The first plastic surgeon in India hailed from the quaint town of Chinsurah, Hooghly!
Most human beings have an inborn desire to look pretty and attractive. But nobody is born ‘perfect’ and hence people start focusing on their appearances as they grow up and feel the need to fix up their body and facial features. This is where cosmetic procedures, surgical and non-surgical, intervene and help attain the desired look of the ‘patient.’ The quest for perfecting the ‘imperfections’ about the way one looks and addressing the insecurities regarding one’s body through surgeries is on an exponential rise in India. Film magazines and gossip columns never tire of speculating about Bollywood divas and luminaries in the show biz submitting under the surgeons’ scalpels for perfecting their physical appearances.
Earlier cosmetic surgeries at state-run hospitals were done for trauma-related constructive procedures. Besides, plastic surgery was an expensive tool limited to the rich and famous. But now, it is being accessed by more and more people belonging to various income categories. In fact, plastic surgery seeps into middle-class groups in India steadily. According to a global survey, in India, women underwent more than 18 million surgical and non-surgical procedures, making it 85.6% of the total. Men, on the other hand, had more than 3 million surgical and non-surgical procedures performed on them, accounting for 14.4% of the total.
The first detailed description of plastic surgical procedures is found in the clinical text on Indian surgery, the 'Sushruta Samhita' (circa 600 B.C.). Atharva Veda, the root of Ayurveda, the classical text of Indian medical knowledge includes two seminal texts, Charaka Samhita on medicinal aspects and Sushruta Samhita which incorporates details of surgical tools and operative techniques. In the 4th century A.D., Vagbhat, an Indian physician recounted the plastic surgical procedures with more details than provided in Sushruta Samhita. In his book, 'Ashtanga Hridyans Samhita', he credits the techniques to Maharishi Atreya. It is interesting to find mention of plastic surgery procedures such as rhinoplasty, otoplasty, tissue grafting, organ transplants, transfer of the embryo, cross-grafting of head and re-attachment of limbs, etc. in these ancient Indian medical treatises and Puranic literature.
Every Sunday, Dr. Mukherjee travelled to villages to treat poor patients free of cost at camps set up by local philanthropic organizations. Whenever he spotted beggars seeking alms on the streets with physical deformities, he would encourage them to go for correctional surgeries. He was the Head of the Unit/Department from 1955 to 1972 and an emeritus professor. Between 1965 and 1968; he was additionally the Surgeon Superintendent and Director of IPGME&R.
Modern plastic surgery in India started after World War II. Professor Dr. Murari Mohan Mukherjee (1914 – 1988) is the pioneer of plastic surgery in our country. He was the first plastic surgeon who received modern medical training from England. When he specialized in plastic surgery, there was no opening in this stream in India. He was instrumental in setting up the first independent civilian plastic surgical department in the country in 1956 at the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata. The department was inaugurated in the august presence of two luminaries, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. This department came up a year prior to a similar department that was set up in Nagpur by Dr. C. Balakrishnan.
Dr. Mukherjee was a legend of a plastic surgeon for more reasons than one. Whether it was his understanding of tissue behavior and gentle handling or his ability to predict the final outcome of a procedure and communicate the same to his patients and students alike or his up-to-date knowledge and the desire to continuously improve his performance as a surgeon and a teacher, Bengal and India will never have his match.
Dr. Mukherjee was born on December 30, 1914, in Bhagalpur, Bihar, in his maternal uncle's house to Jogesh Chandra Mukherjee and Sarajubala Devi. He was related to the great litterateur Rishi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay through his maternal lineage. His native place was, however, in Chinsurah in Hooghly district. After his matriculation with a district scholarship, in 1931, he obtained a 'Duff' scholarship during his intermediate course in Presidency College, Calcutta, which was the best institution in India at that time. He completed his MBBS in 1939 from Medical College, Calcutta, winning 11 gold and eight silver medals in his career. In the next 13 years, he served in the Government health service and did his MS in General Surgery from Calcutta in 1949. He went to England for the next two years to complete his FRCS from England and Edinburgh, he returned to Calcutta in November 1951. During his stay in England, he was taught by legendary aesthetic surgeons Sir Harold Gillies, A.B. Wells, and Thomas Kilner.
In 1952, Dr. Mukherjee began his career as a resident medical officer (RMO) in General Surgery at the Presidency General Hospital, Calcutta, now known as the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research (IPGME&R). He was excited to meet patients who approached him with myriad problems as this ignited his imaginative capabilities with intellectual satisfaction. Added to that was his empathy for patients; he was out-and-out an optimist who always believed that something can be done. He was an embodiment of discipline, diligence and patience.
Despite performing eight to 10 operations daily, Dr. Mukherjee was always vivacious with an infectious smile writ large on his lips. Even after his day-long busy schedule, he was always on time to reach the hospital and visit the wards, meeting patients and their relatives cheerfully. He treated his patients with warmth and respect and they reciprocated with equal fervour. He was a voracious reader and always kept himself up-to-date on medical research. There was not a single contemporary subject in plastic surgery he was not adept in and always performed even the most complicated operations with finesse and élan. His presentations at World Congresses, references in Cleft Craft, and invited articles in 'Clinics in Plastic Surgery' speak volumes of his academic contribution.
For Dr. Mukherjee, each operation was a new challenge and he would spend time planning an operation meticulously to the minutest detail and map the entire procedure mentally before entering the operation theatre. But then everything does not happen according to the pre-conceived plan and Dr Mukherjee was quick as lightning to switch over and change his plan of action.
The first detailed description of plastic surgical procedures is found in the clinical text on Indian surgery, the 'Sushruta Samhita' (circa 600 B.C.). Atharva Veda, the root of Ayurveda, the classical text of Indian medical knowledge includes two seminal texts, Charaka Samhita on medicinal aspects and Sushruta Samhita which incorporates details of surgical tools and operative techniques. In the 4th century A.D., Vagbhat, an Indian physician recounted the plastic surgical procedures with more details than provided in Sushruta Samhita. In his book, 'Ashtanga Hridyans Samhita', he credits the techniques to Maharishi Atreya.
Every Sunday, Dr. Mukherjee travelled to villages to treat poor patients free of cost at camps set up by local philanthropic organizations. Whenever he spotted beggars seeking alms on the streets with physical deformities, he would encourage them to go for correctional surgeries. He was the Head of the Unit/Department from 1955 to 1972 and an emeritus professor. Between 1965 and 1968; he was additionally the Surgeon Superintendent and Director of IPGME&R. As a surgeon superintendent, he brought about a whole lot of transformations concerning patient care, and the improvement of working conditions of employees, including the formation of their club, and public relations system and the establishment of a vehicular covered transport for the corpses.
During this time, Dr. Mukherjee established a separate burn unit. On a plot in front of his native house, he established a library, 'Kishore Pragati Sangha' and a health center for the economically weak people of the region. He also set up ‘Pratibandhi Kalyan Sangha,’ a center for the hearing and speech impaired and physically challenged people in Hooghly, and 'Rehabilitation India' for the physically challenged in Kolkata. He donated a large number of expensive medical equipment and set up an operation theatre exclusively for plastic surgery named Shyampukur Pallimangal Samiti in North Kolkata where he had lived for some time.
Dr. Mukherjee left a mark of unmatched skill in rebuilding congenitally deformed organs, curing fluvial and lymphedema through surgery, and repairing damaged organs from burns and leprosy. Many of his students carry on his legacy and have proved their competency as renowned doctors today. The day Dr. Mukherjee breathed his last, the entire Chinsurah mourned the loss of its illustrious son.
