Homage to Sir M Visvesvaraya: The Legendary Nation Builder

Homage to Sir M Visvesvaraya: The Legendary Nation Builder 

14th April has an extraordinary significance with Indian history. It is inextricably linked to two of the nation builders of modern India - Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and Sir Mukshagundam Visvesvaraya (Sir MV) - who have been deservingly conferred with the Bharat Ratna Award. It was on this day in 1891 that father of our Indian Constitution, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar was born in the cantonment in Mhow, Central Province, now in Madhya Pradesh. On this very day in 1962, the legendary nation builder Engineer, Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, on whose birthday 15th September, the whole nation celebrates as ‘ Engineers Day’, breathed his last in Bangalore. 

I was privileged to have had the honour to be the Director of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Bangalore during the fiftieth anniversary (2012) of the Punya Thithi ( death anniversary) of Sir MV. After a stint of nearly four years as the Director of the National Science Centre in Delhi, I was fortuitously transferred to Bangalore, my home state in 2011. The Visvesvaraya Museum was established in honour of the legend and it was the result of a decision taken by the then Honourable Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru, who declared setting up a museum in honour of Sir MV. Nehru ji made this announcement during the centennial birthday celebrations of Sir MV at the historic and pristine Lalbagh grounds where the celebrations was organised,  which was attended by Sir MV himself. Sir MVs contribution to the state of Karnataka has been immortalised in an epic Kannada film titled ‘Bangarada Manushya’, where the legend of Kannada films Dr Rajkumar eulogises Sir MV in an immemorable song. Being an engineer and that too from Karnataka, we all grew up idolising Sir M Visvesvaraya and my posting in Bangalore provided me an opportunity to pay our respect and homage to Sir MV during the fiftieth year of his death anniversary in 2012. I had the honour to curate a very well researched exhibition, which was opened at the Visvesvaraya Museum in Bangalore. I was ally supported by Ms Jyoti Mehra.

Just as I was lucky in getting a transfer to Bangalore from Delhi, I was equally unlucky to get transferred from Bangalore to Mumbai in just about two years time. The Sir MV exhibition, which we had created at Visvesvaraya Museum Bangalore came in handy during the 102nd India Science Congress, which was held in Mumbai from Jan 3-7 in 2015. Dr Anil Kakodkar who was the Chairman of a committee asked me to,present this exhibition at the Hall of Pride pavilion. He was privy to the exhibition since we had managed to obtain corporate funding for publishing a richly illustrated exhibition catalog, which supplemented the exhibition. Sir MV exhibition at NSC Mumbai was opened by Mr Sajjan Jindal and Mrs Sangeeta Jindal in the August presence of Dr Anil Kakodkar. Due to shortage of time and so also money we were unable to publish the book in Bangalore, which I could do in Mumbai courtesy benevolent funding from JSW. ‘Sir M V : The Legendary Nation Builder’, exhibition and the richly illustrated exhibition catalog were an outcome which drew on a range of research, sources, books, journals, images, documentary, visuals and audio, that collectively helped us in highlighting the unique contributions of Sir M Visvesvaraya in nation building.

Some of the rare archival information and photographs can be seen in the exhibition and so also in the book, which include the will of Sir MV, his engineering degree certificate, his passport, several of his writings etc. 

In the annals of human history very few people have had the dispensation of celebrating their own birth centenary; from amongst those few who have, there are no parallels to the life that Sir M Visvesvaraya lived for all of 102 years. Visvesvaraya,  popularly referred to as Sir MV, was an engineer par excellence, statesman, visionary, a staunch votary of industrialization, education and women empowerment, banking, father of planned economy, transportation and innumerable other contributor. He strenuously worked for eight long decades for building our nation. There are very few fields of thoughts and constructive endeavours, of technical advancement and nation building in which Sir MV had not made a significant contribution. Some of his contributions include engineering, in all its branches, particularly those of irrigation, reservoirs, dams and water supply, power supply and bridge building; university education, technological and occupational training, town planning, industry and banking, commerce and manufacture. Sir MV was a man with impeccable integrity, discipline and a grand visionary for the nation. Krishnarajasagara (KRS), one of the premier reservoirs of the country, owes its existence to him. His contributions at the Khadakwasla (Pune) water reservoir, where he introduced the automatic sluice water gates, won him a patent, which he did not use for his personal benefit. This very design, he subsequently used in the world famous Krishna Raja Sagara Dam (KRS). 

KRS alone, one of the largest of its kind in the world, would perpetuate

the name of Sir MV. Pandit Nehru, the architect of modern India, borrowed the idea of planned economy from Sir MV. From Aden to Pune, Sukkur, Nashik, Hyderabad, Mysore, and several other cities and projects, Sir MV's civil engineering contributions are spread across the country and abroad. His engineering services were used in various capacities all across the country including in building the Hirakud Dam, in Odisha, a Railway Bridge across Ganga in Patna, combating floods in Hyderabad, constructing the Himayatsagar and the Osmansagar reservoirs across the rivers Musi and Easi, and in the reconstruction of Hyderabad city and preparation of the drainage scheme for the city. Sir MV was also a member of the engineering committee that was involved in construction of several buildings in Lutyens Delhi.

