Soorjo Coomar Goodeve Chuckerbutty, also spelled Surjo Kumar Chakraborty (28 February 1826 – 29 September 1874) was the first Indian to pass the examination of the Indian Medical Service (IMS) in 1855 and subsequently became the Professor of Materia Medica at Calcutta Medical College (CMC) in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Orphaned at the age of six, his aspirations for an English education led him to the Hare School and then entry into medicine at the Medical College of Bengal, where, under the guidance of retired professor of anatomy and obstetrics Henry Goodeve and funding from the government, he was one of the first four Brahmin medical students taken to England in 1845 for further medical training. Upon return to India in 1850, despite his achievements being celebrated and supported by some of his British colleagues, he was prohibited from taking up a senior post in the IMS. When the announcement to open the IMS examination to 'all' came in 1854, Chuckerbutty took the opportunity to take it and passed in second place. Returning again to India, he became the first Indian professor of Medicine at Calcutta Medical College. In addition, he co-founded the Bethune Society and became the president of the Bengal Branch of the British Medical Association. As one of the earliest Indians to contribute to western medicine, he published in medical journals including The Lancet, the British Medical Journal and The Indian Medical Gazette. Initially embracing the British ways of life, his later lectures, "Popular Lectures on Subjects of Indian Interest", following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, reflected his changed opinion and criticism of European interest. He died in Kensington during a visit to London in 1874.
Early life Soorjo Coomar Goodeve Chuckerbutty was born a Brahmin, as Soorjo Coomar Chuckerbutty, in either 1824, 1826 or 1827 in Kanaksar village of Louhajanj area situated on the bank of Padma river (Ganges river) of Bikrampur (present day Munshiganj district) of Dhaka district ,British India, to pleader, Radhamadhab Chuckerbutty. He was orphaned at the age of six. Subsequently he completed his early education in Bengali, Sanskrit and Persian at his home village school (Pathshala) situated in his village kanaksar. Then, at the age of 13, he became influenced by an official visit and his first experience of hearing English. As a consequence, he travelled the sixty mile journey to Comilla district where he was taken under a district court official, Golok Nath Sen, and attended the English school where in order to pay his way, he exchanged working as a cook for English lessons. He gained admission to the Hare School in Kolkata (then Calcutta).
Early medical career Challenging Hindu prejudices against touching dead bodies had been instigated in the previous decade when CMC’s first anatomy professor, Henry Goodeve demonstrated anatomy to his first cohort of Hindu students in the 1830s. It was most likely as a result of his influence that Chuckerbuttty himself added "Goodeve" to his own name, inserting it before his surname, and his [Henry Goodeve's] recommendation that he gained entry into the then new Medical College of Bengal (CMC), at his second attempt in 1844. The College had been established in 1835 by M. J. Bramley, who was an advocate of travelling fellowships for bright students, and at the request of Goodeve, who had been proposing the extension of medical training to certain Hindus and who had offered to bear costs for one student, plans materialised for one such trip. In 1845, the government sponsored Chuckerbutty's travel to England for further medical education. Together with Bholanath Bose from Barrackpore and Gopal Chunder Seal, who were sponsored by a regional entrepreneur, Dwarkanath Tagore and another student, Dwarka Nath Basu, the four travelled by ship with Goodeve. Chuckerbutty was the youngest of them.
Life in England
Chuckerbutty was Goodeve's favourite student. and much of Chuckerbutty's account of life in England comes from memoirs of Professor Goodeve, who described how he embraced and was charmed by the British ways of life and of Christianity, views that years later Chuckerbutty had changed opinion of. Having travelled to London with Goodeve, the four students also resided with him at 7 Upper Woburn Place. Chuckerbutty passed the first M.B. examination in the first division in 1847. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) in 1848. At one point during his training, he was awarded the gold medal for comparative anatomy, before completing his M.D. in 1849, in the first division and achieving the second place in order of merit. Minimum age requirements for the examinations meant that he attained his qualifications two years after the other students. On Chuckerbutty's behalf, Goodeve had successfully requested for further funding and an extension to stay. In 1848, he reported to the Medical College in Calcutta, his spontaneous conversion to Christianity and his adoption of his new name Soorjo Coomar "Goodeve" Chuckerbutty. Chuckerbutty had a particular close tie with the professor of comparative anatomy, Robert Edmond Grant, who previously taught Charles Darwin. Professor Grant also mentored Chuckerbutty and allowed him to be involved in three of his natural history expeditions around Europe. By the end of these trips, he had taught himself French and German, and some of his notes from these voyages were later published. He would have perhaps taken a fourth journey, had the French Revolution of 1848 not interrupted its plans. Once, Chuckerbutty took one of Professor Grant's lectures, teaching comparative anatomy to a class of more than five hundred.
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