Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/153

 Hindu and the Muhammadan mode of treatment. With the extension of the British dominions, and the greater influx of Europeans into the country, the Government saw the necessity of preparing from among the natives a number of efficient doctors familiar with English medicine and surgery. Lord William Bentinck, in 1834, appointed a commission to report on the existing methods of treatment in the country. The members of the commission submitted their reports, with the opinion that it was full time for Government to establish an institution in Calcutta for giving natives such a knowledge of the medical science, as taught in Europe, as would qualify them to cope with diseases that defy the native physician’s skill. The Governor-General no longer hesitated to take the step which prudence and benevolence had suggested, and the Medical College was founded, with Mr Brambley as its principal. The institution had at first to meet with an obstinate opposition from orthodox Hindus, on the ground that students would have to touch and dissect human bodies. A corpse is an abomination to the Hindu, and the more so if it be one of a lower caste. So the opening of the Medical College was dreaded by the bigoted followers of Hinduism as a surreptitious attempt to destroy it, and make the people atheists, or, what was worse, Christians.

Here again the old pupils of Derozio came to the front. They entered into a crusade on behalf of the new college, and went about persuading whomsoever they met to join it.

Third.— An act conferring full liberty on the Press was drawn up in April, 1835, and made known to the public on the 15th of September that very year. New light now dawned on the horizon of India. Not only did new journals come into existence, but the rise of a new independent