THE MALAYALAM BIBLE WAS MADE BY HINDUS

In the end, Menon became a Christian

In an era when the Christians in Kerala lacked literary scholarship, two Hindus, with the help of a Jewish scholar, did the first translation of the Bible into Malayalam. The Hindus were Palakad Ottappalam Chunangat Chathu Menon, a Malayalam scholar and Vaidyanatha Iyer, a Tamil/Sanskrit scholar. The Jew was Hebrew scholar Moses ben David Sarphati.

Even the first incomplete translation of the Bible into Malayalam, which is called the Ramban Bible, was done by a Hindu Tamil scholar, Thimmappa Pillai, which had a heavy dose of Tamil.

The details of the translation have been described in my Malayalam novel, Papasananam, based on the life of Rev Jacob Ramavarma, an associate of Herman Gundert, who got converted to Christianity.Ramavarma was the son of the Kochi King,Veera Keralavarma.Chathu Menon, after the translation, became a Christian, like Joseph Fenn. He took the name from Rev Joseph Fenn, the first principal of the  Syrian College (old seminary), Kottayam.

Ramban Bible

During an identity crisis in his life, Jacob Ramavarma met Chathu Menon, who had become Joseph Fenn by that time, working as a Munsif at Kochi. Till then, Jacob Ramavarma records in his autobiography, that he had never known praying with heart. Since he was not satisfied with rendering the prayers in the ordinary books, he spoke to his friend  Joseph Fenn, seeking a better book. He told Jacob that God looks not at the book but at a person's heart." only a man is responsible for his own actions", Joseph Fenn told Jacob Ramavarma. He began following this advice, seeking happiness.

This Joseph Fenn should not be confused with Joseph Fenn (1790-1878)  a lawyer turned missionary who resigned from Lincon's Inn, London to reach Kottayam in Travancore, in 1818. Travancore Dewan John Munro had asked him and Rev Thomas Norton to work in Travancore. Benjamin Bailey too came the same year.

Jacob's friend Joseph Fenn was Ottapalam Chunangat Chathu Menon, who had joined Benjamin Bailey, with Moses and Vaidyanatha Iyer in the translation of the Bible into Malayalam in 1817. During translation, Chathu Menon and his sons, Padmanabha Menon and Govindan Kutty Menon embraced Christianity, and Menon got acres of land in Vazhoor, Kottayam, and the home he built is still there at Kodungoor junction. Padmanabhan became Bailey Fenn and Govindankutty, Baker Fenn. Those names were a combination of the three missionary names, Benjamin Bailey, Henry Baker and Joseph Fenn.

Page from Book of Psalms, printed in 1938, Kottayam

Chathu Menon (1778-1837)  was born in Chunangat (a known Hindu family) in the Ottapalam village of British Malabar. He lost his mother when he was very young and was brought up by his Uncle who taught him martial arts. At age 15, he quarrelled with his uncle, left home, joined a survey team at Ottapalam and moved to Madras. The leader of the team helped him to continue his education and became an employee of the Madras Revenue Department, in 1800. Later, he became a tutor of the Travancore Dewan Ottapalam Ankarath Raman Menon, with whose help, he became the Tahsildar of Chengannur. He was a tutor of two princes too. Menon married Parvathiamma of Pulivelil House in Aala, a village near Chengannur Town.

Menon was an expert in Malayalam, English and Sanskrit. He was appointed as Tahsildar of Kottayam in 1816-1817. While he was working in this capacity, he became a friend of the Church Mission Society (CMS) missionary, Rev. Benjamin Bailey. Bailey was in need of a person like Menon to help him translate the Bible from English to Malayalam. Moved by Bailey’s request, Menon took leave from the Travancore Government Service and joined back after two years, completing the translation work in 1819. Dewan Munro gave Menon leave to do the work.

Transformation

The Bible translation transformed his life. He continued to stay in Kottayam for a few years. In 1830 he had confidential discussions with Archdeacon Robinson When he visited Kottayam Syrian College (old seminary) and he accepted Jesus as his personal Saviour. He gave his wife, two sons and four daughters the freedom to choose their religion. He offered them all the wealth he had acquired by then. Joseph Fenn, Principal of the College was the main stimulus for this conversion. On 2 November 1831, he was baptized in the Anglican Church in Calicut by Arch Deacon Robinson and was given the name Joseph Fenn. 

Later members of his family were also baptized. Menon had to resign from his government job as Travancore Rules dictated that “non-Hindus were not allowed to hold the post of Tahsildar.” However, he joined the British Government Service and worked as a Salt Peshkar in Ponnani, Record Keeper in Calicut; and later  District Munsif in Cochin. He passed away in 1837, at the age of 57, and was buried in St. Francis Anglican Church, Cochin. 

His descendants live on in Kerala today as Fenns.

Original Joseph Fenn

Both Rev. Joseph Fenn - the principal of the College at Kottayam - and Benjamin Bailey of the CMS Mission School next door, were in need of a Malayalam translator and Menon's talents were well known. Fenn wanted him to translate Latin Grammar into Malayalam and Bailey needed him to help him translate the Bible from English to Malayalam.

Several attempts at a Malayalam version of the Bible had already been made by Syrian Catanars when Scottish theologian Dr Claudius Buchannan - the chaplain of the East India Company - visited in the early 1800s. He suggested to Syrian bishop Mar Dionysius that another concerted attempt be made and upon his return in 1807 was delighted to find that new translations had been made of the four Gospels and the book of Acts. The translations were done by Tamil scholar Thimmappa Pillai and Philipose Ramban, a scholar from Kayamkulam, assisted by eight Tamil pandits and eight Suriyani pundits using the Tamul version of Fabricius.

It was then printed at Courier Press in Bombay in 1811. [The Bible of Every Land. London, 1848, page 124-5]. The Bombay Courier was an English-language newspaper, first printed in 1790 in Bombay, by William Ashburner. It followed the Bombay Herald, founded in 1789, and succeeded the Bombay Gazette, founded in 1791. In 1847, it merged with the Bombay Telegraph to form the Telegraph and Courier. Timmappah Pillai went to Bombay, where a font of Malayalam type had been cast, and he supervised the printing.

It was found to abound with words familiar to the Syrian Christians but almost unintelligible to other classes of the Malayalam population. Timapah Pillay was asked to make an entirely new translation without delay, however, it too was an unreliable mixture of Malayalam and Tamil - and was also unsuitable for the missionaries. It was - in the words of the British Resident Colonel Munro - "to be so very bad in every respect; in fidelity, meaning and language as to be unfit for use" [Proceedings of the CMS, V20, 1820, p170]. Munro also said that "Mr Bailey is obliged to make a complete version of the whole" [op cit].

Faced with this request, Fenn and Bailey approached Chathu in 1819 and he took two-year's leave from the Travancore Government Service to assist with translation. Bailey also sought the help of Moses Sarphati, a Hebrew scholar, and Vaidyanatha Iyer, a Sanskrit pandit. 

Ramban Bible Copy

Historian and Biblical scholar Stephen Neill says of the process that neither a Malayalam grammar nor dictionary was available to the translators and they were unaware of the contributions of the Roman Catholics in this area [Neill, 2002, History of Christianity in India: 1707-1858, p243]. As well there was no standard prose so the question of what sort of Malayalam should the Bible script be translated into was hard to resolve. Nevertheless, The Gospel of Mathew was printed at CMS press in 1819, Â New Testament in 1825 and the full Bible in 1841. 

Neill criticised the text for being too close to the original Greek" thus distorting the Malayalam idiom"; and "an excess of Sanskrit words made it difficult for the less learned Christian to read" [op cit]. Criticisms aside, it was a major achievement for the missionaries of Travancore. Menon's translation of the Bible was well received. Rev Francis Spring - chaplain at Tellicherry - had also made a complete revision of the Bible using the Sanscrit New Testament supplemented by the Greek text and various critical works. It was designed to be acceptable to the people of Malabar (to the north of Travancore). Fenn said (in a letter to Rev. Josiah Pratt of the CMS - dated 20 January 1825) regarding the Spring translation of the Bible "I greatly prefer Mr Bailey's", and "Mr Bailey's translation seems to be much more correct and faithful version".

