Green Medical School - The First Med School in Sri Lanka
The Colombo Medical Faculty was established at around 1870, and tends to be considered the first western medical school in SL, and the second in South Asia after the Calcutta Medical College (1835). However, there was a med school set-up in Manipay in 1848, by Dr. Samuel Green, a missionary doctor from Boston, Massachussets. Dr. John Scudder was the first medical missionary in Jaffna, establishing a dispensary in Pandathirrippu in 1820, illustrated in image 3. And while there had been hospitals operated by the Portuguese and Dutch, they were mostly for their own use, they couldn't rlly be considered the 'modern' medicine, practiced since 1800s or so. Dr. Samuel Green similarly opened his clinic in 1847 (Image 4), which would eventually evolve into the Green Memorial Hospital, which is still operational to this day. The Green Med School trained around 80 doctors from 1850-1875, from local community, who were employed by the British colonial government. There was also a Gre...