’Shaughnessy in the animal model.
1847 : First surgery carried out in CMC under ether by R.O. O’Shaughnessy, 2 months after its introduction in USA.
1848 : First surgery carried out in CMC under J J Jackson with chloroform, 2 months after its introduction by Simpson in Edinburgh; this was routinely adopted practice thereon and in 1851, complex surgeries including rhinoplasties and lithotomies were performed under anaesthetic; CMC pioneered the technique in the empire.
30th September,1848 : Foundation stone of the MCH building laid in a land donated by Mutty Lal Seal by Lord Dalhousie, completed in 1852 and the building formally inaugurated on 28th January, 1853.
1850 : Independent chair in medical jurisprudence created, one of the first in the world; the department’s faculty would later go on to assist the one of the very first fingerprint bureaus in the world in 1897 with the Calcutta Police as dactylography was discovered in Bengal.
1851 : William Martin of the IMS publishes extensively on eye disorders based on cases in CMC.
10th January, 1857 : The University of Calcutta established and CMC received its affiliation; the first graduates were Kadambari Basu who later went on to become the first woman physician and Chandramukhi Basu, whose sister Bidhumukhi was the first woman MB of CMC.
1859 : Joseph Fayrer of the Indian Medical Service appointed professor of surgery in CMC; he was the resident physician during the siege of Lucknow in 1857 and later founded the Zoological Society in Alipore; his seminal work on snake venoms was the first systemic study in the world; he was the first physician from the colonies to be appointed physician extraordinary to the then Prince of Wales and the King Emperor and started antiseptic techniques in CMC before the London Hospitals.
1860 : Mahendralal Sarkar, passes out with record marks in his final examination who would later establish the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 1876; he was the attending physician to Thakur Ramkrishna Paramhansa.
1862 : Surya Coomer Goodeve Chuckerbutty was the first Indian to publish in the British Medical Journal about iodide treatment of aneurysm and would later publish a treatise on amyloid degeneration; one of the earliest known in modern medical history.
1862 : University of Calcutta conferrs its first MD degree to Chandrakumar De followed by Mahendra Lal Sarkar (1863) and Jagabandhu Bose.
1871 : Pathology separated from Medicine in CMC and sets a precedent in the world.
1875 : Medical jurisprudence formally separates from Materia Medica as a distinct entity for the first time in the world (see 1850 above).
1879 : Kenneth McLeod, chief surgeon of CMC adopts ‘’Listerism’’ based on Fayrer’s work after visiting Lister in the operative theatre on a regular basis before the London Hospitals and is instrumental in establishing a decontaminated laundry system in the MCH; he would later publish his seminal work on operative surgery in CMC which was taught as a text book in the international arena; he discovered clinical leishmaniasis and instigated public health initiatives in Calcutta.
1879 : David Douglas Cunningham joins as professor of physiology in CMC and was the first to initiate systemic studies of cholera; later helped Koch to discover the organism; second physician to be appointed honorary physician to the King Emperor.
1879 : Foundation stone of Eden Hospital laid by the then Viceroy, Sir Ashley Eden and designed by the professor of midwifery J Edmondstone Charles which was formally opened in 1882; this soon became a tertiary referral centre for the whole of South Asia and served as a confinement venue for the daughter of Ramsay McDonald, the PM of the empire.
1880 : First endotracheal use of anaesthesia with chloroform in the world successfully carried out by McReddie in CMC with induction by morphine performed by A Crombie.
1881 : Midwifery separates from medical obstetrics for the first time in the world.
1883 : Passing of resolution to admit women in CMC; Kadambini Ganguly enrolled in CMC and passed out in 1887 but with a diploma only; she was succeeded by Virginia Nandi (nee Mitter) and Bidhumukhi Bose, the first fully licensed women medical practicioners in the colonies.
1887 : Ezra building opens under the patronage of Mozel Ezra, a scion of the then Jewish society in Calcutta with the government’s help; the second dedicated Jewish Hospital in the world.
