Memories of Medical student days, 1960 to 1965

Dr.Tissa Kappagoda, e.mailed on 22/6/2006

This is so vivid. I have spent the best part of thirty years chasing Claude Bernard and his internal environment!  This was the topic of the oration I gave earlier this year at the SLMA.  Professor Koch's lectures were exactly as you described them.   Their significance dawned on me 10 years later when I started doing research in Leeds.  Things went the full circle for me when I was invited by the Physiologists in Colombo to deliver his memorial lecture.  Professor Basnayake was in the audience and he came up to me before the lecture and asked me if I remembered him!  How could one forget these people?

 Best wishes,

 Tissa

Phllip:

My overwhelming impression of Professor Basnayake was his sense of kindness.  In many ways one felt that it was genuine reflection of the man himself and how he viewed his place in the world.  Around 1989 I was visiting my parents in Kandy and someone suggested that I give a lecture  to the Department of Physiology in Peradeniya.  After my presentation, Professor Basnayake offered to give me a lift to my parents' home in Kandy. As we left the Department and headed to his car he suddenly excused himself and rushed back to re-position a saucer which was by the door of the building.  I noticed that it contained some colorless liquid and as we moved away I asked him what he was doing with it. I was thinking in terms of a physiological experiment. "It's the ants," was all he said and we moved on to other topics.  Much later I mentioned this to a friend at Peradeniya who smiled and said, "That's Bassa for you!"  According to my friend Professor Basnayake was moving the saucer which contained some sugary liquid to a spot where the ants could get better access to it.  Although I cannot vouch for the accuracy of his interpretation, it is conceivable that his concern extended to more than humans and puppies......

Tissa

Hi Phillip
Thanks for the entertaining e-mails! Here's another David Jansz one for you!
  Quite a few of the girls in the batch decided to boycott David"s lectures,
because of the smutty jokes he always made. They went to Prof. Koch and
complained, saying they could not go to the lectures. Prof. Koch decided to
go to the next lecture and find out for himself.
  He went with Prof. Hoover and sat at the back of the lecture theatre.
David saw him and looked thoughtful. He picked up a chair and placed it at
the centre of the stage. Then he picked up the microphone with its long flex
and went to the front right hand corner of the stage and announced
" Ladies and gentlemen! as an introduction to my lecture today, I am going
to show you, how a cock approaches a hen! That chair there is the hen. and
with a serious face, he proceeded to imitate a cock-bird, spurring the floor
towards the chair.  The audience yelled with laughter and quite a few heads
were turned to look at Prof. Koch. --Exit Prof Koch and Prof Hoover in a
hurry, both very red in the face.      Cheers!

Heather

Hi everybody

Thanks to PG’s article, it is very reminiscent of those ‘innocent’ days when we did not have a care in the world, except to go thro’ the ‘ academic grind’  in the Faculty.

Philip one more song to add to your list would be: ‘’ Hey Mumbo, Mumbo Rock ‘’. Perhaps I was impressed by the person who sang this.

During the second rag, which I remember well, some of us were anointed with Vicks Vapor Rub

(in the wrong places) A few of us returned to the biochemistry lab, that pm. smarting all over and could not complete the tasks in hand. One of our closest batch mates was asked to strip naked and do a jig of some sort on top of the tennis table and another one was given a baby teething ring to suck, constantly, including during lessons times.

Regards

Sadiq  

Hi All
Dr Austin not only a wild life enthusiast but also a keen
angler. He was the President of the Anglers Club. I had
the opportunity to meet him in 1968 when I was the acting
DMO Kalpitiya. He came to Kalpitiya with Anglers Club
members in his Austin gypsiy with the trailer caravan.
Some stayed in the rest house and others in their caravans
in the rest house compound. When they got up in the
morning found the water supply has run out and there will
be non till evening. The water supply of the DMO's
bungalow was their savior.
I had an opportunity to meet him again when he came to
Chilaw in his brand new orangy red Peugeot 404 to give a
talk to the Doctors there. After the talk we had dinner at
the doctors' quarter where Dr and Mrs Austin joined us.
When they were about to leave to Colombo Dr Austin
discovered that he has locked the keys of his brand new
Peugeot 404 in the car. It was late in the night and every
one was in a panic. I had a very old Morris Minor and the
key was so wasted it was like blade. With Dr Austin's
permission I tried to open the door lock with it and it
opened. The Austins were so happy that they could sleep in
their own bed that night.
  The two occasions I met him he was a totally different
person we knew as medical students - very friendly.
 This reminds me of another occasion. At the final exam
surgery viva Dr Niles an Dr Jeyasekera was on one table
and Dr Austin and Dr Anthonys were on the other table. The
viva started with Dr Niles and and Dr Jeyasekera. They
only asked one questions from all the candidates and none
gave the answer they wanted. Non of the candidates got any
marks. Dr Austin and Dr Anthonys who were observing this
gave full marks to all the candidates to counter balance.
Singaratnam

Thank you for replenishing the pleasant memories.Shanthi did  a  rotation
with Antho too. He invited the group to his beautiful home to have dinner
with him.  He did appendectomy on Shanthi in 1974.  We have copied this too
for future reference.
Is he still living?  How is his wife?.
Could you also let us know how Kapuwatta  is doing?  We do not have his
email address.
Best regards , Shanthi  and Lalith Fernando

Thanks Phil.

I remember an incident while clerking with Dr. Niles. He always presented himself grandly dressed in starched cream colored suites, and was well spoken. During one of his morning rounds, with my colleagues and I trailing behind him, he went up to the patient listed for Hernia operation the following day and explained to him the surgical process. He explained that the surgery involved would include ‘’kappanawa’’, ‘’pallanawa’’(cutting). ‘’thallanawa’’ (pounding), much to the flabbergasted patient’s horror. Needless to say the following morning he found that the patient was missing from his bed, as obviously he had bolted.

Regards

Sadiq

Oldie of the 1960s
 
Oh my Island in the Sun - Song

https://youtu.be/6tA1P5VwXR4?t=7