Sir MV, the man with an impeccable integrity far beyond one can imagine, was known for his foresight and prophetic vision for industrial development, which he advocated was essential for alleviating poverty. He was a master in irrigation designs and was very passionate about effective utilization of scarce water resource for drinking and irrigation purpose. Block System of Irrigation, Automatic Sluice gates and Collector Well are some important innovations of Sir MV. Automatic Sluice gates, used in Pune and in KRS and other dams, enable storage of water well above the crest of the weir of the Dam. He designed the Block system of Irrigation to optimize, control and evenly distribute water supply to parched agricultural lands across number of villages. The supply was rotated within “blocks” in each village to curtail misuse and water logging. This system, devised in 1899, continues to be used even today in Deccan Canals. The collector wells can provide moderate to large quantities of naturally filtered water from the river beds.

 Sir MV was a firm believer that development alone can bring about prosperity for people. He also believed that India could be benefited from harvesting the knowledge and experience of the prosperous nations. Visvesvaraya toured many developed countries of the world to study, understand and evaluate the success of their prosperity and for replicating the same in India. During his six foreign travels, he visited Japan, America, Canada and many European countries. An outcome of his learning from foreign visits is embodied in the establishment of several industries and educational institutes in the state of Karnataka. 

Visvesvaraya served his mother state Mysore (now Karnataka) in different capacities, first as the Chief Engineer to the government in 1909 and next as the Dewan of Mysore from 1912 to 1918. He firmly believe that education is fundamental to the progress of the nation. 

His regime as the Dewan of Mysore witnessed unprecedented growth in the establishment of a number of primary schools. In just six years of his tenure as the Dewan an additional 6,500 new schools were added. He pronounced a revolutionary legislation making primary education compulsory for every child, including the girl child. He also believed in social upliftment of the depressed communities and backward classes and laid special emphasis on education of girls. He was instrumental in establishing educational institutes, industries, banks, Mysore University and Agriculture Science College. He also used his personal money to help establish a vocational college (Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic College). HAL the premier aircraft manufacturing company in Bangalore, the steel, sugar and soap factories in Karnataka owe their existence to Sir MV. The Premier Automobile Company in Pune, which was the first automobile company in India, owes its genesis to Sir MV. He improved the Railway infrastructure of Mysore and established clubs and association for improvement of the state. He was associated with the premier Indian Institute of Science and promoted linkage of industries with scientific institutes.

Sir MV received the knighthood from the British Empire. He received the 

 Bharat Ratna in the year 1955. After actively serving the nation for more than 100 years Sir MV breathed his last on 14th April, 1962 at Bangalore. On the eve of the centenary celebrations of Sir MV, which was held at Bangalore in 1960, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, who had joined the centenary celebration to honour Sir MV, announced a befitting tribute to Sir MV for establishing a Industrial and technological Museum to be named after Sir MV. Thus was established the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM) at Bangalore, the foundation for which was also laid by Pt. Nehru.

Fifty eight years have passed since the passing away of Sir MV but then he continues to remain in the hearts and minds of the people of zinda particularly the Engineers who look up to him as a true role model, par excellence. Long live Sir MV.

For those of you who may be interested in reading the book you may please down load it from our website under the Publications sections, where you will find all our publications which are free for download.

www.nehrusciencecentre.gov.in

13th April : The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

13th April : The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Images courtesy : Wiki Commons & Alamy Stock photo

Certain incidents from the annals of history, remain infamously etched in the collective memory of nations and one such event for India is the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, perpetrated by the British General, Reginald Dyer. One hundred and one years ago, on this very date, the 13th of April 1919, General Dyer, ordered firing against the innocents. Even today the Jallianwala Bagh, which was one of the worst heinous, unpardonable, dastardly criminal act that left an indelible scar on our nation, continues to evoke emotions of unprecedented proportions. While the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy cannot be reversed, an unconditional apology from the British government, which was long overdue, could have demonstrated their remorse for this dastardly act. But most unfortunately it has not happened. The British Government, true to their tyrannical past, have refused to render an apology, let alone compensate, through reparation, begging atonement for their inexcusable crime. Contrary to their condemnable behaviour, we Indians, true to our culture and  philosophy of ahimsa have moved on and have not even asked for an official apology not to talk of any reparation - the articulations for which was so exemplarily adduced by Shashi Tharoor in a debate - now gone viral - before the August gathering at the Oxford. 

The criminality of the massacre of innocent lives by the British General at the Jallianwala Bagh, can be mirrored to such other equally heinous crimes that were committed at the Auschwitz by the Nazis during the WW II and perhaps to the more recent Tiananmen Square, China, in 1989. The heinous act at Jallianwala had all the trappings of a crime against humanity and should have placed General Dyer in the infamous company of villains of World Wars, but that did not happen, courtesy the apostles of peace - Mahatma Gandhi ji. Although Gandhi ji called Dyer, the chief perpetrator of the Jallianwala Bagh, blood thirsty and warned people against ‘Dyerism’, yet he asked the ‘Jallianwala Bagh Congress Inquiry Committee’ not to prosecute him. Gandhi ji, just like the Lord Jesus Christ, pardoned Dyers unpardonable sin.

