Delivered  Extempore

ADDRESS BY SHRI K.R.  NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE HOSPITAL

VELLORE, SEPTEMBER 7, 1993

Chairman of the Vellore Medical College Hospital, Mr.  Thomas Abraham, Dr.  Pulimod, Mr.  Counsel General of the United States of America, Rev. George Issac, distinguished friends, ladies and gentlemen,
 
This is really an unique honour for me to have been asked to unveil this plaque and to inaugurate the new sophisticated medical equipment you have acquired, the Linear Accelerator.  First of all, I must say, it has been a pleasant surprise for me to have been welcomed by Mr.  Thomas Abraham.  I did not know he had any relationship with this famous institution.  He had written me a letter.  Probably it is still waiting for me in Delhi.  It is, therefore, a pleasant surprise to meet him and his wife at the entrance.  He has been a valued colleague of mine in the Indian Foreign Service and also like your distinguished director, comes from Kerala, if I may be a little parochial on this occasion.  I am parochial in a very large sense because I recollect that when I was a young student even from my primary school days, I used to hear of Vellore Medical College and Hospital.  It was almost a legendary institution for us.  I also used to hear the name of one doctor Somerville.  People used to come from Kerala here for treatment as if it has some magic remedy for the most incurable illnesses.  This was the reputation of this institution on which I was brought up.  But I never had the opportunity of personally coming here and seeing this famous institution.  Therefore, when I got this invitation I almost jumped at it.
 
Tamilnadu has now a reputation for some of the most advanced medical institutions in this country.  Whether it is in cancer treatment or cardiac treatment or eye treatment, Tamilnadu has now all over India a great reputation for excellence.  I think that reputation has been originally founded on this Christian Medical College and Hospital at Vellore.  The modern medical institutes have been built much later and the reputation of the Tamilnadu for being one of the most advanced institutions in medical treatment and also in medical studies including the very humanitarian profession of nursing and on this reputation, I think, Tamilnadu has now legitimately acquired the fame of being one of the important medical centres in India.  The origin of this campus and this is really remarkable.  When I went through your booklets, it was amazing to see to find that its founding was associated with a lady from America Dr.  Ida Scudder, who was not a doctor when she came here but visited her missionary parents, when she was a young girl and how her life was almost transformed by the experience of the death in childhood birth of three women of this area.  Our custom did not allow male doctors to treat these women and they died that night.  This really transformed the entire life of this young American lady, who went back to United States, specialised in medicine, came back here and in 1900 founded this great institution. Therefore, at the origin of the Christian College and Hospital, there is a magnificient, touching humanitarianism, as well as a devotion to the science and service of medicine.
 
The other thing which has titilated me is that when this radiotherapy department was established, it is associated with one young boy named Narayanan, who came here with a lump and he was the first object of radiotherapy in Vellore.  I am also a little intrigued by this.  I must tell you a little story.  When I was Ambassador in the United States, once I got a very kind letter from a very enterprising American lady, who wrote to me that she has done very extensive research into all my relatives in the United States and she had written almost a little book and traced all my relatives there.  I was astounded because I had no relatives at all in United States. Then I discovered that she with her originality had gone through the telephone directories of almost every city in the United States and got all the Narayanans.  She thought she had done some wonderful original work in discovering all my relatives in America.  Anyway the first person that I was treated here was a young Narayanan.  I am pleased with it and I think, in a way, I have a little bit of obligation to come and open this new Linear Accelerator equipment that you have obtained from Germany.
 
Cancer is a terrible disease because no one has found a sure cure for it nor has science succeeded in stopping the endless multiplication of cancer cells which take place except the wide spectrum treatment of Chemotherapy and things like that.  But I hope that with human ingenuity and the exploratory passion of scientists and doctors will eventually find a surer remedy to this dreaded disease.  I know that in Ayurveda, and I am personally aware of a doctor, who has developed from ancient texts of the Rasayana Branch of Ayurveda, a drug for the cure of cancer.  It has been tested widely in England in the Imperior Chemical Laboratories and also by a group of doctors.  They established that it has no toxicity but they are now trying how to manufacture it not in the old method where quality nor standard can be ensured and also doing research into why it is curing at least quite a number of cases of cancer like Lukeomea etc.  The principle on which it is based is not by destroying the cancer cells but by strengthening the healthy cells, the antibodies and enabling them to fight the disease establishing some sort of a balance.  I often felt that in India, it is necessary to have collaboration between the more scientific method of Allopathy and the old system of Ayurveda in order to fight some of the dreaded diseases.  It is a very difficult thing to establish.  Now I find that doctors in England, in Canada and in Australia are interested in this medicine.  But in India this doctor has not found much success.  People are sceptical, may be justifiably sceptical.  But I feel that in such a great and original old institution like this, there is a case for establishing collaboration between the Allopathic system and also at least some of the selected Ayurvedic or other indigenous methods of medicine.  I know it is a very very difficult thing to do.  But what I am most happy about this morning is that Vellore had acquired this very modern and very accurate equipment, which can diagnose the disease very accurately and which can also treat through radiotherapy.  In the story of acquiring this equipment is also involved important international cooperation.  I am very glad that US Schools and Hospitals Association has been very very generous in helping financially for acquiring this Linear Accelerator.  I understand that you also get significant help from United Kingdom and Denmark.  Therefore, this Hospital placed in the heart of Tamilnadu more or less, is a result of international help and international cooperation of course at its very origin as well as today.
 
On this occasion, I want to congratulate you for acquiring this Accelerator.  I am sure, it would have involved a great deal of effort on the part of the Director and others in this College and Hospital.  I want to congratulate and thank the United States ASHA for giving this very significant aid.  And of course I want to express my profound appreciation to the doctors, to the scientists, to the nurses and the paramedical staff of this Hospital and College for the wonderful contribution, for the dedicated work that you are doing for the development of this institution.  It is a great humanitarian service.  I know that people from all over South India and also from the North come here for treatment.  I am also aware that you help a large number of poor patients through free medical assistance.  I am also aware of the work that you do in the rural areas around Vellore, a kind of medical extension work to a great number of people.  Therefore, this institution is not only an advanced medical centre, a centre for medical studies, a centre of excellence but also an institution, which is bringing help, succour freely to the poor people in this area.
 
On this occasion while inaugurating this Linear Accelerator, may I express my profound thanks and my great appreciation for the wonderful medical humanitarian work that the Vellore Medical College and Hospital is doing. Thank you very much.