Hyderabad has long been a pioneer of medical education, treatment and research. It was far ahead of other princely states and British-administered territories of that time, particularly in the field of Medicine.
The Hyderabad Medical School, which eventually became Osmania Medical College, was established way back in 1846 by the 5th Nizam of Hyderabad, Afzal-ud-Dowlah. It was the third oldest medical college in the entire British India, next only to the Calcutta Medical College and Madras Medical College, which were established in 1835. But certainly, preceding other leading medical institutions of that time like the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), which was established in 1875, Jamia Hamdard, which was founded in 1906 and the Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi, which was founded in 1916. In fact, the foundation of medical education in Hyderabad dates back even further to 1595, when Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah, the 5th King of Golconda, established Darush-Shifa, where Unani medicine was taught and practised.
As early as the 1940s, there was a proliferation of Hospitals and Dispensaries in Hyderabad, which had separate and specialised hospitals for General Medicine, Chest, Orthopaedics, Fever, ENT, Mental Health, a TB Sanatorium and a Quarantine Facility. Research and Development (R&D) was actively encouraged, including research in tropical diseases, public health, and medical treatments.
Anaesthesiologists worldwide may be aware of the two Hyderabad Chloroform Commissions established by the Nizam in 1888. These commissions involved leading British doctors and the renowned medical journal Lancet to investigate the safety and efficacy of chloroform as an anaesthetic, as there were concerns about its potential toxicity. Another interesting aspect is that Sir Ronald Ross, a British medical doctor who was born in Almora, was the first person born in India to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his pioneering research on malaria, which he conducted at the old Begumpet military hospital in 1897 — again a Hyderabad connection! Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases (popularly known as the Fever Hospital) in Nallakunta has been named after him.
The city of Hyderabad has now become a leading hub for Medicine and Pharmaceuticals with the development of Genome Valley, Pharma City, numerous prestigious medical colleges and research institutions, including DCMS, which produces a large pool of skilled doctors, scientists, and researchers, numerous World-Class Hospitals and well-developed research infrastructure, including laboratories, clinical trial centres, and research parks.