More than 300 unarmed civilians, including a large number of women and children, were gunned down indiscriminately by Reginald Dyer’s British army and as per some records, almost 2,000 more were grievously wounded when Dyer, ordered his troops to fire at unarmed protesters in a park. What prompted this peaceful, Gandhian like, protest by the Punjabis, was the backtracking of the promise made by the British to the Indian National Congress and other leaders of the Indian Independence movement, to accord Dominion Status to India, involving some amount of self-governance. In return, the British had sought India’s support in fighting World War I. While Indians, particularly the Punjabis - Sikhs - uncompromisingly supported the British in their War, including payment of millions of pounds in taxes, and providing food grains, arms and ammunition for the British Army to fight the War and so also the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Punjabi men during the war, what they expected post the war was a promise of self rule. But after the War the British reneged on their promise compelling peaceful protests across nations including the one at the Jallianwala Bagh. 

The cruelty and inhuman act of Jallianwala Bagh massacre ensured that Amritsar became India, an India that was outraged, bloodied and the ensuing trauma was so deep as to have altered the very composition of India’s political psyche. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre became a symbol of the tyrannical rule by the British that changed the political history of our country and accentuated the way forward for our focussed and sustained freedom struggle. On the occasion of the 101st anniversary of this dastardly act, an unpardonable tragedy of humongous proportions, it is pertinent to question the British on what authority did they have to impose their so called higher ideas of morality. The 101 years post the Jallianwala Bagh has been a long time in the Indian political history and from being a subservient nation to the colonial masters we have come a long way and several subsequent happenings, including independence, the trauma of partition, self sufficiency in food, achieving an incredible success in the field of IT, education, Space and Atomic research and so also the improvement in the overall socio economic conditions of our citizens, all of these developments have tried to erase the trauma of Jallianwala Bagh. The trauma however has continued to remain in our collective memory albeit this memory is gradually fading  into the sepia of fading memory. 

On the 101st anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh, let Let us all join hands in praying for all those martyrs who sacrificed their life for the freedom of our country and pledge that we remain united as one nation, whose foundations were built on the sacrifice of innumerable martyrs.

Jai Hind.

Super Pink Moon

Super Pink Moon (7th April 2020) : A Celestial Trilogy for the Year 2020, 

The last three Images courtesy Wiki Commons
The first two images : Authors photographs taken today from our office terrace using our telescope.

The global Covid pandemic, about which I have written quite a few blogposts, has occupied all the sound and video tera bytes in the social media and scores of pages have been written and published in the digital and print media and therefore any other news or an event, other than the Covid, can at most draw a byline mention in the present Covid 19 time, which is plaguing nations. With this in view the connoisseurs of sky watch in India and my planetaria friends are trying to distract the minds of the people from the unending scare of Covid to draw people’s attention to a relatively rare celestial event, which will play out tonight, lasting until early morning of tomorrow. This celestial event is catchily phrased as the ‘Super Pink Moon’.

Notwithstanding the national lockdown, taking advantage of our stay in the office quarters my colleagues and I had organised a live Facebook telecast of the Super Pink Moon for the audience of our Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai to have a live view of the Super Pink Moon. Unfortunately we were unable to lay our hand on the attachments of our telescope and hence I used the quintessential Indian Jugad and used my I Pad to take the photographs from the eye piece of the telescope with great difficulties. The first two images seen in this blogpost are from the lens of my I-Pad, of which I am so very proud.

Tonights ‘Super Pink Moon’ reminds me of the the famous ibis trilogy of the noted author Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies, River or Smoke and Flood of Fire. Like Amitav Ghosh’s ibis trilogy, the Super Moons too come in trilogies - pairs of three and back to back. The Super Pink Moon, which is occurring tonight (7th April) and will last until tomorrow morning, is the second in the trilogy of the super moons this year, the first of which happened on 9th March and the third one will be happening on the the 7th May.

The Moon, the only natural satellite of our planet Earth, orbits around the Earth in an elliptical orbit and therefore the moon is sometimes closest to our Earth and at times farthest from the Earth. The closest point is called the perigee, and the furthest is the apogee. When a full moon falls on the perigee, the moon appears far bigger and brighter in the sky and therefore it is called as a ‘supermoon’ This phenomenon is not actually that rare as made out to be by the media. We had a Super Moon in March this year and we will have another one next month in May as stated above.

Since the current super moon occurrence is happening  in the month of April, it is called ‘Super Pink Moon’. But what then is a Pink Moon? It comes from the Native American names for full moons, the almanac of which was first published in the 1930s. According to the Maine Farmer's Almanac, the Pink Moon name is derived from one of the first flowers to bloom in spring; the Wild Ground Phlox, which also went by the name “moss pink.” The colour of the flower was given to the full moon occurring in this month and thus the full moon falling in the month of April came to be known as pink moon. But then the Pink Moon does not have anything to do with the colour of the Moon, rather in reality the moon in no way will appear as mystical and awe inspiring as the pink colour in the name indicates. Since the super moon is happening in the month of April it is called the Super Pink Moon, as it corresponds with the early springtime blooms of a certain wildflower native to eastern North America - Phlox Subulata commonly called creeping phlox or moss phlox and these flowers are pink in colour and are also called “moss pink.”  Thanks to this seasonal association, and the colour of the moss phlox flowers, the full Moon in April has come to be known as the Pink Moon and since this April’s full moon also happens to be a Super Moon, it is called as the ‘Super Pink Moon’, making the name  trendy and quite appealing to modern times.

