Dr. Sohrabji Pestonji Shroff (S. P. Shroff / Sorabji P. Shroff)The ophthalmologist who turned a single room into a century of sight In the early years of the twentieth century, when blindness was too often accepted as fate in India, a young Parsi ophthalmologist returned home with a different conviction. Sohrabji Pestonji Shroff began practising […]

Lt. Col. George William Gregory BirdThe British haematologist who gave India its first organised blood bank George William Gregory Bird was born on 7 November 1916. He qualified in medicine in 1941 and almost immediately joined the British Army Medical Corps. During the Second World War he served with Base Transfusion Units in the Middle […]

Dr. Chintaman Govind PanditThe virologist who built the scientific backbone of medical research in free India Chintaman Govind Pandit was born on 25 July 1895. A brilliant student, he graduated in medicine from Grant Medical College, Bombay, and soon left for London on a scholarship. In 1922 he became the first person to receive a […]

Dr. Jacob ChandyThe father of modern neurosurgery in India Jacob Chandy was born on 23 January 1910 in Kottayam, Kerala, into a devout Anglican Syrian Christian family. After graduating in medicine from Madras Medical College in 1936, he worked for a time in Bahrain with the American medical missionary Paul Harrison. It was Harrison who […]

Dr. Khushwant Lal WigThe physician who helped shape medical education at India’s premier institute Khushwant Lal Wig was born on 30 September 1904 in Gujranwala, in the Punjab of British India, into a prosperous family. He studied at the local Mission High School, then at Government College and Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College in Lahore, before graduating […]

Rafiuddin Ahmed was born on 24 December 1890 in Bardhanpara, in the Bengal Presidency of British India. After early education and a period at Aligarh, he made his way to the United States, working his passage across the ocean. In 1915 he graduated as a Doctor of Dental Surgery from the University of Iowa College […]

Mohammad Abdul Hai, known to colleagues and students as Dr. M. A. Hai, was a distinguished physician of Bihar whose career bridged the late colonial period and the early decades of independent India. He held the qualifications of MD, FRCP (Edinburgh) and TDD (Wales), the last reflecting his specialised knowledge of tuberculosis — a disease […]

Brig. Santosh Kumar MazumdarThe father of nuclear medicine in India Santosh Kumar Mazumdar was born on 1 September 1920 in Dinajpur, North Bengal (now in Bangladesh). His father, Dr. S. N. Mazumdar, was one of the founder members of the Patna Medical Association. Young Santosh first earned a first-class B.Sc. (Honours) in Physics from Patna […]

Dr. Bhalchandra Babaji DikshitThe first Director of AIIMS who built a temple of medical excellence Bhalchandra Babaji Dikshit was born on 7 September 1902 in Amravati into a family of distinguished lawyers. He broke with family tradition and chose medicine. In 1925 he graduated MBBS from Grant Medical College, Bombay. He followed this with a […]

Pandit Shiv SharmaThe Ayurvedic physician who carried classical wisdom into the modern age Pandit Shiv Sharma was born into a family steeped in traditional learning. He trained as an Ayurvedic physician and rose to become one of the most respected voices for classical Indian medicine in the mid-twentieth century. Before Partition he served as Professor […]

Dr. Dwijendra Nath MukerjeeThe quiet physician of Bengal whose lifelong service earned the nation’s honour Dwijendra Nath Mukerjee belonged to the generation of doctors who practised medicine in West Bengal through the turbulent decades of Independence and its aftermath. He devoted his professional life to the care of patients in a state still recovering from […]

Hakim Abdul Hameed was born on 14 September 1908 in Delhi, the elder son of Hakim Hafiz Abdul Majeed, who had founded the Hamdard Dawakhana in 1906. The name Hamdard — “one who shares the pain” — became the guiding principle of his life. After completing his studies at Tibbia College, Delhi, in 1930, he […]

Dr. Puliyur Krishnaswamy DuraiswamiThe pioneering orthopaedic surgeon who built the foundations of modern bone and joint surgery in India Puliyur Krishnaswamy Duraiswami was born on 23 April 1912 in the village of Puliyur in Tamil Nadu. Though he first studied mathematics, he soon turned to medicine and graduated MBBS from the University of Madras in […]

Dr. Jerusha JhiradThe pioneering obstetrician who realised a childhood dream and transformed women’s health in India Jerusha Jacob Jhirad was born on 21 March 1891 in Shivamogga, Karnataka, into the Bene Israel Jewish community. As a child of eleven she watched her sister recover from a serious illness under the care of a woman doctor […]

Dr. Ernest Joachim Joseph BorgesThe pioneering cancer surgeon who gave hope when few dared to operate Ernest Joachim Joseph Borges was born in 1909 in Bombay into a Goan family with roots in Ucassaim. He studied at St. Xavier’s and graduated from Grant Medical College, later earning his MS from the University of Bombay with […]

Dr. Dharmendra was born on 1 February 1900 in Lahore, in what is now Pakistan. As a medical student at King Edward Medical College he interrupted his studies for two years to join the non-cooperation movement after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, answering Mahatma Gandhi’s call. He graduated MBBS in 1928 and later obtained a Diploma […]