Menon translated “Town Clerk" as  “Pattana Menavan” (Malayalam Bible Acts 19:35). Menon is a sub-sect of Nairs-they were doing clerical jobs.

It is often wondered why Chathu Menon adopted Joseph Fenn's name when it is believed that his major task was working with Rev. Bailey on the Bible translation. He worked equally hard helping Rev. Fenn and it would seem that Fenn inspired him. For example, on November 30, 1821, in a letter to the Secretary of the CMS in London, Rev. Fenn wrote that "after tea, translated with Chattoo Menon some of the Latin rules of Syntax".

                Fenn's diary for February 13, 1821, shows that he was helped by "Chattoo" Menon

Fenn also commented in his Annual Report on the College, (Cotyam, Sept 23, 1822) that "In translating, Chathu Menon is my mainstay, indeed, I ought to say that he is the translator". But not only did Chathu translate English medium texts into Malayalam, but also Sanskrit: in 1821, at the request of  Bailey, he translated the Hindu Upanishad scriptures Ishapanishad and Kena Upanishad.

The Bible translation transformed Menon's life and he accepted Christianity [Neill, 2002, History of Christianity in India: 1707-1858, p 243, note 27]. In Malayalam poetical works, he became well known through a controversial poem, Ajnana Kudaram ( "An Axe to Cut Down Ignorance" ) wherein he severely criticised some of the social superstitions that prevailed in those days. It was in the Malayalam poetical form of Kilippat. The author's name in the book was യൗസെഫ ഫെൻ, Yousefa Fenn.

He passed away in 1837, at the age of 57, and was buried in St. Andrews Anglican Church, Cochin. His descendants live in Kerala. One of them, Rev. Baker Ninan Fenn was consecrated as the eighth bishop of the North Kerala Diocese of the Church of South India in June 2013.

The children of Chathu Menon were: Govindankutty (Bailey Fenn), Born 1825, Died 1864; Kalyani (Elizabeth Fenn), Born 1829, Died 1901 married to Mathai, Konnayil, Pallam, Kottayam, Karthyayani C. (Sarah Fenn), Born 1823, Died 1877; Lekshmi (Maria Fenn), Born 1821, Died 1899, married Modayil Koipurath Oommen; Padmanabhan (Baker Fenn Sr.), Born 1818, Died 1846; Parvathy (Teresa Fenn), Born 1827, Died 1868.

Literary works

His poem, Ajnaana Kudaram written in 1835, is based on his religious search for salvation. It describes the socio-cultural background that inspired his conversion. The hero compares various religions and finds solace in Christianity. Literary critics like M Leelavathy, who wrote The History of Malayalam Poetry, have totally ignored this poetical work. But Ullur S Prameswara Iyer who wrote the History of Malayalam Literature and P Govinda Pillai, a linguistic historian were generous enough to mention it. Ponjikara Rafi wrote an article on the poem, titled, Anjana Kudaram Enna Kavithayum Balakar Enna Sankalpavum. He has pointed out that the imagery of the axe of folly is the axe of Parasurama. The caste system is the axe of ignorance in Kerala. But this interpretation seems to be incorrect since the title of the poem, as written in Fenn's book is,

Ajnana Kutharam
or
An Axe to cut down Ignorance
by
The Late Joseph Fenn
Munsiff - British Cochin

It is evident that the imagery is not of an axe of folly, but an axe to cut down ignorance. Syrian College Published it in 1876 and Malayalam Religious Tract Society in 1905 from Kottayam. Ullur has pointed out that the poem does criticise Hindu superstitions. Joseph Fenn laments:

"മൂശാരി വാര്‍ത്ത തിടമ്പമ്പലം തന്നില്‍
ഘോഷിച്ചുവച്ചു പൂജിക്കുന്നതു നേരം
ദോഷമുണ്ടാം വിപ്രനെന്നിയേ തൊട്ടീടില്‍
ദോഷമില്ലായതുടഞ്ഞിതെന്നാകിലോ
മൂശാരി തൊട്ടു കുറകള്‍ തീര്‍ത്തീടുന്നു;
മൂശയ്ക്കകത്തിട്ട് വാര്‍പ്പതവനല്ലോ.."

(The idol in the temple is made by an untouchable 

If it breaks by the touch of the Brahmin 

The untouchable will have  to repair

The untouchable is the creator...)

The poem in five parts definitely shows Fenn's scholarship in Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. It has everything from Dasavathara myth, Puri Jagannatha, and Vedanta to Nabi and Tipu Sultan.

A philosophical verse from it:

'ചിത്തമേകാഗ്രമായ് നിന്നിതെന്നാകിലോ
സത്വരം ജ്ഞാനാഗ്‌നി തന്നില്‍ ദുരിതങ്ങള്‍
കത്തിയെരിഞ്ഞുപോം, കൈത്തിരികൊണ്ടൊരു
പത്തനമെല്ലാം ദഹിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ..'

(If your mind is steady and 

If you have the inner fire of wisdom
The agony will get destroyed
Like a town in flames)

It ends in the spiritual vaccum of the untouchables:

പണ്ടൊരു ശൂദ്രന്‍ തന്നുടെ പാപം 

കണ്ടു ഭയം പൂണ്ടങ്ങകതണ്ടില്‍
തെണ്ടിനശോകാന്‍ അന്തണമേകം 

കണ്ടു വണങ്ങിക്കൊണ്ടുര ചെയ്താന്‍
'ഇണ്ടലകരുവതിന്‍ വഴിയെന്യേ 

കുണ്ഠിതരായതി പാപസമേതം
മണ്ടിയുഴന്ന് നടപ്പിതു ശൂദ്രര്‍ 

കണ്ടീലവര്‍കള്‍ക്കില്ലുപദേശം
വേദവുമില്ല ശാസ്ത്രവുമില്ല 

വേദിയരെന്യേ ശരണം നാസ്തി.
പൂജ പുനസ്കാരങ്ങളുമില്ലാ 

പൂതതയില്ലാമനസ്സിന്നേതും
മന്ത്രവുമില്ലാ തന്ത്രവുമില്ലാ 

സന്ധ്യയിലൂക്കയുമില്ലാ ശൂദ്രന്‍
ഹന്ത! നിനച്ചാലെന്തവനുള്ളു 

അന്തകനെത്തുമ്പോള്‍ ഹാഹാഹാ

(The Sudras have neither Veda, Sasthra
Nor Poojas,Mantra and Tantra
They don't have Lukose at twilight and salvation
Who will rescue them at the hour of death?)

There is a tinge of Kunchan Nambiar here. Rev Henry Baker in a letter in 1840 has recorded that this poem was very popular then. But since it had a missionary zeal, Chattampi Swamikal (1853-1924) attacked the poem vehemently in his Christhu Mathachedhanam (A Critique of Christianity). He remarked:

"By publishing heretical books like Anjanakudaram, the missionaries are trying to convert ignorant Hindus like Pulayas, Channars, and Parayas by offering them cap and dress and thereby leading them to hell."

Story of the Jew

Now, the untold story of the Cochin Jew, who assisted in the Bible translation-Moses ben David Sarphati, the Hebrew professor of Kottayam Syrian College.

The surname Sarphati is believed to have its origin in France as the word SARPAT is the Hebrew word for France. According to history, this family came to Cochin in the 17th century. They are professional writers and are seen in communal agreements of the Cochin Jewish community.

Moses ben David Sarphati was a liberally-minded Jew, who is mentioned in many missionary records for his kindness and generosity. He was one of the linguists who helped Benjamin Bailey with the Hebrew language in his complete translations of the Old Testament Bible.

