Dr. Somervell Memorial CSI Medical College

*SOMERVELL, A MAN OF VERSATILE PERSONALITY*

B.Kolappan; The Hindu(may 28, 2012)

As London prepares to conduct Olympic Games from July 27, the very recent discovery that Theodore Howard Somervell had won an Olympic medal in 1924 has become a cause for celebration in England.

But it is far less a secret in distant Tamil Nadu that the surgeon-turned-missionary was a legend in Kanyakumari district, where he worked in the South Travancore Medical Mission Hospital in Neyyoor, rendering unrivalled medical service to the people for over two decades.

The Guardian, the English daily, said last week: “The achievements of Dr. Somervell, surgeon, artist and missionary, were many and varied – but even his family were amazed to discover that he had won an Olympic medal.” He was part of the first full expedition to the Mount Everest and had been awarded a medal in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Mountaineering was then an Olympic sport.

Somervell (1890-1975) set up an X-ray unit in the Neyyoor hospital, introduced radium treatment for cancer, a first-of-its-kind in the country, performed hundreds of surgeries in a month, travelled to every village when cholera and malaria broke out in South Travancore.

He was also instrumental in setting up an exclusive hospital for the treatment of leprosy patients in Colachel in Kanyakumari district.

Tamil writer Jayamohan has written a short-story Olaisiluvai (The Palm Leaf Crucifix) based on the real-life incidents of Somervell. Malayalam poet Vyloppilli Sreedhara Menon has a poem on how the surgeon played the flute to give some soothing moments to a patient after a surgery.

The first portion of Olaisiluvai tells an incident about the missionary-surgeon converting the son of a palmyrah tapper to Christianity to deliver him from abject poverty, though Mr. Jayamohan ends the story with the surgeon handing over a portrait of Lord Guruvayurappan to a woman who had lost all her children to cholera.

“I wrote my story based on an incident narrated to me,” said Jayamohan. But, the autobiography of Dr. Somervell gives a different perspective, as he disapproved of conversion.

“The old idea of medical missions as a bait to catch the unwary and then proceed to proselytize him is obviously not merely out of date, but definitely wrong and unchristian,” he had argued in the book After Everest: The Experiences of a Mountaineer and Medical Missionary. Dr Somervell's paintings of the Everest adorn the walls of the Royal Geographical Society's House.

Francis Younghusband, a British Army Officer, in his foreword to the book, has recalled Dr Somervell as saying, “It is no part of our work as Christians to destroy Hinduism. Nor to go out to India with any feeling of racial and religious superiority, but to serve India in the spirit of Christ Himself – to be servants of Mankind.”

Dr. Somervell first came to Neyyoor in 1922, accepting an invitation from Dr Pugh, who was already working in the hospital, “in a tropical climate of continual damp heat, with a body which was far from physically fit.”

Later writing about his decision to work in Neyyoor, Dr. Somervell said: “Had I not then gone to India at the call of suffering, I could never have dared to look God in the face nor to say prayers to him again.”

Amid his back-breaking schedule, Dr. Somervell spent two hours a day learning Tamil so that he could communicate effectively with his patients.

He was fascinated by Indian music, describing Nagaswaram as “a very beautiful and striking instrument and mridangam, in skilled hands, a marvellous maker of rhythum”, but he regretted that the he could not succeed in his attempt to use these instruments at the church at Neyyoor.

After over two decades of service, he retired in 1945. He again came to Neyyoor in 1948. In 1949, he went to Vellore to pass on his surgical knowledge to Indian medical students and produce qualified Christian doctors. He worked again in Neyyoor (1950-51) and Vellore (1952-53). He also acknowledged the contribution of the Travancore Maharajas to his medical mission and also hailed a 1936 royal edict allowing all castes to enter Hindu temples.

A thorough-going English Christian, Dr. Somervell was critical of the caste system in India, regretting that “centuries of Hinduism, in spite of their great mystics, have never given untouchables a chance.”

He also said “caste is firmly embedded in the Indian mind, so much so that many Indian Christians take several generations to throw it off,” while narrating how his cook was not allowed to conduct his marriage in a church next door because he belonged to a different caste.

While arguing that Christianity gave the untouchables an opportunity for social uplift, he was not ready to blame Hinduism, saying, “It is not that Hinduism is bad in itself.”

“Some of the greatest sages of the world have been Hindus. Some of the stories of Hindu mythology are finer far than many of those in Old Testament. Rama is a finer character than Jacob and Sita and Savitiri have few peers in ancient Jewish literature,” he said.

However, for Dr. Somervell, all other religions are incomplete. “It is only in the New Testament that we find that part of our faith which satisfies and uplifts and gives us peace and power.”

The department of Orthopedic Surgery, Dr. Somervell Memorial CSI Medical College invites one and all to DICTUM 2010(Deformities in Children - Tenets and Updates in Management), a two day academic programme on lower limb deformities...

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http://www.drsmcsimch.org/DICTUM2012.pdf