The global Covid pandemic has also compelled us to have a diminishing attention span for any other events other than concentrating on nothing but its perceived monstrous effects, which is getting played out on every media non stop 24x7, seven days a week. Therefore it is no wonder that the ‘Super Pink Moon’ spectacle, which occurs tonight has been hyped up by skywatchers and planetary scientists to divert our attention from Covid and to look at the night sky and observe this rare celestial event, forgetting momentarily the Covid pandemic. The national lockdown has also brought down the carbon emissions substantially and this has resulted in clearer skies, which will enable us to have an excellent view of the Super Pink Moon, which hopefully will help us all to romanticise the end of the Covid, as early as possible.

The term Super Moon term has come into prominence since March 2011. Back in March 2011, NASA published an article describing a “ Super Full Moon” and the precise time when this ‘Full Moon in March 2011’ occurred was 59 minutes before perigee - the Moon’s closest approach to Earth as it travels along its elliptical orbit - a near perfect coincidence that happens only every 18 years or so. This was a worthwhile observation to report in 2011. But then even today, nine years later, the ‘Super Moon’ craze has not died down. Tonight the Super Pink Moon will arrive at its closest point at a distance of 3,56,907 kilometres at 11.38 PM (Indian Standard Time) and at 8.08 AM, tomorrow morning the moon will officially turn full, of course that will not be visible for us since it will be morning time in India. The Super Moon, which we witnessed last month on 9th March was just about 115 km farther away  therefore the moon that we will see tonight will appear slightly larger  compared to the March full moon.

Having been locked down in home for quite some time, please take time out tonight to come to your balconies or such other places, which will give you a clear site, while maintaining that physical distancing and taking all possible precautions as are advised by the Ministry of Health and WHO for the Covid conditions, for sighting the relatively rare celestial phenomenon, called the Super Pink Moon. Incidentally the Super Pink Moon today also happens to be the Hanuman Jayanti.

Wishing you all a very happy Hanuman Jayanthi and happy moon viewing

COVID 19, Hand Washing & Ignaz Semmelweis

Image Credits : Wiki Commons

Google is now an all pervasive lexicon, which has entered into the hearts and minds of most Indians and the Google home page is as strongly etched in our minds as the current COVID 19 pandemic. Therefore yesterday’s Google Doodle - which is continuing even today- an image that appears on the Google home page, conveyed a timely message for all of us -  ‘ Stay Home, Save Lives’. This message emphasises the need for us to be resilient for unitedly combating the global COVID pandemic by staying in our home to arrest the Covid spread. Hopefully it will help us in re-emphasising the need for all of us to strictly follow the guidelines of the government, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, World Health Organisation (WHO) and such other credible organisations in combating the Covid menace by staying in our respective homes. 

Most unfortunately, notwithstanding the unprecedented developments in science and technology, as things stand today, there is no cure  or a vaccine to the novel Corona virus and the best way to avoid the spread of this Covid pandemic is a good hygiene - primarily hand washing and social distancing. Washing hands is a simple act, yet such an essential step in halting the spread of the COVID transmission, which has now crossed the million mark and taken away more than 50,000 lives. Good hand hygiene protects us and those around us, and it is one of the most important contributions that we all can make to keep ourselves and our communities safe. Hand washing, mundane as it may sound now, needed a visionary Doctor, in the early nineteenth century, to visualise its efficacy in saving lives. Hand washing is now linked with its founder, Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor, who introduced the concept of hand washing and hygiene in the 1840s while working in the famous Vienna General Hospital. In fact his colleague doctors and scientists thought it was unscientific to connect hand hygiene with medical care but then Semmelweis, who faced huge challenges in driving home his message, was proved right, though decades after his death. This blogpost of mine is therefore a tribute to Semmelweis, the father of hand washing. 

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, unfortunately did not get the due recognition for his profound contributions to hand hygiene and its inextricable linkage to infection control and saving of lives, when he was alive. However, that mistake has now been amended and he is now universally known as the ‘‘father of infection control’’ and saviour of precious lives. He is now recognised as one of the leading scientists and his portrait hangs majestically at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, which I had the honour to visit during my participation in the World Science Forum in 2015. Many lives have been lost and are continuing to be lost due to what is called the sepsis, infections acquired by patients while in hospital. Incidentally this very sepsis, took away the life of my brother in law, Pramod Angadi (my wife’s younger brother) last year, that too at a very young age of 49 years. Most of the  infections, which are acquired by patients while in the hospital are called nosocomial infections and such infections are very common in countries like India. One of the causes for these infections is  contaminated hands of people including healthcare workers, who are responsible for spreading lethal infectious agents. It is now universally accepted that hand hygiene is noted to be the single most important factor for such infection control. Ignaz Semmelweis was the first physician in medical history to demonstrate that puerperal fever - a hospital acquired infection, also known as childbed fever - was contagious and that its incidence could be drastically reduced by enforcing hand hygiene on the medical care givers. Unfortunately, although his hand washing advisory was hugely successful and led to drastic reduction in the fatality rates during the delivery in pregnant women yet, it was rejected by the powers that be since Semmelweis’s discovery directly confronted the then held beliefs of medical doctors, who were in disagreement with Semmelweis.