He was the Hebrew Professor of the Kottayam CMS, and many of the Malpans (the Syriac word "Malpan" means teacher. Elderly Christian priests who used to teach and train candidates for the priesthood were usually referred to as Malpans) were practising Hebrew lessons under him. Thus he was a teacher to the teachers. Sarphati was a skilled Sofer (Hebrew scribe) and he is also considered a local historian. His Hebrew history record of Cochin Jews dated 1874, (which is a collection containing various records/data of an early date of 1663 to his time) is mentioned by David Solomon, in his Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscript catalogue book "Ohel David".

Sarphati's influence is seen in the different stages of publishing Bailey's Malayalam bible, as the primary stage was started by publishing Psalms, followed by the 5 Books of Moses which are of high importance in Judaism. Finally, the entire book was published in 1841-42.

Cochin Jews held many translated biblical manuscripts owned by different people. These clusters of Malayalam translations would have been an aid for Bailey's translations, few among the recorded Malayalam translations are mentioned in Ohel David, some with the name of the scribes and owners too.

Buchanan enters

The visit of Dr Claudius Buchanan, who was the vice-principal and chaplain of Fort William College, Calcutta in 1806, was the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the Christian community. On reaching Kandanad, he held discussions with the Bishop there and sought his opinion on translating the Bible to Malayalam and also on opening regional schools. With the permission of the Bishop, Buchanan apprised the British Resident Col.Colin Macaulay of the details of his interaction with the Bishop and they together visited the northern parts of Travancore and Kochi. A copy of the Bible written on parchment in Syriac was presented to Buchanan by Mar Dionysius, who was the sixth Mar Thoma at Angamaly. This was printed by the Bible Society and its copies were distributed in the churches in Malabar (Logan, William, Malabar Manual). The copy presented to Buchanan is now kept at the Cambridge Library.

 The Church in Kerala is indebted to these great Hindus who translated the Bible.

Buchanan

The translated Bible contains the Old Testament and the New Testament. A collection of the works existing in Israel before the arrival of Christ constitutes the Old Testament. The collection of holy books that originated after the arrival of Christ and was written by the Apostles and his other disciples is known as the New Testament. From time immemorial, all such works were translated into different languages. Buchanan, who took up the translation initiative, translated New Testament from Syriac to Malayalam under the tutelage of Philipose Ramban, a native of Kayamkulam, with the help of Pulikkottil Thomas Ramban and Thimmappa Pillai. This is the first Bible in Malayalam and it was distributed in churches in 1815. 

Buchanan, a friend of William Carrey persuaded church leaders to translate biblical manuscripts into Malayalam and guided local scholars. At that time, Syriac was the liturgical language of Christians in Kerala. By 1807, Ittoop and Ramban—both Malankara Syrian Christian monks—had translated the four gospels from Syriac into Malayalam, assisted by Thimmappa Pillai. They then translated the Tamil version by Johann Philipp Fabricius into Malayalam. The Bible Society of India paid for 500 copies to be printed in Bombay in 1811. Timmappa completed the translation of the New Testament in 1813, but this edition too was found to include vocabulary known only to the Syriac Christian community and not to the general Malayalee population. This translation is now known as the Ramban Bible.

Bailey, who learnt Malayalam, Sanskrit, and Syriac, set up the CMS Press at Kottayam in 1821. He himself carved out wooden Malayalam scripts for the first time to print the Bible. Both the Malayalam-English Dictionary and the English-Malayalam Dictionary were published in 1846 and were printed at the CMS Press.

It was in 1817, that the Church Missionary Society of India provided Benjamin Bailey to translate the Bible into Malayalam. He completed his translation of the New Testament in 1829 and the Old Testament in 1841. Hermann Gundert updated Bailey's version and produced the first Malayalam-English dictionary in 1872. 

Benjamin Bailey

Rev Francis Spring, a Chaplain of the British East India Company, who was based at Thalasserry, had translated the Bible from Sanskrit to Malayalam with the help of regional language scholars by 1822. The Sanskrit translation of the Bible had already partially taken shape as far as 1808 and the full version appeared ten years later. But Spring’s translation into Malayalam never saw the light of day. 

Spring was part of the team that established the first school in Pallikkunnu, Thalassery on 25 June 1817, along with Parson John Laverock Oakes, Edbert (Canara), and the Magistrate Thomas Harvey Baber. The first schoolmaster was a Portuguese called John Baptist or Baptiste, a “native catechist,” who had four native assistants. Spring left for England in 1824. It was taken over by the CMS that year. In 1824, it contained 59 children of various castes and classes. Spring was able to take over control of the school to a greater extent in the years after 1820; it began to try to convert pupils to Christianity. John L. Oakes who was Master Attendant at Thalassery, died in about 1819, leaving 20,000 Rupees of his own fortune for the relief of the poor of Thalassery.

Spring wrote about Thalassery:

“Something is almost daily occurring to animate us in our course. Here, flashes of heavenly light are continually gleaming through the darkening atmosphere. I hear that there is, on every side, a readiness amongst great numbers to receive the tidings of the Gospel.”

A hospital in Thalassery was opened in 1819, which grew out of Oakes' work.

It was again Bailey whose Malayalam translation of the New Testament was officially published by the Madras Auxiliary of the Bible Society in 1835. The revised version of this Bible was published in 1859. It is also said that the first CMS Missionary named Thomas Norton prepared a translation of the Book of Psalms in 1837 but nothing further is known about it. The Basal Evangelical Lutheran Mission published a new translation of the New Testament from Thalasserry. Hermann Gundert, the renowned grammarian and polyglot, was the translator of this version.

Bailey's Press at CMS Press, Kottayam

 In 1871, the Madras Auxiliary of the Bible Society appointed a committee to prepare a translation which could be used in Travancore as well as in Kochi and Malabar. The committee was formed having representatives from CMS, LMS, Basal Mission and the Syrian Church. The committee first prepared the translation of the New Testament. It was based on a Greek source. The committee referred German translation of Luther and Sterrin, the new Tamil translation, Bailey’s Malayalam translation and Samuel Lee’s Syriac Bible. Dr Gundert’s translation was taken as the model translation. Gospels and other parts of the Bible were revised occasionally. The New Testament was launched in 1880. 

Dr Gundert once settled down in Germany after retiring from the service in India in 1859 and translated poetry (Wisdom Literature) and Books of Prophets. Poetry was published in 1881 and Books of Prophets in 1888. Besides the above translations, however, the committee appointed by the Bible Society in 1871, published in 1910, the complete Bible in Malayalam known as “Sathyavedapusthakam” which was generally acceptable to the Malayalam-speaking world. This translation is similar in style to the new testament of the Bible Society and also includes the revisions made by Bailey in his translation in the light of the English revised version. 

However, the Satyavedapusthakam cannot be claimed as a complete translation of the Bible since some portions found elsewhere are not to be found in it. For instance, the portion of Apocrypha though included in the other translations of the Bible is not found in this Bible. It could not gain popularity as other translations. One of the main reasons for this may be the language used in the translation. It was mainly used by the laity of some of the Christian denominations such as the Jacobites, even now. So it could not gain popularity as the other translations of the Bible. Even now its use is limited and confined to a small segment of the Christian community More contemporary translations of the Bible, found to be very popular among Malayalis are those brought out by Oshana and Pastoral Orientation Centre. 

Destruction

Now the story of the destruction of a library in Kerala.

Buchanan Bible at Cambridge

In the vaults of the Cambridge University library in England lies one of the most important relics of Christianity in India. It is the only surviving copy of the Buchanan Bible. The first-ever book to be translated and printed in Malayalam. Sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries, in the remote region of Tur Abdin, on the border of Turkey and Syria, someone prepared a copy of the Syriac Bible and dispatched it to India. It came into the possession of the Jacobite Church. The Portuguese were determined to convert them, and it would make a sinister turn when Aleixo de Menezes became Arch Bishop of Goa in 1559. In June 1599 he convened the Diamper Synod (Udayamperur) in Cochin.

