7 - The Unsung Hero: The Genius of Upendra Nath Brahmachari

Summary

The story of urea stibamine is itself worthy of recording as a dramatic medical break-through which may be related…. A Bengali worker Dr U. N. Brahmachari, himself a chemist, was producing various products which he was testing on kala-azar cases. The Government Director of research programmes under the aegis of the Indian Research Fund Association, Colonel G. D. W. Greig IMS, asked him to send these to me to test at my special kala-azar hospital in Shillong, the capital of Assam. Among others, he sent me a product he called ‘urea stibamine’ which he had tried and merely passed over with a formal favourable comment. When I tested it I found it was so effective that cases could be treated and cured by about eight doses instead of taking many weeks or even months and then with unpredictable results.

To begin with, the question as to who Upendra Nath Brahmachari was can be addressed by referring to the remarks of Nilratan Sircar, an outstanding medico of Bengal. While presiding over a meeting of the Calcutta Medical Club, held on 20 September 1923, he said,

At this moment this salt [urea stibamine] comes as a real friend to enable us to help many of our brothers and sisters to be cured of this fell disease [kala-azar], and we can surely realize how great is our delight to be able to depend upon one of our home-made products for the purpose of vanquishing one of our worst enemies. No German would have stronger reasons for being proud of the Krupp gun nor a Frenchman would have greater reasons for being proud of his navy than we Bengalees would have, being able to use one of our home-made products for the purpose of fighting out one of the most dreadful diseases through the discovery of our Dr Brahmachari.

Brahmachari (see Figure 7.1) was one of the medical superstars, and an unsung hero, in the fight against one of the dangerous enemies of public health in the British Empire in India. The process of defeating this disease may be said to have been started with the introduction of tartar emetic by Leonard Rogers, and it reached a height of success with the availability of Brahmachari's brainchild, urea stibamine.