Medical Education in Western India: Grant Medical College and Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy’s Hospital
“Medical knowledge is not communicable to the natives of this country.” With these words, James McAdam, Secretary of the Medical Board of Bombay, sounded the death-knell in 1832 of the pioneering medical school set up in Bombay by Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone.
Sir Robert Grant, appointed Governor of Bombay in 1834, disagreed, however. He aimed at ‘the general improvement of medical and surgical science and practice among the native practitioners’. With Dr Charles Morehead, he created a medical college superior to those in Calcutta, and Madras. Parsi philanthropist Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy single-handedly donated an entire hospital to complement this college.
Graduates from these institutions, trained in scientific medicine of the highest standards, went on to serve their fellow countrymen with distinction.
This book narrates how against great odds, Grant Medical College went on to rival medical colleges in Europe and America, and Dr Morehead was invited to help improve medical education at the University of London.
Sunil Pandya trained in neurosurgery in Bombay and London. He was Professor of Neurosurgery at Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College, India, and its affiliated King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in Bombay from 1974 to 1998. He is currently a consultant in neurosurgery at the Jaslok Hospital and Medical Research Centre in Mumbai. He has an abiding interest in the history of medicine and medical ethics. His publications include a definitive volume on the neurosciences in India and essays on the history of medicine in Goa and the development of his alma mater, Grant Medical College. His papers have been published in such journals as BMJ, Journal of Medical Biography, Neurology India, The National Medical Journal of India and Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, and he has contributed to various books, including Healers or Predators? (2018).
"The second object of my admiration is the author, Dr. Sunil Pandya himself. This is a work of phenomenal scholarship. He has unearthed East India Company records, news items and correspondence of the 18th and 19th centuries in Mumbai and in London and cites around 500 references. This is not a dull compilation of facts. Dr. Pandya brings the narrative to life. He gives you biographical sketches and acquaints you with the thoughts of the heroes and villains from their writings, letters, reports and the views of their contemporaries. You get to know them as well as you know the policy makers and administrators of today...Dr. Pandya gives us a gripping account of how these administrators, doctors and philanthropists united to develop a great institution, sometimes having to overcome prejudice and resistance from other officials of the East India Company. We also owe a debt to the early Indian students who were of outstanding quality and added to the sum of medical knowledge. This book will be of interest not just to the medical profession, but also to administrators, students of history, and most general readers. The only section that might bore the non-medical reader is that on details of the syllabus used in teaching, and the examination papers, and this is quite brief. On the other hand, medical personnel who have been educated and examined in modern times will relish this information. Every medical college library in India, and any college where history is taught, should have a copy. Dr. Pandya deals only with the origins of medicine in Bombay, and I look forward to seeing the further history of these great institutions."
M.K. Mani, The Hindu (2019)
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