Dr. Robert Brocklesby DavisThe British-born psychiatrist who made Ranchi a centre of modern mental health care in India Robert Brocklesby Davis was born on 27 December 1911 in Amritsar, Punjab, to missionary parents. He was educated in England, studied medicine at Cambridge and the London Hospital, and qualified in 1936. Drawn back to the land […]

Dr. Sivaramakrishna Iyer PadmavatiIndia’s first woman cardiologist and the “Godmother of Cardiology” Sivaramakrishna Iyer Padmavati was born on 20 June 1917 in Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma, into a Tamil family; her father was a barrister. She became the first woman to graduate MBBS from Rangoon Medical College. When Japan invaded Burma in 1942 she fled […]

Tulsi Das was born on 1 October 1901. He began his medical career in 1927 in the Provincial Civil Medical Service of Punjab. In 1939 he obtained the FRCS from Edinburgh and the DOMS from London, specialising in ophthalmology while remaining equally skilled in otorhinolaryngology. He joined the Medical School at Amritsar as a lecturer […]

Cheruvari Kottieth Lakshmanan was born on 5 April 1898 in Kannur, Kerala, into the Cheruvari Kottieth family. An outstanding all-round sportsman, he excelled in athletics, cricket and tennis. In 1924 he won gold in the 120-yard hurdles at the first All-India Olympic Games in Delhi and went on to represent India at the Paris Olympics […]

Amar Prasad Ray was born on 26 February 1913 in Kolkata into a zamindar family with roots in Hooghly district, West Bengal. He studied at the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Seminary in Patna and took his intermediate science at Patna Science College before graduating MBBS with distinction from the Prince of Wales Medical College under […]

Natteri Veeraraghavan was born on 1 November 1913 in Parangipettai, Tamil Nadu, to Natteri Venkatesa Iyer and Balambal. He graduated in medicine from Andhra University in 1936, topping his class, and completed a DSc in microbiology from the same university in 1944. In 1937 he joined the Pasteur Institute of India at Coonoor as a […]

Edith Helen Paull was born on 14 January 1902 in Chunar, in what is now Uttar Pradesh. She trained in nursing at Bedford College, London, on a Florence Nightingale scholarship and returned to India to begin her career in 1928. Over the following decades she served as Nursing Matron at some of the country’s leading […]

Jyotish Chandra Ray was born on 20 April 1899 in Narottampur, in the Bakarganj district of undivided Bengal (now in Bangladesh). The son of Bardakanta Ray, he showed early promise in science and went on to pursue advanced studies in Europe. In Berlin, under the guidance of Professor Martin Hahn, he conducted pioneering research on […]

Mambillikalathil Govind Kumar Menon — known to friends and colleagues as Goku or M.G.K. Menon — was born on 28 August 1928 in Mangalore into a distinguished Malayali family. His father, Justice Sankara Menon, and mother, Narayanikutty Amma, gave him a strong foundation of learning and public service. He took his BSc from Jaswant College, […]

Murugappa Channaveerappa Modi — better known as M. C. Modi — was born on 4 October 1916 in Bilagi, in what is now Bagalkot district of Karnataka. Inspired by a speech of Mahatma Gandhi, the young medical student resolved to take eye care to the poorest and remotest parts of the country. He began holding […]

In the dusty lanes of Jabalpur, on a sweltering August day in 1912, a boy was born into a well-to-do Maharashtrian family. Krishnaji Hari Datey, a practical engineer with ink-stained fingers and a head full of bridges and blueprints, looked down at his newborn son and smiled. “Annapurna,” he said to his wife, “this one […]

In the bustling lanes of Calcutta, on a cool December morning in 1915, a boy named Prafulla Kumar Sen entered the world. The only son of a civil servant in a middle-class Bengali family, he grew up with one sister and the quiet expectation that he would make something meaningful of his life. His father, […]

In the quiet village of Gabat in North Gujarat, on a warm July day in 1914, a boy named Vallabhdas Vithaldas Shah was born into a family of modest means and steady ambition. His father, Vithaldas Bechardas Shah, and mother, Muriben, came from lineages of businessmen—men who understood the value of hard work, careful calculation, […]

In the early decades of independent India, when the young nation was still finding its feet and its future, a man in uniform walked the corridors of public health with the quiet determination of a soldier and the gentle hands of a healer. His name was Bishen Lal Raina—Colonel Bishen Lal Raina to those who […]

In the bustling streets of Lahore in September 1917, a boy was born into a world already marked by loss. His father, Visheshar Das Anand, had passed away before little Bal Krishan ever opened his eyes. Raised by his mother Saraswati Devi with the quiet support of grandparents who themselves struggled, the child grew up […]

In the narrow lanes of old Delhi near Turkman Gate, on 25 September 1912, a boy named Krishna Gopal Saxena was born into a middle-class Kayastha family. His father, a soldier and a firm believer in homoeopathy, often spoke of the gentle power of small doses. “Beta,” he would say, holding a tiny vial, “the […]

In the fields and towns of Haryana in the early decades of the twentieth century, a young man named Nand Kishore Verma grew up watching the simple rhythms of rural life. He saw mothers walk miles for a doctor’s advice, fathers worried about fever in their children, and communities that depended on whatever healing knowledge […]