Ignaz Semmelweis, the fifth child born to Teresia and Josef Semmelweis, Jewish immigrants to Hungary, was born in the formerly divided town of Buda - subsequently Budapest (in Hungary) from 1937, after its twin city Pest was merged with Buda - on 1st July 1818. The young Ignaz attended his school in Buda, and finished his primary education at the Catholic Gymnasium in 1835. On the advice of his father, Semmelweis left Buda in 1937, for studying law at the University of Vienna, in Austria. Fortunately, it so happened that Semmelweis became friends with a medical student in Vienna and attended one of his anatomy classes in the Vienna General Hospital. This aroused an interest in medicine in the minds of Semmelweis and thus ending his tryst with law studies. Semmelweis returned back to his home town Buda in 1840 for studying medicine.  He went to the University of Pest (later called Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest) and began studying medicine. Subsequently he once again went to the University of Vienna and obtained his doctorate in medicine (MD) in 1844, the graduation ceremony of which he could not attend because of the death of his mother, whose funeral he attended at Buda.

In the year 1847, Dr Ignaz Semmelweis was selected for an initial 2 year appointment as an assistant in obstetrics at the famous Allgemeine Krankenhaus teaching hospital in Vienna - now General Hospital Vienna. His primary responsibility at the hospital was with the ‘First Division’ of the maternity service of the hospital. The Vienna General Hospital ( Allgemeines Krankenhaus ) was a jewel amongst the European hospitals in the 1700s. This Hospital was rebuilt as an outcome of the visionary Austrian Emperor,  Joseph II. He Joseph II, was concerned with the growing need for institutional care for the sick poor and thus invested his personal fortune in building this magnificent hospital, which went on to be the leading hospital of the world. Joseph II, decided that rather than build a new hospital, it is better to reconstruct an existing almshouse. The reconstructed General Hospital in Vienna, was designed by the emperor’s private physician, Joseph Quarin and the final plan consisted of a 1500-bed, general hospital with lying-in facilities, an asylum and a foundling hospital. The design comprised a maze of 111 rooms, more than half of which were meant for men, and some private rooms. There were 15 physicians and 15 surgeons and 140 nursing attendants, who were appointed for running this hospital. The reconstructed hospital - Allgemeines Krankenhaus - was opened on 16 August 1784 and instantly became a tourist attraction primarily because of its majestic architecture. It also became a model for other hospital renovations in Germany and other countries. Although the hospital was known for its unique architecture and was also a famous tourist attraction, it soon became infamous for its medical services, since the mortality levels at the hospital was very high at 20% and therefore wealthy and prospective paying patients were frightened to turn up at this hospital. The conditions of the hospital remained much the same until the death of Joseph II. The hospital improved subsequently with the appointment of Johann Peter Frank as its director in 1795. It was in this very hospital that Semmelweis would go on to revolutionise the hand washing and hygiene theory, which has ever since been saving millions of lives across the globe and is now playing a pivotal role in the arrest of the Covid spread. 

Semmelweis, while working at the maternity wards of the General Hospital, Vienna, observed a strange phenomenon - women whose pregnancy delivery was conducted by qualified medical Doctors (physicians) and medical students had a much higher rate of post-delivery death (9%), which was caused by ‘puerperal fever’ or childbed fever. In comparison other women whose delivery was conducted by the midwives or trainee mid wife’s at the same hospital, the fatalities were quite low, at about 2%. It was quite baffling an observation by Semmelweis and it would have been foolhardy of him to suggest that the number of fatalities during the deliveries conducted by professionally qualified physicians and medical students was much higher than those conducted by less qualified midwifes and trainee midwifes. But then Dr Semmelweis was prepared to risk his career and reputation for the search of scientific reasons, which was causing higher fatalities when Doctors performed deliveries. 

During his quest for finding answers as to what caused these higher mortality, Semmelweis learned about the death of a forensic Professor at the hospital. Jakob Kolletschka, a professor of forensic medicine at the General Hospital in Vienna, had died after a student had accidentally pricked Kolletschka's finger with a knife that was used in an autopsy. Semmelweis read the autopsy report of Kolletschka and noted  that the symptoms Kolletschka exhibited before his death were similar to those of the maternity patients who had died of puerperal fever. Because of the similarities, Semmelweis inferred that the two incidents had a common connect. After detailed examination and observations, he came to the conclusion that the medical students in the First Obstetric Clinic, who also dissected cadavers at the morgue, were actually transferring ‘cadaverous material’ from the dead bodies in the morgue to maternity patients and that the mode of transmission was their hands. He further established that the ‘cadaverous material’ was actually causing ‘puerperal fever’ and that it was this same material, which had led to the death of the forensic Professor - Kolletschka. He noticed that the midwives who were responsible for the deliveries in the  Second Obstetrical Clinic at the hospital did not work in the morgue and therefore he inferred that they were not transferring the ‘cadaverous material’ to their maternity patients thus the fatalities were much less at this clinic.