The clerics of the Syrian Church were advised to bring their religious texts to correct the errors in their Bible. All the copies of the Syrian  Bible were declared heretical and ordered to be burnt. Before the Church had time to react, they were destroyed. This was followed by the destruction of the huge library of the Syrian Church at Angamaly. Only a single copy of the Syriac Bible survived in a remote church in central Malabar. In 1807 when Buchanan was in Kerala, Mar Dionysius showed this copy to him. The Church gifted it to Buchanan. He donated it to the University of Cambridge in 1809.

Codex Vaticanus

Syrian Orthodox Church, which follows the Patriarch of Antioch in Syria, follows its own version of the Bible known as the Peshitta Bible which was compiled at the end of the 3rd century CE. Peshitta means, straight or simple. It was written in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of Jesus.

Roman Catholic Church uses the Vulgate Bible, translated by St Jerome in 382 CE, from Hebrew to Latin. Vulgate means common. The oldest surviving copies of the Bible are the Codus Vaticanus (300-325 CE) in the Vatican Library and Codex Sinaiticus (300-360 CE) in the British Museum.

The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century.

The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The codex's relationship to the Latin Vulgate was unclear and scholars were initially unaware of its value. This changed in the 19th century when transcriptions of the full codex were completed. It was at that point that scholars realised the text differed significantly from the Textus Receptus.

Most current scholars consider the Codex Vaticanus to be one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament, with the Codex Sinaiticus as its only competitor. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus was unrivalled. It was extensively used by Westcott and Hort in their edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus. Codex Vaticanus is regarded as "the oldest extant copy of the Bible".

The Textus Receptus (Latin: "received text") is an edition of the Greek texts of the New Testament established by Erasmus in the 16th century. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denominations.

The biblical Textus Receptus constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, the Spanish Reina-Valera translation, the Czech Bible of Kralice, and most Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western and Central Europe. The text originated with the first printed Greek New Testament, published in 1516, a work undertaken in Basel by the Dutch Catholic scholar, priest and monk Desiderius Erasmus.

© Ramachandran 

 

NOTHING IS LEFT IN THE KERALA HEALTH MODEL

Kerala Sold Health Care to Corporates

With the handling of Covid-19 in a revolutionary manner, Kerala, a tiny state in South India is at the forefront of the struggle against the fight and has earned global attention. The Economist, where my son is a journalist, in an article remarked that if Vasco da Gama is to arrive in Kerala now, he will not seek the spices, instead he will crave human resources.

There is said to be a Kerala model, which economists like Amartya Sen have extolled in their writings, prompted by Dr K N Raj, who was Director, of the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. The Kerala model is one in which a state invests a lot of public money in the fields of health and education to give it free for the people. The left in the state has always tried to take credit for the same; in fact, the left's role in all this is minuscule. So let us delve into the medical history of the state, which was built by human resources, not by the right or left.

When Padmanabhan Palpu, who belonged to the backward Ezhava caste was denied admission to the Travancore Medical College in 1878, he got admission to the Madras Medical College where Dr M C Koman was a Professor. Dr Koman, who again belonged to the backward Dheevara caste from Kannur, later became the Vice Principal there.

Dr M C Koman

Sir MC Koman (1865 - 1925) Civil Surgeon at General Hospital Madras and also Associate Professor at Madras Medical College, submitted a Report on Investigation into Indigenous Drugs 1920, kept in the Asia Pacific section of British Archives. He is the only Knighted doctor from Southern India.

Ayurveda research

On 2 November 1915, A S Krishna Rao proposed a resolution in the Legislative Council of Madras Presidency, that the Madras government "direct a research and investigation of the Ayurvedic system of Medicine, to improve that system."It was passed in 1917, though in a much-revised form, "to direct a research and investigation of the pharmacological action of Indian drugs".The colonial rulers thereby expressed faith in the physical material of India, but not in the knowledge produced and recorded in, as Surgeon General G G Giffard put, it, "unintelligible" Sanskrit writings, a language of "priestly mysticism "and so clearly unsuited for scientific truths. Dr Koman was appointed as Chairman of the committee. The colonial plundering of native material with a rejection of indigenous forms of knowledge was manifested in many realms of activity, and medicine was no exception.

Koman submitted three reports, from 1918 to 1920. He considered a range of ingredients used for indigenous medicines and tested their effects on patients according to the standards of Western science. The Dravida Vaidya Mandal and the Madras Ayurveda Society protested and published a report which said, "the learned doctor had thoroughly failed to understand the indigenous systems and had grievously erred in many vital points."

Koman was initiated into the British Freemasons at the John Miller Lodge in Madras in the year 1898. He became District Grand Master of the District Grand Lodge at Madras in 1902, 1913 and 1914. He was the first Indian Worshipful Brother installed as Supreme ruler in Daman and Pythias Conclave (Primus in India) in 1910. invested with the Collar and Jewel of District Junior Grand Warden in 1918 honoured with Past Assistant Director of Ceremonies in 1923, and a Chair was created in Sir Koman's name at Madras Masonic Institution. He held a toast in a Cake and Wine dinner at the Banqueting Hall in honour of HE the Duke of Connaught in 1921. He was chosen Deputy Grand Master at the District Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons in 1924. the third Indian to serve more than 25 years at John Miller Lodge. On the eve of the opening of Freemasons Hall at Madras in February 1925, Sir Koman's noble soul left its physical Tabernacle and flitted away into the land of peace.

Koman's relative V V Janaki was the first gynaecologist in South India, in 1909.

People like Koman could pursue medicine because people associated with the Thalassery British factory had established a hospital there in 1819. The hospital grew out of Oakes' work.

Rev Francis Spring, the Chaplain at Thalassery factory was part of the team that established the first school in Pallikkunnu, Thalassery on 25 June 1817, along with Parson John Laverock Oakes, Edbert (Canara), and Thomas Harvey Barber. The first schoolmaster was a Portuguese called John Baptist or Bapiste, a “native catechist,” who had four native assistants. Spring left for England in 1824. It was taken over by the CMS that year. In 1824, it contained 59 children of various castes and classes. Spring was able to take over control of the school to a greater extent in the years after 1820; it began to try to convert pupils to Christianity. John L. Oakes who was Master Attendant at Thalassery, died in about 1819, leaving 20,000 Rupees of his own fortune for the relief of the poor of Thalassery.

Palpu, LMS, DPH (Cantab) FRIPH (London) ( 1863 – 1950) was a bacteriologist and is iconic in the annals of medical history of India due to his yeoman service during the plague in the erstwhile Mysore State. Palpu was posted as the first health officer during the plague outbreak. He played a key role in containing the spread in Bangalore. The Maharaja of Mysore later felicitated Palpu for arduous service to the state and he was instrumental in setting up the Victoria Hospital (Bangalore Medical College) in Bangalore.He met Vivekananda in Mysore. It was Vivekananda who told him to find a religious leader in Kerala for its renaissance, and we got Sree Narayana Guru. But Guru's biographer T Bhaskaran denies this.

Dr Palpu

Palpu's brother P Velayudhan was the first Ezhava graduate in Travancore. Palpu was the first LM & S in the state. Palpu passed Matriculation in 1883, a year after the graduation of his brother, and while a student of FA (intermediate) he wrote the entrance exam of the government medical school in 1884 and got the second rank. But he was denied admission by caste Hindus. Over age was given the reason-born in 1863, he was 24 at the time of passing the entrance exam. He reached Madras on 10 October 1885. With the help of his brother who was employed in Madras, he got admission to the course, Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery in the Madras Medical College. Palpu passed in 1889, but his application for a medical post in Travancore was rejected. He joined the Madras government service as vaccine superintendent on a monthly salary of Rs 70.

