PROBASHI- A Cultural News Magazine Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 44

Probashi-Science
success when he discovered a
potent agent against Kalaazar,
which he named Urea Stibamine. It
was the urea salt of para-aminophenyl stibnic acid. By 1923
injection of 1.5 gms of Urea
Stibamine was the standard
protocol for Kalaazar treatment and
the mortality rate from the disease
which was 95% , was brought down
to 10% by 1925 and by 1936 it was
7%. The use of drug was not
confined to India and was used
successfully in Greece, France and
China for many years.
Talking of his ill equipped Lab
Brahmachari would later recollect
“To me it will ever remain a place of
pilgrimage where the first light of
Urea Stibamine dawned upon my
mind”.
Such
was
Brahmachari’s
contribution that Sir John Kerr, the
then Governor of Assam could not
maintain the rather reticent
demeanour of the British towards
Indians when he remarked - “The
progress in the campaign against
Kalaazar in Assam has been

Dr. UN Brahmachari

phenomenally
rapid.
Dr.
Brahmachari’s researches in the
treatment of Kalaazar were one of
the most outstanding contributions
in tropical therapeutics, as a result
of which three lakhs of human
lives were saved in the Province of
Assam alone during the course of
ten years.”
Brahmachari had two more
outstanding contributions to his
name. He was the first to identify a
new disease now known after him
- Brahmachari Leishmanoid. It is a
cutaneous leishmaniasis which
occurs in patients who have
recovered
from
Kalaazar.
Brahmachari was also responsible
for establishing India’s first blood
bank at the School of Tropical
Medicine, Calcutta in 1935.
Brahmachari was then the
Chairman of Bengal Red Cross
Society.

researcher has achieved so much.
However
unfortunately
Dr
Brahmachari’s legacy remains in
oblivion, even his house on Cornwallis
Street, Calcutta has been taken over
by encroachers.
We at Probashi did a small survey
involving twenty respondents from
middle class income group in Delhi
and Calcutta and asked them whether
they knew who Dr UN Brahmachari
was, and only 3 persons out of 20
could answer. Unfortunately India’s
best medical researcher is not a part
of the collective memory of Indians.

It is sad to note that no Indian
medical college has been named after
Dr UN Brahmachari. Will we be asking
for too much if we suggest that All
India Institute of Medical Sciences,
the