Semmelweis conducted further observational studies on this issue at the General Hospital and came to a compelling conclusion that it was the doctors unhygienic hands that were reasons for the increased fatalities. He was convinced that the exposure of physicians and medical students to cadavers resulted in an increased risk of  puerperal fever (childbed fever). Dr Semmelweis called his studies - Control Analysis.  Semmelweis spoke about his findings with some of his colleagues and medical students, while most were dismissive of his findings, some were quite positive. He was able to convince them to practice a ‘mandatory hand washing regime’ before carrying out the deliveries. He further conducted trials to see if improved hand hygiene by doctors and medical students could reduce mortalities. During these trials, of hand hygiene before delivery, Semmelweis advocated use of chloride of lime solution for washing hands. To the surprise of most of his seniors and also his fellow doctors and medical students, the death rate in all the deliveries conducted using the prescribed hand washing regime fell drastically from 9% to  2%. Semmelweis further advocated for washing of the medical instruments, which were used in the deliveries, and true to his expectations, the fatalities rate decreased further to about 1%. What his findings meant was that for all these years the unhygienic conditions practiced by his fellow doctors, including his seniors, was responsible for the increased number of deaths. As expected his findings did not go well with most of his seniors, who refused to buy his arguments and called them unscientific and aimed at stigmatising the doctors fraternity. Some of the senior Doctors even initiated a furious and vicious attack against Semmelweis.

Professor Klein, who was senior to Semmelweis, was among those who led an attack against Dr Semmelweis. Klein was a respected Doctor and was also a member of the highly respected and influential Academy ‘the Old Guard’, which also consisted of leading authors of the time. Professor Klein argued that the higher fatality was due to the faulty ventilation system and not the purported consequences of unhygienic ‘dirty’ hands of the doctors and medical students. Semmelweis was unconvinced. He was able to take on board a number of young faculty members, who supported him and practiced hand hygiene before the delivery. Some of these doctors went on to become leaders of medical profession who ensured that their hospital - the Allgemeine Krankenhaus Hospital in Vienna became the world’s greatest teaching hospital for the next half century. 

This findings of Semmelweis did not go well with Professor Klein and some of the senior staff at the Vienna Hospital and they all ganged up against Semmelweis and ensured that he did not get his assistant professorship renewed in 1849. Instead, Semmelweis was offered a clinical faculty appointment, which meant that he did not have permission to teach from cadavers, which was of paramount importance during those days. Semmelweis felt he was betrayed by his seniors, whom he accused as ‘murderers’ of pregnant women. He then fled Vienna by abandoning his supporters, and came back to Budapest. In 1851 he took up another assignment as the head of obstetrics at St Rochus Hospital. This hospital too had a high rate of puerperal fever, but with Semmelweis heading the hospital and implementing his policies, the rate of puerperal fever plummetted. In 1855, Semmelweis became head of obstetrics at the University of Pest. Semmelweis implemented the chlorine washing procedure and infection rates of puerperal fever at the university hospital fell.  By then Semmelweis’s obsession with hand hygiene had reached unprecedented proportions. Wherever he went he spoke of the ‘murderous practise’ of Doctors and medical students and this undeterred attack on the Vienna Doctors did not earn him any sympathisers. Rather, he created some more enemies in his home town.

Amidst all,his obsession with hand washing Semmelweis  married Maria Weidenhoffer, the daughter of a wealthy merchant in 1857, the year when India was fighting its first war of Independence against the British. Together Ignaz and Maria Semmelweis had five children. During this period Semmelweis wrote papers on puerperal fever and, in 1861, he published his book ‘Die aetiologie, der begriff und die prophylaxis des kindbettfiebers’ (The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever). Unfortunately, although his findings had a sound base, the book was badly written and therefore it was no wonder that it was poorly received by the medical establishment. By this time Semmelweis had become obsessed with his hand washing advocacy and wherever he went he spoke of the Doctors in Vienna as some kind of a murderers. He was began to be completely ostracised by his own medical community. However contrary to his own views that his own medical fraternity did not heed to his findings, there are evidence which suggest that the General Hospital in Vienna continued to practise the hand hygiene regime which Semmelweis was advocating. 

The conventional view, which is suggested by Semmelweis's own account, is that his contemporaries were skeptical of his results, that he was marginalized and that once he was no longer directly responsible for caring for maternity patients, puerperal mortality returned to its former high levels. However the situation appears to have been quite different. Although Semmelweis went hammer and tongs to criticise the Doctors at the General Hospital in Vienna and call them murderers, who by refusing to look inwards are continuing to commit avoidable deaths at the maternity. Evidence suggests that his successor Doctors maintained a relatively low mortality rate at the Vienna Hospital, roughly consistent with the rate Semmelweis himself achieved. This suggests that the chlorine washings, which Semmelweis was advocating were probably still used conscientiously even after he left Vienna and that the opposition he encountered at the hands of the Doctors had other sources than doubts about the effectiveness of the chlorine washings. All this continued to play on the mind of Semmelweis. 

His mental health began to deteriorate after the publication of his book and he suffered from severe depression. By 1865, Semmelweis's abnormal public behaviour started affecting his professional life and he spent much of his time away from his family. Unfortunately when his behaviour turned from bad to worse, his wife and some of his colleagues in the year 1865, admitted him to an insane asylum in Vienna. Semmelweis tried to escape from the insane asylum and in the process he was beaten up badly. After two weeks in the asylum, post his bearings Semmelweis died on 13 August 1865 in Vienna, Austria. His autopsy revealed that he had died from blood poisoning in a wound that could have been sustained during the beating. He was just 47. 