The government Medical school, started in 1884, where Palpu studied was the forerunner of the later medical college. In 1901 Dr. Percy Turner (Colonel Dayanesan) was appointed as the Physician of Catherine Booth Hospital, Nagercoil. He opened the first private Medical School in Travancore under the approval and funding of the Travancore Government. The medical school lasted only a few years from 1908-1914, but many officers graduated from it. They were Brigadier T. Chacko Joseph and Senior Majors S. Ghanaiah and J. Manuel who were in charge of the branch hospital.

Dr C. O. Karunakaran, a notable bacteriologist and microbiologist, again from the Ezhava community, was the founder of Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram. He was the first principal of the college and was also the Special Officer appointed to establish the first medical university in the erstwhile state of Travancore-Cochin. Born in 1892 at Mavelikkara, C.O. Karunakaran had his initial schooling at Mavelikkara Government High School. After the intermediate in Maharaja's College, Ernakulam he joined Madras Medical College for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.

C O Karunakaran

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Following his study at Madras Medical College, he completed DTMH, DPH and DB from the University of Cambridge and the University of London. He worked for a short period as the Medical Officer of an estate and then as the Health Officer of Thiruvananthapuram. Later he took over as the Superintendent of the Public Health Laboratory near the Civil Hospital (present Trivandrum General Hospital) at Thiruvananthapuram. Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyer realising his abilities, sent him to the United States of America for industrial training. When he returned he improvised the laboratory and in 1948, he was appointed as the Special Officer for establishing the first medical college in the state of Travancore-Cochin at Trivandrum. With his effort the plans for the construction of the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram were finalised in a year and construction of the college was completed in just 16 months, once again proving the mettle of Sir CP.

Family planning

The first call for family planning in India was by Dr. C.O. Karunakaran in his famous Karthikapally speech in 1925. He died on 30 November 1970. In his will, he had stated that no state honours or religious rituals be performed at his funeral. It also stated that the body should not be kept for more than six hours. He was the son of Alumoottil Padeetathil Ummini Kunju Channar and Kunjupennu Channati. His elder brother C.O. Madhavan was the Chief Secretary and Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram city. His younger brother Dr. C.O. Damodaran was the Commissioner of the Kerala Public Service Commission.

I have traced examples from the backward caste to prove the point that casteism was not rampant in the state factor which made progress easier. Hence Narayana Guru said, "It was the British who gave me sannyasa."

Medieval Kerala shows us that ‘practising hygiene’ was imposed as a responsibility and duty of different castes to have proper management of the caste hierarchy and gender-related functions. The pursuit of hygiene had been central to the community formation, purity of the self and community and integrity as well. Development of notions like ‘personal hygiene’, ‘domestic hygiene’, ‘social hygiene’, ‘ritual hygiene’, and ‘caste hygiene’ was maintained by rigid maintenance of the ritual, geographical, legal and actual boundaries in the name of “pulayappedi” and “parayappedi.” Through proper facilitation of ‘self’ and ‘other’ this practice was continued as late as the nineteenth century. Practices like constructing strange notions regarding the functioning of the female body, the biological change, the menstrual cycle and distancing it with ‘purity’, and so on were nurtured by different communities.

Medieval Ayurvedic sources such as Chikitsa Manjari (Manipravala period)48 and Mahasaram (compiled in the 1820s) are compilations of ancient and medieval practices of hygiene and medicine. These texts give us valuable information about the actual Ayurvedic medical practices that prevailed in medieval Kerala. Chikitsa Manjari was originally a Manipravala text which is not available now, but the printed copy of the same is available with many medieval Ayurvedic families such as Mezhathur Vaidya Madom in Thrithala. Ashtanga Hridaya and Ashtanga Sangraha, written by Vagbhatantha (between A.D. seventh and ninth century)49 also give ideas of dosha-based actual practices that were very prominent in the medieval healing practices in Kerala.

The British occupied Malabar in 1792.

Modern medicine in Kochi

Ernakulam General Hospital in the state of Kerala in India, was founded by the King of the Kochi princely state in 1848. The last King of Cochin was known as Parikshit Thampuran (1876-1964). Though his real name was Rama Varma (Kunjunni) Thampuran, he was known as Parikshit because of the travails he had to undergo before his birth. He went through the kind of experiments the Pandava king, Parikshit of Mahabharatha had to undergo before his birth.

Thampuran's mother, Amba/Manku Thampuran was not able to deliver the child even after two days after she started having labour pain. When the Ayurvedic medication by Thycaut Moos and Elamana Krishna Menon, was found fruitless, the family members decided to bring Dr D Gunther, Medical Officer, and father of Robert Gunther, from Ernakulam, and other doctors from the Cochin Fort, to do an operation. Dr Gunther said that they would be able to save either the mother or the child. The family began praying to the presiding deity, Sree Poornathrayeesa. Then, a Kshatriya lady (Nambishtathiri) servant in the Palace who was an expert in the ottamooli (treating with one wonder drug) treatment, came forward and said she would make a try. Dr Gunther grinned; he went to a room and sat there waiting for the tragic end.

The servant searched the Palace compound, made a juice with some medicinal plants, carried it on a wooden plank and entered the Queen's room. Within minutes, the cry of the newborn made the Palace jubilant-the mother had a sudden, easy delivery. Only Dr Gunther was unhappy. T M Chummar, who knew the King very well, records that, it was the famous Vaidya Madom Nambudiri, who experimented with a wonder drug, and it was before the arrival of the doctors.

Parikshit Thampuran with the Jews/Painting in Kochi Synagogue

The first attempt to introduce modern medicine was made in Cochin in 1818 by a missionary, Rev J Dawson, who opened a dispensary in Mattancherry. It received a monthly grant from the government, but it was closed after a couple of years. In 1823, the Civil Surgeon of British Cochin was made ex officio Darbar physician, and a Dresser was attached to the jail at Ernakulam, while the Trichur jail was placed in the charge of the Dresser attached to the British Military detachment there. These three people began to show the advantages of modern medicine and surgery. In 1845, Dewan Sankara Warrier opened the first Government Hospital, the Charity Hospital in Ernakulam, which was developed into the present General Hospital. Just a year before the birth of Parikshit Thampuran, in 1875, a hospital was opened at Thrissur.

Kerala has a long history of organized health care. Before the advent of European medicine, families of practitioners of indigenous systems like Ayurveda handed their traditions from generation to generation. People were accustomed to approaching caregivers when they were sick, rather than turning to self-treatment. When the colonial powers established their presence in the region, they brought their medical system with them. In the 19th century, the princely rulers of the erstwhile states of Travancore and Cochin (which later were integrated into the state of Kerala along with the Malabar district of the Madras presidency in British India) took the initiative in making the Western system of care available to their subjects.

Gowri Laksmi Bayi

Vaccination was introduced in Travancore in 1811. This was the beginning of preventive medicine in the state. There was a lot of resistance from the public to the introduction of Western medicine. The royal family was prompted to act as a role model for popular acceptance. Upon the persuasion of the Resident, members of the royal family underwent smallpox vaccination in 1813, when Col John Munro was Resident and Queen Gowri Laksmi Bayi (1810-1815), mother of Swati Tirunal was Regent. Western medicine was introduced as a preventive care as vaccination against smallpox. Munro was, of course, interested in proselytisation. Maharani Ayilyam Thirunal Gouri Lakshmi Bayi was the Maharani of Travancore from 1810 till 1813 and Regent from 1813 till her death in 1815 for her son Swati Thirunal Rama Varma.

The widespread occurrence of smallpox and continuous pressure from Munro forced the Regent, who was rumoured to have an affair with Munro, to start a smallpox unit with a resident doctor. Munro reported to the Madras government:
"I wrote to her Highness earnestly requesting that she would allow herself to be vaccinated, and I sent a medical gentleman to Thiruvananthapuram to perform the operation. The Rani replied as she formerly had smallpox, it was unnecessary to vaccinate her; if however, I insisted upon her undergoing the operation, she would submit to it on my return to Thiruvananthapuram and in the meantime the doctor might vaccinate..."

