THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN PUBLIC HEALTH IN 19TH-CENTURY INDIA THE ROLE OF CALCUTTA MEDICAL COLLEGE (CMC)

The towering public health expert Michael Marmot once categorically remarked, As doctors we are trained to treat the sick. Of course; but if behaviour, and health, are linked to peoples social conditions, I asked myself whose job it should be to improve social conditions. Shouldnt the doctor, or at least this doctor, be involved? I became a doctor because I wanted to help people be healthier. If simply treating them when they got sick was, at best, a temporary remedy, then the doctor should be involved in improving the conditions that made them sick. This is a very big vexing question of modern public heath world, along with its ideology. In another article Marmot pointed out that All societies have social and economic inequalities and all societies have social gradients in health, but the magnitude varies. If we take into consideration these observations, it is quite obvious that we ask to ourselves how did the concept, techniques and working of public health evolve in colonial India? My paper is small step towards this direction a vast area of considerable interest. Public health is an umbrella term encompassing various professions, policies and programs that promote positive community-wide health outcomes. It is also an interdisciplinary field. Epidemiology is a later incorporation within the ambit of public health.