1891 : Opening of the Syamachurn Law Infirmary for a dedicated ophthalmology unity and hygiene added as a separate subject.
1892 : The General Medical Council recognises CMC.
1899 : Due to growing demand in surgery, permission is granted to construct a separate facility for surgery under the keen enthusiasm and patronage of the then principal G. Bomford and the principal surgeon Richard Havelock Charles; the latter also pioneered the surgical treatment for filariasis in the world.
1905 : Biochemistry separates from physiology for the first time in the world.
1910 – 1920 : Leonard Rogers, working from the isolation unit attached to Eden Hospital (later and presently the Green Ward after the professor of midwifery CRM Green) pioneers the use of intravenous hydration fluid with hypertonic saline therapy in cholera; identifies the parasite of Leishmaniasis and correctly predicts that this is carried by an insect with a short flying range which was later detected to be the sand fly way later in 1942; he narrowly misses the Nobel Prize as he was late to publish!
1910 – 1920 : Departments of Radiotherapy and Radiodiagnosis with latest equipment established with the former being one of the only few in the world at that time.
1911 : The Prince of Wales surgical facility officially inaugurated by the Vicerine Lady Hardinge; Dewan Hiralal Basu appointed as professor of anatomy, the very first time for an Indian to be appointed to the chair.
1917 : Department of chest medicine established as a direct extension to a tuberculosis service.
1919 : The School of Tropical Medicine established by Leonard Rogers, modelled after the London School.
1921 : Ramnath Chopra, ex Cambridge starts the first dedicated academic pharmacological unit in the country in CMC whilst working in the School of Tropical Medicine.
1921 : Psychiatry separates from Neurology for the first time in the world; Girindra Sekhar Bose, the brother of Raj Sekhar obtains a doctorate in science after passing out from CMC who spearheaded the school of psychoanalysis in the subcontinent and corresponded with Freud for 20 years; he later established the Indian School for Psychoanalysis and can be called the father of psychiatry in India.
1922 : Subodh Mitra passes out from CMC; later he acclaims fame by devising the Mitra operation for the cervix in 1952 and the establishment of the Chittaranjan Cancer Hospital in 1950 which was inaugurated by Marie Curie.
1922 : U N Brahmachari ex CMC, discovers urea stibamine for kala azar; he was the only Indian in history to be coveted with all government awards – the Kaise-I-Hind gold medal, a Rai Bahadur and a knighthood.
1922 -23 : Vivian Bartley Green Armytage of the IMS and professor of gynaecology in CMC devises his special obstetric forceps still in use today; he was one of the founders of the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians.
1923 : Kailash Chandra Bose appointed as professor of medicine (hony.), the first Indian to be appointed to the chair of medicine.
1923 : First ENT department set up by N J Juda later headed by Satyaban Roy.
1926 : The Regional Unit of Ophthalmology established in a purpose built facility inside the CMC campus.
1928 : Kedarnath Das, ex CMC and eminent obstetrician publishes his voluminous Obstetric Forceps highlighting his own device named after him and at that time, this was the only text book of its kind in the world according to his colleague Green Armytage.
1932 : M N De appointed as professor of pathology, the first Indian to be appointed to the chair.
1934 : Lal Mohun Banerjee appointed as the first Indian professor of surgery.
1935 : The first Boyle’s apparatus for anaesthesia imported to CMC from London; BOC set up the first oxygen plant in Calcutta and from 1950, a Calcutta company started manufacturing the indigenous Boyle’s apparatus.
1935 : A dedicated A and E unit established by John Anderson called the Casualty Block.
1939 : The first blood bank in India was established by U N Brahmachari which was the second dedicated blood bank in the world after Chicago.
1940 : In order to settle students’ dispute Panchanan Chatterjee, ex CMC and eminent surgeon takes personal initiative in setting up the Medical College Students Union.