In the beginning, only the members of the royal family and the Government officers received the benefits of this method of treatment. With the help of the Durbar physician Dr. Proven, the Maharani established a small section for vaccination in 1813, thus laying the foundation for preventive medicine in the State.

During the reign of the Rani, the attitude which prevailed in the royal family and among the public about socializing with foreigners changed. European doctors were allowed to treat women as members of the royal family. Dr. Proven was the first person appointed as the physician of the royal palace at Quilon (Kollam) and Dr. James Rose was appointed as the deputy physician at the palace. Rani Parvathi Bai (1814 – 1829), established a charity dispensary at Thycaud in 1816 where the jail convicts were treated first.

In Travancore

In 1818, two small dispensaries were opened, one in the palace and the other within the premises of the Nayar Brigade barracks. The Brigade hospital supervised by the Brigade commandant extended medical services to the military. A free dispensary was also opened under the supervision of the military medical officer at Quilon. Rama Varma Swati Thirunal Maharaja (1829 – 1847) established a charitable Hospital at Thykaud under the responsibility of the residency surgeon and provided free medical treatment to the people there.

Cholera started wreaking havoc in Bengal in 1819 and soon spread to Bombay and Bangalore. When it was felt that the disease would soon reach Travancore, the then ruler Regent Queen Maharani Gowri Parvathy Bayi (1815-1829) sought the help of the English East India Company to contain the scourge. Learning that foreign and allopathic doctors were at the forefront of the efforts to control cholera in big cities, she started plans to contain it. There were very few doctors trained in modern medicine in Travancore. Dr William Brown, Dr Gayle and Dr Muthuswamy are among them. Maharani decided to bring preventive English medicine from Madras and distribute it through traditional healers,vaidyans. On the 12th day of the month of Thulam in the Malayalam year 994 (1820), Dewan Janardanarayar Venkittayyar issued a proclamation stating that Allopathy doctors should train traditional healers.

Dr Brown, who was paid Rs 460 by the East India Company, was allotted another Rs 200 as salary to stay in Thiruvananthapuram. Those trained were appointed to the post of Medical pupil.

Dr Brown was the son of a Danish missionary, Dr John. Dr Brown wrote a book, Propagation of Christianity Among the Heathens in 1814, proving modern medicine had a religious content.

Marthandavarma

Uthram Thirunal Marthandavarma, who ruled Travancore from 1846 to 1860 had a great affinity for English medicine; he got a human skeleton carved out of ivory in 1853 to study anatomy and osteology. Social customs barred him from touching corpses and bones. Created by a craftsman, the skeleton is displayed now at the Natural History Museum on the Zoo campus. Travancore Dewan Peishcar, P Shangoonny Menon, in his History of Travancore from Earlier Times, has recorded that Marthandavarma had even run a private dispensary, where he treated people, carried out minor surgical operations, vaccinated his palace attendants with his own hands and distributed English medicines when he was Elaya Raja or heir apparent. He also set up a laboratory which had various apparatus and chemicals purchased from other parts of the globe His friendship with the Residency surgeon Dr Brown helped him study modern medicine. Even after Dr Brown left for England, Marthandavarma indulged in self-study by procuring and reading the works of eminent authors. He procured medicines from the Durbar physician's dispensary and used them for treating his own attendants and their families.

With the prince spending a large amount of time at his dispensary, people, especially those belonging to the Hindu community, preferred this institution to a government charity hospital.

Though upper-class Namboothiri Brahmins would not even touch English medicines under the idea that most of the liquid substance contained spirits, they began to take them freely from the prince's dispensary.

Brahmins, who visited Travancore as part of various religious ceremonies, spread the news of the medical knowledge of the prince and the virtues and effectiveness of European medicines in Malabar (north Kerala) and other neighbouring princely states.

The royal's dispensary was the only resort of outside-state Brahmins for medical aid while coming for Murajapam, an auspicious ritual conducted in Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple here every six years.

Records also showed that Utram Thirnal successfully treated his brother and the then king Swati Thirunal, when he suffered from diarrhoea.

A three-month-long treatment under him also cured the chronic dyspepsia of a 'Gouda Brahmin Sastri,' who came here for Murajapam from Benaras.

The prince's laboratory had glass retorts, boilers, evaporating dishes, crucibles of different kinds, and many other things necessary for conducting chemical experiments.

There was also a powerful electric machine, a galvanic battery, an air pump, and an ice-making machine besides several kinds of optical instruments, such as stereoscopes of various sorts, telescopes of sizes and opera glasses.

The charity dispensary started by Swati Thirunal in the palace continued to function under the name Elaya Raja’s Dispensary until the Fort Dispensary was established. Seven hospitals were opened in different parts of the State. The people thronged to these hospitals as they got free food and good treatment. The Medical Department which was thus started made rapid advances during the early years of the reign of Ayilyam Thirunal Maharaja (1860 – 1880). He laid the foundation stone for the civil hospital in 1864. This later developed into the present General Hospital. In the same year, the Palace Medical Officer was put in charge of the Medical Department. The civil hospital was under the direct supervision and control of the Durbar Physician, Dr. H.M. Ross.

Cholera arrived in Travancore even as people were dying in the hilly areas of the north and south due to malaria and smallpox. The rulers of Travancore realised that the local treatment methods were ineffective against the combined threat posed by the three epidemics. As a result, hospitals offering free allopathy treatment (Dharmasupathri/charity hospital) were opened in various parts of the state. They included the Army hospital inside the Fort in the Malayalam era in 994 (1819 ) and the other hospitals in Kollam in 995 (1820), Thycaud in 1012 (1837), and Nagercoil in 1015 (1907).

Swati Thirunal

Travancore King Swati Thirunal died on December 27, 1846. His condition began deteriorating on Christmas. He resorted to fasts and abstained from food. He denied audience to all including family members and personal physician Dr Colin Peterson.

Dr Achutsankar S Nair, a bioinformatics expert who sings Carnatic music brilliantly, and Catherine Logan have jointly published a paper, Colin Peterson and his Medical Report of Travancore (1842). Catherine is related to Peterson(1815-1863). We have seen Peterson was never allowed inside the Raja's chamber. In the paper, they said:

"In 1846, a few months before Swati Thirunal's demise, it is known from several advertisements that appeared in London Times that Colin Peterson administered a drug marketed by Holloway on Swati Thirunal."

Holloway's ointment is known to have been created by Thomas Holloway, who termed it a 'cure anything' ointment and made him rich. It is also today known that Holloway's medicines contained aloe, myrrh and saffron, which are unlikely to cure anything in the modern view. However, the diseases claimed to be cured are pointers to the medical conditions of Swati Thirunal and require further research by medical practitioners.

Gowri Parvathy Bayi

Travancore society in the earlier periods was confronted with a lot of communicable diseases which shook the Travancore society and led to the increase of death rate. The year 1895 recorded the highest figure in the death rate being 19.52 per million. In 1896 and the following year the ratio fell to 15.01 and 15.72 respectively and 13.63 in 1898. After 1898 the figures began to improve on account of the unusually severe prevalence of cholera and smallpox. 

A Medical school was also opened in 1869 in the capital to improve the education of the officers in the department. A new mofussil hospital was opened in Quilon (1870 – 71) with accommodation for patients. This hospital stood as the first mofussil hospital in the State. At first Deputy Surgeon of the Madras Presidency supervised the functioning of the hospitals in the State but later, the Durbar Physician was entrusted with that responsibility.

The earliest record of the ravages of cholera in Travancore was in 1869. The epidemic spread from the south along the main and diverging lines of communication to upwards of fifty miles north of Trivandrum causing very heavy mortality, especially among the aged and infirm and continued to prevail in the southern districts till the beginning of 1888 after which it died out. In1888. There was a terrible epidemic 6,587 cases were reported in the Taluks of Tovala, Agasteeswaram and Eraniel with 2, 101 authenticated deaths. Having at the beginning of the year prevailed in a sporadic form almost throughout the country, it laterally reached the fishing villages on the seacoast and assuming the character of an epidemic of a severe type affected the whole of the southern division causing great loss of life. After 1890 there had been a marked decline in death from this epidemic.

