History
The medical lineage of the city began with the first hospital in India set up at Fort St. George on 16 November 1664 by Sir Edward Winter to treat sick soldiers of the East India Company. The hospital grew and expanded and moved out of the fort to its present location in 1772, where it stands today as the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, and was opened to Indians in 1842. In 1785, medical departments were set up in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay presidencies with 234 surgeons. Although the Western system of medicine was brought to India by the Portuguese, the base for a systematised and widespread network of government-run hospitals began with the hospital in Madras, as the city was known then. Throughout the colonial era, doctors from Europe and Eurasia trained and practiced at the first hospital. Between 1800 and 1820, about four hospitals were formed in Madras. In 1835, Madras Medical College was set up, making it one the oldest colleges of European medicine in Asia. In 1854, when the British government agreed to supply medicines and instruments to the growing network of minor hospitals and dispensaries, government store depots were established in Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Rangoon. In 1900, the Christian Medical College, Vellore was established, attracting some of the best talents in the United States. The Madras Public Health Act, the first of its kind in the country, was passed in 1939. In the later half of the twentieth century, many prominent institutions began to appear in the city. The Cancer Institute in Adyar was set up in 1954, and Sankara Nethralaya was founded in 1976, adding to the city's reputation, and along with the Government General Hospital, served as renowned centres for diagnosis, treatment and research for decades. The establishment of the Apollo Hospital in the city in 1983 marked the advent of corporate hospitals in the country.
A former superintendent of the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology in the city, Kirk Patrick, was the first to have found the adenovirus that caused conjunctivitis, leading to the name Madras eye for the disease.
Today, Chennai is the hub of medical tourism in the country, an industry that is expected to grow at an estimated 30 percent per year, which is expected to become worth about 95,000 million by 2015, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.
Read more about this topic: Healthcare In Chennai
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“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
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