Chapter
XVIII
Glimpses
of a Great Physician:
My
Guru Dr. B.N. Das Gupta
We
were expecting Dr. B. N. Das Gupta (9.12.1919-4.2.1992)
at Patna May 8-9,1982 in
the third conference of the NMO. He could not come due to acute left
ventricular failure while he was on his way to Calcutta it ted
to a nursing home. I, on return from Patna it ing some books, especially; I had thought to
produce a text book on Clinical Methods in Paediatrics. Dr. Shanti Prakash and
I had also collected a large number of books and other materials from the DMC
Library, richest in the Bihar* State even compared to the PMC, Patna
When
Dr. Das Gupta returned, I closed my suburban clinic and joined his private
clinic in his home, more wit h a
notion to serve him than to learn. I did not know at that time that this guruseva
was going to be more important to me than the coveted degrees.
In
this brief resume, I will mention mainly some human aspects of that grand
clinician, the medical aspects of which are already reverberating through the
batches of teachers (many even retired) and their students and so aptly, he was
called a ‘teacher of teachers’ during the tenth anniversary celebrations of the
NMO at Ranchi on 24th December 1987.
It
was my proud privilege that I as his clinical assistant served more number of
hours than any of his residents during his long service tenure.
Dr.
Das Gupta was a man of grand will power. When he returned from Calcutta London it
in the form of Dr. Das Gupta at Darbhanga.
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* Including Jharkhand
Next
time, when he was taken ill, I remained in his home for his care. He used to
get up around 4 a.m. and
after daily rit uals, he used to
study before I could wake up. Submissive as he was, even in respect of his
ailment and it s treatment, he
himself knew much more than the eminent physicians attending on him, who
happened to be his students themselves.
His
art of teaching was excellent. My teachers used to say that he was showing them
the effects of hypoglycaemia by injecting insulin to the patient. I did not see
it but many times I was asked to
find out mistakes in his just writ ten
prescriptions and then he would point them out to me. As an examiner too, he
was said to be a wrong prompter but after a while he would make you understand
that you had been proceeding nonsensically.
He
had a wide range of normalcy and on seeing the ECG reports mentioning
ischaemia; he used to tell me, “If you ask for an ECG, the patient is bound to
be labelled as an ischaemic.” So, “In the X-rays of chest, mentioning
tuberculosis on a few glands is wrong.” He used to say, “These are common in
tropics.”
His
prescriptions would sometimes evoke laughter. I remember a case; the patient
had pain in ankle joint. The patient was lit erate,
but he pronounced ‘uncle’ joint repeatedly. Prof. Das Gupta wrote the same as
‘uncle’ on the prescription and in the afternoon sit ting
while suggesting massaging, he also pronounced ‘uncle’ joint.
Fig. 27
_ Felicit ation
to a great teacher Dr. B. N. Das Gupta at the IV National Conference of the
NMO, Jamshedpur Jamshedpur
He
pleaded for Hindi and the Aayurvigyan Pragati in the First Medical Edit ors Meet of the country in Calcutta Calcutta it y where a Hindi speaker
was called a Hindustani, as if Bengali speakers were something else.
I
had listened to fluent orations of Dr. Das Gupta in Bangla in lit erary meets, in the presence of an elit e cit izen
of the town, Bibhuti Bhushan Mukhopadhyaya, a noted writ er
of Bangla. He used to come to Dr. Das Gupta’s home. I had heard a few highly
cultural talks among them. Dr. Das Gupta used to say that the knowledge of
humanit ies was a must for the
medicos.
Some
young workers had init ially
objections to the famous quotes of the Indian nationalists in the Aayurvigyan
Pragati, a medical journal. He told them that a medico was a social pers on first, and if he/she in a meeting was asked
to say something on Buddha, he/she should be able to say. He also said that the
new generation was fast forgetting Vivekananda, Tilak, Aurobindo, Bankim, etc.
which was very sad.
On
the issue of the selection of the insignia for the Aayurvigyan Pragati,
he had said that if we did not remember Dhanwantari, Charak, Sushruta, etc. who
would?
Seeing
the reverence of poor patients in his clinic, he used to tell me,” Only poor
people pay you both money and honour.”
Many
orphans of the nursery of the Paediatrics Department of the DMC used the name
of Dr. Das Gupta as their father, who took care of them Once, the NMO had also
organised a function for their welfare*.
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* On 28.11.1999, on my
init iative an orphanage Nivedit a Ashram had been started by the NMO, which was
looked after by Mahesh Badhvani. Address: Arogya Bhavan No.1, Ranchi
Listening
to the nonsensical names of babies like famous ‘Appu’ (who were born in the
days of Asiad) he used to ask parents whether their language had dearth of
names that they had named their off spring after the name of a baby elephant?
On 15th August 1947, one of our RMO in Surgery was born, so was named Azad Hind
and one girl in my maternal grand-parent’s village, Koilakh, was named Swaraji
which might have some significance, but people have amazingly accepted English
names like Pummy, Dolly, etc. Dolly, who became my wife, should excuse me.
If a
baby was brought by someone, mother being at home he used to refuse examining
the child. If servant were sent to collect the prescription, he would not hand it over and would also return the fee, already
taken.
He
never crit icized any doctor’s
prescription, even if it had gross
errors. Once, I remember, a lady doctor of Muzaffarpur had asked, a mother not
to feed the baby for minor ailments. He asked thrice whether she had told so
but wit hout comments. Usually he was
an admirer of the prescriptions of the peripheral doctors and would say that he
had already taught everything to his students and so they were as good as he
himself was. He never used to take up patients, referred to any other doctor.
Darbhanga was a town notorious for touts and usually his patients were trapped
elsewhere and he used to say wit h a
smile, “Now, there are so many Das Guptas.”
A
good organiser he had been. Even a very young worker was offered sweets in his
home. Equally revered was his wife, caring for the workers. She was also
preserving well the letters of the Aayurvigyan Pragati. For me his home
was a home, clinic, library, office and what not!
Dr.
Das Gupta used to tell me that knowledge could be gained from two sources eit her from a rich library or an experienced pers on, and in him I found both.
“Learn to see, learn
to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell and know that by practice alone you can
become expert. Medicine is learnt by the bedside and not in the classroom. Let
not your conceptions of the manifestations of disease come from words heard in
the lecture room or read from book. See, and then reason and compare and
contrast. But see first.
Do not waste the hours of
daylight in listening to that which you may read by night. But when you have
seen, read. And when you read, read the original descriptions of the masters
who, wit h crude methods of study,
saw so clearly.
To study Medicine wit hout books is to sail an unchartered sea, while to
study medicine only from books is not to go to sea at all.” - Sir William Osler
1 comment:
I heard from my father the name of Late Dr.B.N.Dasgupta ,he was realy second God with a simple dressup & highly and highly knowledgeable with vast experience.
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