The infection of cholera represented by some specific morbid material is often brought into Travancore with the influx of pilgrims in connection with Saint Xavier's festival at Kottar and the Car Festival at Suchindram. At both these festive gatherings, the conditions of insanitation are crucially so pronounced as to render every facility for the growth, development and dissemination of the disease to all parts.

The year 1890 witnessed a serious epidemic costing 10,508 lives and affecting practically the whole state. The disease has continued ever since as a constant menace with alternating manifestations of mildness and virulence. In 1927 another furious outbreak over-ran South Travancore and also the Taluks of Trivandurm, Chirayinkizh and Shenkotta claiming altogether 10,727 victims.

A royal proclamation of 1879 by Ayilyam Thirunal made vaccination compulsory in Travancore for public servants, prisoners and students.

All heads of public departments were instructed to see that those under their care and control were vaccinated. Administrative reports indicate that public health authorities were also concerned about the spread of cholera during fairs and festivals, and initiated measures of containment.

During the short reign of Visakam Thirunal Maharaja (1884 – 1885), many statutory changes were introduced in the Medical Department and he established one medical centre for every 277 square miles in the State. There were thirty-one medical institutions in the State at the end of his reign. Maharaja Sree Moolam Thirunal (1885 – 1924) took several measures for the extension and improvement of the State Medical Department. He began a system of grant-in-aid to private medical institutions. During his rule, a nursing training school named the Victoria Jubilee Medical School began to function in Quilon which trained girls belonging to several castes. The Maharaja made arrangements at the Quilon hospital to train many more midwives and nurses. He contributed a sum of Rs. 50,000 to the training school. A fort dispensary was instituted by the Maharaja in 1886 – 1887 to treat the women living in proximity to the Maharaja’s palace who hesitated to go to the General Hospital. The Medical Department was strengthened by the appointment of three qualified officers, two of whom were licensed by the Madras University and one was an Apothecary of the Medical College. A small Maternity Hospital was opened as an annexe to the Zenana Mission Hospital in 1888 –1889. As the institution became popular and gained wide recognition, the maternity section was removed from the General Hospital and made into a separate institution.

In 1889, the Medical Department was reorganised and reformed at an additional annual cost of Rs 28,000 During this period of reorganization, a large number of compounders were employed to help the medical officers. A separate officer designated as the chemical examiner was appointed and the Durbar Physician was relieved from that work. A class for educating the compounders was opened in 1890. Though the course was abolished in 1893, all the hospitals were provided with compounders by this time. Accommodation for patients was provided in most of the mofussil dispensaries during 1893 – 1894 and a separate hospital for women and children was opened in the next year.

During the same period, the midwifery centre was shifted from the General Hospital to a new building near Trivandrum Museum and sub-assistant Surgeon Dr John Gomez was put in charge. In 1894 the Maharaja invited a lady doctor to take charge of the women and children’s hospital and recommended that a separate hospital managed by women staff should be established in Trivandrum for the benefit of women and children. In 1895 –1896, a separate Department was formed to control vaccination, collect vital statistics and provide proper sanitation in towns. A separate hospital for patients with incurable diseases was opened at Oolampara in 1896 and certain drugs like Quinin and Chlorodine were distributed to the public through the anchal (postal) office. Again in 1897 – 1898, a thorough re-shuffling was conducted by increasing the strength of the medical staff.

Sree Moolam Thirunal Maharaja decided to constitute the code of rules for the Medical Department. On the direction of the Maharaja, a Medical Code was prepared by the Durbar Physician and principal medical officer Dr. White in the year 1898. In 1906, the services of eight European Nursing Sisters were made available in the hospitals. Later on in 1908, the Victoria Jubilee Hospital was placed under the direct supervision of a female Assistant Surgeon. The Maharaja sanctioned an annual donation to several private medical institutions given the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign. Of these private medical institutes the Nagercoil Dispensary of the London Missionary Society, the Charity Hospital at Alapuzha, the Archbishop’s Hospital near Varapuzha, the Planter’s Hospital at Aryanad and the Local Fund Dispensary at Bodinaikkanur deserve special mention. At the close of 1915, the State maintained twenty-seven hospitals and twenty-six dispensaries.

Sreemoolam Thirunal

Spanish Flu in Travancore

The influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, better known as the Spanish flu of 1918, also almost spared Kerala. The census report of Travancore then is silent on the influenza deaths. But it took its toll in the neighbouring state of Madras. The 1921 census report of Travancore, South India, says:

“Influenza, to which about 6 million of people succumbed in places outside Travancore, affected the state only slightly and was not attended with high mortality”.

The report is silent on the death toll. The fever deaths during 1920-21 were 17, 377 and 15,210 in 1921-22. The duration of the pandemic was very long in Malabar. The mortality rate there was 10-20% per annum, per 1000 people.

The Tirunelveli district of Madras, adjoining Travancore was devastated. It, which had a population of 19 lakh in 1921, had 12,798 fever deaths, mainly due to the flu.

The cholera epidemic of 1927 had proved the need for a more efficient public health organization to grapple with and control such emergent situations as efficiently and speedily as possible. The combating of cholera was one of the most prominent objects of the Public Health Department. The last epidemic of cholera occurred in 19358 causing altogether 11,792 attacks and 6,056 deaths. P Kumaran Nair the Medical officer of health was deputed for cholera special duty. The Public Health Laboratory supplied 7, 07, 875 c.cs.of cholera vaccine for carrying on a Mass Inoculation Campaign as a result of which the epidemic subsided within a shorter period, causing only a much lower incidence than in the case of the previous years.

In 1928, under the auspices of the Travancore government and with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation, parasite surveys were conducted in Travancore which led to measures to control hookworm and filariasis. A health unit incorporating many of the concepts of primary health care was also started in a rural area. The development of health services was not confined to the provision of preventive care – the general hospitals in Trivandrum and Cochin are more than 150 years old. Initiatives were also taken to get members of the respective states who were trained in Western medicine into key posts in the government service.

Mary Punnen Lukose

The appointment of Dr Mary Punnen Lukose (1886-1976) as the surgeon-general of Travancore in the early years of the 20th century is a case in point. A doctor trained in England, she was the first woman to be appointed surgeon-general in an Indian state, at a time when women doctors were still a rarity in Europe and America. Mary Poonen Lukose was an Indian gynaecologist, obstetrician and the first female Surgeon General in India. She was the founder of a Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Nagercoil and the X-Ray and Radium Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, served as the head of the Health Department in the Princely State of Travancore and was the first woman legislator of the state. Her father, T. E. Poonen, was a medical doctor, the first medical graduate in Travancore and the Royal Physician of Travancore state.

She had topped the matriculation examination. However, she was denied admission for science subjects at the Maharajas College, Thiruvananthapuram (present-day University College Thiruvananthapuram) for being a woman and had to pursue studies in history on which she graduated (BA) in 1909 as the only female student of the college and the first woman graduate of Madras University which Maharajas College was affiliated to. As Indian universities did not offer admission to women for medicine, she moved to London and secured an MBBS from London University, the first woman from what would later become Kerala to graduate in medicine. She continued in the UK to obtain MRCOG (gynaecology and obstetrics) from Rotunda Hospital, Dublin and underwent advanced training in paediatrics at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. Later she worked in various hospitals in the UK and simultaneously pursued music studies to pass the London Music Examination.

