The Treating Doctor of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee over-ruled his Doctor-On-Record's take...
The experimental usage of Streptomycin caused the untimely death of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee suffering from Dry Pleurisy at 3:20 am on 23rd of June 1953....
It’s so very important for a TREATING DOCTOR to TRIANGULATE the PATIENT HISTORY comprehensively,
Give his/her DOCTOR-on-RECORD’s OPINION immense value to avoid such a national calamity…
Human Body remains one of the most complex and self-evolving machines and has to be treated with utmost caution…
It’s not the competence of the treating doctor alone, it’s much more about the commitment to care and eventual welfare of the patient which is of utmost importance…
In this Digitally Connected Age, Patients can comfortably choose to triangulate their line of treatment and invest in ensuring an ACCURATE DIAGNOSIS…and not just leave it to the TREATING DOCTOR alone…
Mukherjee, agitating against Article 370, was arrested upon entering Kashmir on 11 May 1953. He and two of his arrested companions were first taken to Central Jail of Srinagar. Later they were transferred to a cottage outside the city.
Mukherjee's condition started deteriorating and he started feeling pain in the back and high temperature on the night between 19 and 20 June. He was diagnosed with dry pleurisy from which he had also suffered in 1937 and 1944. The doctor prescribed him a streptomycin injection and powders, however, Mukherjee informed him that his family physician had told him that streptomycin did not suit his system. The doctor, however, told him that new information about the drug had come to light and assured him that he would be fine.
On 22 June, he felt pain in the heart region, started perspiring, and started feeling like he was fainting. He was later shifted to a hospital and provisionally diagnosed with a heart attack. He died a day later. The state government declared that he had died on 23 June at 3:40 a.m. due to a heart attack.
His death in custody raised wide suspicion across the country and demands for an independent inquiry were raised, including earnest requests from his mother, Jogamaya Devi, to Nehru. The prime minister declared that he had asked a number of persons who were privy to the facts and, according to him, there was no mystery behind Mukherjee's death. Devi did not accept Nehru's reply and requested an impartial inquiry. Nehru, however, ignored the letter and no inquiry commission was set up. Mukherjee's death, therefore, remains a matter of some controversy.
S.C. Das claims that Mukherjee was murdered. Atal Bihari Vajpayee claimed in 2004 that the arrest of Mukherjee in Jammu and Kashmir was a "Nehru Conspiracy". The BJP in 2011 called for an inquiry to probe Mukherjee's death.