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Midst medical heritage
S. MUTHIAH
`The Red Fort', the most striking of all buildings of the Madras Medical College. Pic by Vino John
REQUESTED TO write a brief history of medicare in Tamil Nadu for a convention of doctors who had graduated from medical colleges in the State and who were now settled in the U.S., I found myself recently in little known terrain, the Government General Hospital and Madras Medical College campus. With only a couple of visits in the past, and those only to the College's Seminar Hall and the Library, I was delighted to be given the Cook's Tour by another heritage buff, P. S. Venkateswaran, Professor of Surgery. But before we set off on a long morning's walk, he had a couple of treasures to show me.
He'd found them tossed away in a locked room, he told me, as he exhibited the complete, once-bound sets of Lancet for 1835 and 1836. Now he was looking for someone to preserve and re-bind the two volumes — and several others of 19th Century vintage that the college has. This British Medical Association fount of knowledge for generations of doctors is not the only wealth of the gloomy library of the college. I couldn't help wondering about all the books "for disposal" that I found stacked any-which-way in cupboards lining the corridors. Hopefully, someone bent on preservation, like my guide, will get to them one day.
Midst the two new blocks that will, when opened, house 1,400 beds, and several old blocks dating to between 1928 and 1934 (the latter date when many a building was inaugurated by Governor Stanley) is the Superintendent's office.
This small building of around the same period has several plaques marking early dates in the history of the peregrinating hospital. But it also has a plaque I'd never heard of before, commemorating Dr. Md. Habibullah, the Resident Medical Officer (Administrator) who in 1947 was murdered in his office! His discovery of shortages in the kitchen stores led to his killing by the cooks, I was told. I had hoped there would be another plaque here marking a happier occasion, the discovery by Major C. Donovan in 1904 of the organism that caused Kala Azar. But that plaque seems to have vanished from the hospital, perhaps powdered by the wreckers who pulled down the old main block last year for the new ones coming up. What a tragedy, for that plaque marked the greatest discovery made in the Madras hospital.
Elsewhere, the Seminar Hall still retains its pillars and the 1835 date marking the opening of the Madras Medical School, but its interior could have done with professional conservationists and not PWD patchwork artists. It would be nice if the alumni of the college — most of whom have done extremely well at home and abroad — would get together and raise funds to professionally restore this hall, the most striking of all buildings, the `Red Fort,' and, between them, a building where one curved wing houses `Zero Hall.' Now languishing in disuse, and the other, the Dean's office with its rich old furniture.
What a splendid building the Anatomy Block — better known as the `Red Fort' — is. Dates on the iron pillars and girders on its two floors indicate a 1906 vintage. Each floor has a large open `lab' on one side and, on the other, a theatre-style classroom, its benches reaching up to almost the high ceiling. Each solidly built bench for three or four students, with an equally solid `table' that can be flipped over, cries for repairs and polishing. But in my mind's eye, I can see what an impressive classroom it must have been in the 1900s. It still draws your attention; would that it draws others' who could make it impressive again.
But as I wandered around thinking about heritage, I couldn't help but notice the present. Whitewash, paint and polish would do wonders for every building. A bit of Exnora type cleaning would help the road space considerably. But most of all, the direst need is redoing all the roads — may be even with cement.
The sorry state they are in, pitted and potted and with crumbled edges, permits the accumulation of so much dust that you have to shield your nose. That dust probably makes every patient sticker than he or she is. Surely something can be done about that without too much effort!
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
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Kochi
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Visakhapatnam
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