Mary returned to India in 1916, the year her father died] took up the post of an obstetrician at the Women and Children Hospital, Thycaud in Thiruvananthapuram and also worked as the superintendent of the hospital, replacing a westerner who had returned to her native place after marriage. During her tenure at Thycaud Hospital, she initiated a midwifery training program for the children of local midwives to win over their support and is known to have delivered her firstborn at the hospital. In 1922 she was nominated to the legislative assembly of Travancore, known as Sree Chitra State Council, thus becoming the first woman legislator in the state. Two years later, she was promoted to Acting Surgeon General of the state of Travancore, making her the first woman to be appointed as the surgeon general in India. She continued at the hospital till 1938 during which time she was nominated to the state assembly continuously till 1937. In 1938, she became the Surgeon General, in charge of 32 government hospitals, 40 government dispensaries and 20 private institutions. She is reported to have been the first woman to be appointed as the surgeon general in the world; the first woman surgeon general in the US was appointed only in 1990.

The work of Dr Howard Somervell who came to Travancore after scaling the Everest, was remarkable. Theodore Howard Somervell OBE, FRCS (1890 1975) was an English surgeon, mountaineer, painter and missionary who was a member of two expeditions to Mount Everest in the 1920s, and then spent nearly 40 years working as a doctor in India. In 1924 he was awarded an Olympic Gold Medal by Pierre de Coubertin for his achievements in mountaineering (Alpinism).

Somervell was born in Kendal, Westmorland, England to a well-off family which owned a shoe-manufacturing business founded by two SOMERVELL brothers in Kendal in 1845, that survives to this day, K Shoes. After completing his schooling, he studied at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge where he developed his strong Christian faith and gained First Class Honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos. He then began training as a surgeon at University College Hospital; eventually graduating in 1921 after his training had been interrupted by the First World War. He married Margaret Hope Simpson (1899–1993), daughter of Sir James Hope Simpson, the general manager of the Bank of Liverpool.

Between 1915 and 1918 Somervell served in France with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was commissioned as a lieutenant with the West Lancashire Casualty Clearing Station on 17 May 1915, having previously been a member of the University of London Officer Training Corps. He was Mentioned in Despatches, but the horrors of the war had a profound effect on him. During the Battle of the Somme in 1916 he was one of four surgeons working in a tent, while hundreds of wounded men lay dying on stretchers outside. On short breaks from surgery, he spoke with some of the dying men and noted that not one asked to be treated ahead of the others. The experience turned Somervell into a pacifist, a belief he continued to hold for the rest of his life. He relinquished his commission in 1921, by which time he held the rank of captain.

Somervell was invited to join the 1922 British Everest expedition. During the expedition, he formed a close friendship with George Mallory, and the two famously read Shakespeare to one another in their tent at night. With the expedition over, Somervell set out to see India, travelling from the far north to Cape Comorin. He was shocked by the poverty he saw and in particular the poor medical facilities. At the main hospital of the south Travancore medical mission in Neyyoor, he found a single surgeon struggling to cope with a long queue of waiting patients and immediately offered to assist. On his return to Britain, he abandoned his promising medical career and announced his intention to work in India permanently after his next attempt on Everest. Most of his famous paintings sold today are from his travels in various parts of India, even though most of his time was in Kerala where many landmarks to his name still remain.

Somervell worked as a surgeon with the London Missionary Society Boys Brigade Hospital (now known as LMS Boys Brigade Hospital ) at Kundara from 1923 to 1949. There was a separate operation theatre for him in that hospital. He had donated £1,000 to the hospital.

Somervell became an associate professor of surgery at Vellore Christian Medical College in 1949, a post he would hold until his retirement in 1961.

There was an outbreak of smallpox at Alleppey, Poonthura and in the municipal town of Trivandrum in 1930. The Leper Asylum opened in 1896 and was shifted to Nooranad in August 1934. Lady Linlithgow’s visit to Travancore was taken advantage of for laying the foundation stone for TB hospital on 11 November 1939.

Somervell

The malaria epidemic in South Travancore in 1934 was the first reported epidemic of malaria in the state on an extensive scale one that affected a far larger population than any other epidemic diseases. The foot of the hills from Bhutappandy to Thodupuzha forms a hyper-endemic belly of malaria and has been recognized as a centre of malarial infection for a long time. The malaria epidemic of 1935-36 was an extension of the disease in a virulent and epidemic form. The epidemic was most severe in certain provinces of Neyyattinkara and Nedumangad Taluks.

N Krishnan Tampi was appointed as the special medical officer in charge of malaria.11 Maharaja contributed rupees 1500 to the Malaria Relief Fund. Maharaja and Maharani visited the malaria-stricken areas and their words of sympathy and kindness to the patients and their gracious presence were a source of encouragement to the people and to the workers alike. Blood films from the patients were regularly taken for microscopical examinations. Mid-day meals to school children were given. The Managing Director of A.D. Cotton Mills Quilon offered 2000 yards of cloth for free distribution among the malaria-stricken people. The Salvation Army organized a party of officers and rendered much help in the malarial areas by collecting clothes, rice and other necessities for distribution among the patients. Sri Rama Krishna Mission and Veera Kerala Gymkhana rendered yeoman service for the control of malaria.

The development of health services was complemented by other parallel events: initiatives to provide safe drinking water (in the capital city of Trivandrum initially) and the provision of state-supported primary education, including education for women. Another important factor was the establishment of mission hospitals in remote areas under the auspices of Christian churches. Young girls from the Christian community in Kerala were keen to take up nursing as a career.

At the time of the formation of the present Kerala state on 1 November 1956, the foundation for a medical care system accessible to all citizens was already laid.

The left came to power in 1957, but November 27, 1951, was a very special day for a group of young men and women, who stood bursting with pride and excitement, when the then Prime Minister of the nation, Jawaharlal Nehru, lit the lamp, marking the formal opening of their alma mater and the first medical school in the State, Trivandrum Medical College. M. Balaraman Nair, a first-batch student, went on to become the first Professor, Principal and the first Director of Medical Education.

It was on August 1, 1951, that the first batch of 63 students joined TMC. The 1951 TMC batch includes several illustrious names like M.S. Valiathan, K.V. Krishnadas, P.P. Joseph, and P. Sukumaran, whose professional achievements and contributions to the health sector are well-known.

The history of Neurosurgery in this Institute is synonymous with the history of Neurosurgery in the state as this was the first medical college to start a Neurosurgery department within the state. The students after undergoing their rigorous training in the department, went on to establish advanced neurosurgical centres throughout Kerala and in several other parts of the country.

The period from state formation to the early 1980s was characterized by great growth and expansion of government health services. Figures show the annual compound growth rate of government health care expenditure for the period at 13.04% (at current prices, without deflation), outstripping both the annual compound growth rate of total government expenditure at 12.45% and the annual compound growth rate of the state domestic product at 9.81%.2 From 1961 to 1986, the state greatly expanded its governmhealth facilities. The number of beds and institutions increased sharply. The total number of beds in government hospitals in the western medical sector increased from around 13,000 in 1960–61 to 20, 000 in 1970–71 and 29 000 in 1980–81. By 1986, the total was 36,000. Estimates in 1996 put the number at 38,000. Private hospitals now surpass government facilities in the density of beds and employment of personnel. The number of beds in government institutions grew from around 36,000 to 38,000 in the 10 years from 1986 to 1996; in the same period, beds in private institutions grew from 49, 000 to 67, 500. This means the successive governments, including the left, torpedoed the Kerala model leaving the health sector at the mercy of the private sector.
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Reference:

1. Evolution of Modern Medicine in Kerala/Dr K Rajasekharan Nair
2. Historical Development of HealthCare in Kerala/Dr V Raman Kutty
3. Western Medicine Under State Patronage in Travancore: A Retrospect/Satheesh P
4.A Social History of India/S N Sadasivan
5. V.Nagam Aiya, The Travancore State Manual
6.T.K.Velupillai, The Travancore State Manual
7. Historicising "Tradition" in the Study of Religion/edited by Steven Engler, Gregory Price Grieve.

© Ramachandran