It must be noted here that although Dr Semmelweis was the first healthcare professional to demonstrate experimentally that hand washing could prevent infections, it was not until 1885 or so, two decades after his death that his work was caught the attention of the Doctors and experts. This happened primarily because by then Pasteur, Koch, and Lister had produced fair amount of material evidence of the germ theory and antiseptic techniques. All these findings helped in establishing the importance of the value of hand washing and Semmelweis was given his due albeit after his death. Many countries have issued stamps honouring the contributions of Semmelweis. A university named after him ‘Semmelweis University’, has been established in Budapest, for medicine and health-related disciplines. Many other honorary establishments have been were established in his name, which include among others  The Semmelweis Klinik, a hospital for women located in Vienna, Austria and The Semmelweis Hospital in Miskolc, Hungary. His house in Budapest is now a historical museum and a library called the Semmelweis Medical History Museum.

While the whole world is combating the global COVID 19 Pandemic, hand hygiene and social distancing are two measures which are playing major role in arresting the spread of COVID pandemic and for which we must all eternally remain grateful to Semmelweis. Long live Semmelweis and RIP.

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Ugadi : New Year Prayers for end of COVID 19 Global Crisis

Ugadi ( Gudi Padwa) - New Year and the First Day of the 21 day National Lockdown : Will this be the Beginning of the end for the CORONA VIRUS (COVID 19) in India? I earnestly hope

Yesterday was the first day of the nationwide 21-day shutdown, announced by the Honourable Prime Minister, and this coincidentally also happened to be an auspicious new year day, celebrated as Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra and as Ugadi in Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. While announcing the national lockdown, during his second televised address to the nation on the COVID 19 pandemic that is raging across much of the world, the Honourable Prime Minister Modi ji, in his inimitable style of connecting with the people, used a crowd sourced poster to simplify the essence of national shutdown due to Corona by holding a poster, which read क़ो रो ना ( Corona) - कोयी - रोड़ पे - ना निकले (nobody should get on to the road).

Most parts of the country followed the clarion call given by the PM and  in Mumbai a city which never  sleeps, the streets of Mumbai, India’s largest metropolis, remained mostly empty, notwithstanding the fact that it was the new year : Gudi Padwa - a major festival for Maharashtra. Like most Indians holed up in homes, I too was glued to the news channels to ascertain what the response of the people will be. From various television news reports, I  could see shuttered shops, empty train tracks, closed airports, idle factories all across the country, meaning the shut down was largely successful barring some scenes of people rushing to grocery and vegetable shops for buying essential items. There were also few aberrations. In Kolkata a lady was shown arguing with the Police and resorting to a most atrocious act of licking the hands of the Police on duty and rubbing her mouth on his uniform. There were some scenes of people attacking the Police, who were doing their job of enforcing the law and in one case a Policeman has been seriously injured and admitted to the hospital. Notwithstanding the monumental problems in implementation of this national lock down, the Police were mostly seen exhibiting exemplary behaviour in trying to convince people to stay home and not to break the law. I was one among those 1 plus billion people, who abided by the law and remained at home in our staff quarters in worli.

My first day of the lockdown at home, which incidentally was the  Ugadi / Gudi Padwa  day - a New Year - began with a diktat from my wife, who first refused to entertain my request for a morning coffee and insisted that I take oil bath with neem leaves mixed in water and join her in doing the Ugadi Puja. She also urged me to get some neem leaves and neem flowers, which were to be used for the Ugadi Puja. We are among those few lucky ones who are staying in office quarters in worli in a lush green campus of 12 acres with lots of trees and plants including neem trees. Neem leaves are used in preparation of a special culinary that is prepared during the Ugadi festival and is offered as prasad to the family God during the Ugadi Puja. Ugadi, is an auspicious New Year’s Day for us, Kannadigas, and so also for others in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. Since my childhood days I am privy to the oil bath and other rituals followed during Ugadi in which neem leaves are mixed with water that is to be used for morning bath, prior to the puja and white flowers of the neem tree, which are used for preparing a special Ugadi cuisine ‘Bevu Bella’ - a mixture of neem flowers, crushed leaves and jaggery with mixture of other ingredients and some other condiments. Though not a religious person, I support my wife in the pujas - who dare not to, not even the former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. Moreover, this year I voluntarily and with full faith took part in the puja and my primary prayers for the almighty was that the auspicious new year Ugadi be the beginning of an end to the dreaded Corona Virus (COVID 19) scourge, which has rampaged the world and is continuing to do so at exponential pace. I hope,  not just mine and my wife’s prayers but also the prayers of all humanity, which is suffering across the globe who are uniting in this suffering, is answered and by the end of the 21 national lockdown we will see the results of the end of the pandemic starts kicking in. Until then all we need to do is have trust in our leaders and all those untiringly working Corona Rakshaks (warriors), who are trying to battle it out even as our immune system, which is ordained to take on such lethal viruses has not been able to combat them effectively. 

This Ugadi is the beginning of the New Year 2077 of the Vikram Samvat (calendar) and also the beginning of the 21 days of our national lockdown for combating the global enemy, Corona Virus (COVID 19). By now it is universally well known that there are no vaccines or medicines or any other medical curative measures to contain this deadly virus, except for social isolation. COVID 19 is a global health crisis in which even the most developed countries with the best of health infrastructure are facing the worst of casualties. The epicentre of the disease  has now shifted from China to European countries. There has been an unprecedented and exponential rate at which the number of COVID cases have been increasing day by day, particularly in highly developed countries with the best of medical facilities. Italy, Spain, USA are all suffering from COVID and have resorted to locking down their countries to contain its spread. Not even Prince Charles, has been spared from this deadly virus. Just yesterday it was widely reported that Prince Charles has tested positive. ‘Top Chef Masters’ winner of the world, Floyd Cardoz, a celebrated Indian American chef in New York City,  who made a huge impact on the international culinary world, was also tested for COVID 19 and yesterday after suffering for one week, Cardoz succumbed to the COVID 19. The situation has been the same in several countries and most world leaders are deeply distressed. A look at the global statistics of the Corona impact (Worldometers info)reveals that as of now (26th March, 13.30hrs) total number of confirmed COVID 19 cases are 4,72,527 with 21,304 deaths and China (81,285 cases and 3287 deaths), Italy (74,386 cases and 7503 deaths), USA ( 68489 cases and 1032 deaths) and Spain (49,515 cases and 3647 deaths) are showing unprecedented casualties. Iran and France too are not far behind with 3647 deaths and 1331 deaths respectively. 

Under such serious COVID 19 global crisis, the 21 days national lockdown and its adverse economic impact, including human sufferings, appears to be a just price to be paid by India. India has more than 1.3 billion people and we are densely populated with far higher number of people per square metres than any other country. And therefore any slip at this critical juncture, in trying to combat the pandemic with social isolation measures, will be too heavy a price to pay later, which cannot even be fathomed. India, as of today, is showing 678 confirmed cases with 13 deaths and these numbers in comparison with  most other countries are relatively less depressing but then we can’t be complacent and the national lockdown for 21 days is perhaps the only way forward in avoiding the Himalayan crisis, which countries like Italy, Spain and US are currently suffering. 

Hopefully, with prayers from a billion plus Indians, on the auspicious occasion of the Ugadi, and so also those extraordinary measures taken by the central and all the states and union territories, India will overcome the COVID 19 global crisis with as minimum a casualty as can be possible under such extreme pandemic crisis. This global crisis as it stands today, is more scary than the two world wars and for India this crisis and its social economic impact may be worse than the three major wars that independent India has fought against our enemies in 1962,1965 and 1971, the Kargil conflict and for that matter even the mass migration crisis, which the nation witnessed just after the Independence. I earnestly hope that all our Gudi Padwa / Ugadi prayers are answered. Though not a scientifically minded statement, I feel a billion plus prayers of a highly religious country like India, which has often been referred to as the leader of spirituality by world leaders, cannot and will not go unanswered by almighty or nature or whatever one calls the supreme force, which governs the nature that encompasses all humans and their current enemy - the Corona virus. 

Ugadi, the new year, is celebrated every year on the first day of the first Hindu calendar month ( Chaitra) of the 12 month cycle and it usually falls in the months of March or April of the Gregorian Calendar. Legend has it that the great king, Vikramaditya of Ujjain established the Vikrama Samvat era after defeating the Sakas. The Hindu calendar is one of the oldest calendar systems, which is based on the lunar revolutions and included adjustments (intercalation/extracalation) to solar reckoning. The word Calendar has its origin from the Roman word ‘Calends or Kalends’, meaning a method of distributing time into certain periods adopted for the purpose  of civil life. The current National Calendar of India is a formalized lunisolar calendar in which leap years coincide with those of the Gregorian calendar (Calendar Reform Committee, 1957). However, the initial epoch is the Saka Era, a traditional epoch of Indian chronology. The reformed Indian calendar, post independence, began with Saka Era 1879 AD, Caitra 1, which corresponds to 22nd March, 1957. 

The ‘Ugadi’ term originated from the Sanskrit word “Yugadi” where “Yuga” means  a new period  and “aadi” means the beginning. As per the Hindu calendar, Ugadi marks the beginning of a new year and it falls on the beginning of the Indian month of Chaitra. It is believed that Lord Brahma created the universe on this day and therefore this day is considered as one of the very auspicious days of the year. Ugadi also marks the commemoration of Chaitra Navratri, which leads up to Ram Navami, Lord Rama’s birthday, which is celebrated on Mahanavami (ninth day). Among other things, Ugadi is observed by drawing the traditional rangoli, decorating the house with mango leaves, buying new clothes and donating food or clothes to the poor and needy and also with special oil bath in which neem leaves are mixed with water, which was what I did yesterday. Let us all hope and once again pray that this Ugadi is special and that the prayers of not just Indians but all of humanity is answered and let this be the beginning of the end for the COVID 19, which has rampaged the globe. 

Once agin wishing my countrymen a very happy new year - Ugadi/ Gudi Padwa and hope that this crisis too will pass sooner than later until such time let us all continue to stand united lay behind all the Covid Rakshaks who are battling it out for us.

Jai Hind 

Image Credits

1. Chef Floyd - Hunger Inc Hospitality
2. Ugadi Pachhadi - Wiki Commons
3. Ugadi/Gudi Padwa Greetings - Getty Images
4. COVID 19 India Map - Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
5. Prince Charles - Wiki Commons

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