Facets Of India: A Remarkable And Extraordinary Scientist
...Haldane’s wife Helen Spurway later told Smith that at the time he died in Bhubaneswar, Haldane had in his hand a stone which he had picked up from Israel, in the stream where David picked up the stone that killed Goliath. When he dropped that stone, Helen knew that he had died....
Hariharan Balakrishnan concludes his series of articles on the remarkable and extraordinary scientist, J B S Haldane.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this series of articles, Haldane spent his last years in India and died here in Bhubaneswar. He mentored many a scientist, and left a lasting impression in the minds of all who interacted with him.
Dr. Meera Khan, father of Azad Khan who took me to see the remains of Haldane in Kakinada, was perhaps closest to him among such people in India. One field of study that created great interest (and controversy) was the clinical effects of inbreeding (co-sanguineous marriages) which was prevalent in some communities of the region. Meera Khan was working under the government of Andhra Pradesh and had lots of opportunity to collect blood samples from rural India and use them for his research under the guidance of Haldane.
Meera Khan was a student of the Andhra Medical College in Vizag when Haldane gave a lecture there, on high altitude physiology and the physiology of deep-sea diving. During the interaction that followed, Khan learnt about his classmate of yesteryears, Krishna Dronamraju, who was already working with Haldane at the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta. He asked a few questions to Haldane, which apparently impressed the great scientist.
Later, Dronamraju met Khan in Vizag and told him about the vistas of research that were open for study under the brilliant scientist. Khan was hooked by the idea of researching on consanguineous marriages that were widespread among patients who came to the hospital attached to the Medical College. He went to Calcutta, stayed for long periods with Haldane and his wife Helen Spurway, discussed data collected by him, and continued his research under the guidance of Haldane. He went on to become a close lieutenant of Haldane in his research work. Indeed, Haldane became a foster father to Khan and financed his research and further studies in Holland where he settled later in life.
John Maynard Smith, possibly Haldane’s most famous student, was with him when he went to the operating table after being diagnosed with cancer of the colon, to undergo colostomy. Smith thought that maybe Haldane thought he may die on the operating table since he was already an old man. “He was very vain, you must understand. It was quite important that he have some good last words”, said Smith in a recorded interview. “And who better to say them to than Smith who would remember them and repeat them? So he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Well Smith, I had my last shit’.”
That is typical Haldane for you. Those were not his last words, though. Haldane’s wife Helen Spurway later told Smith that at the time he died in Bhubaneswar, Haldane had in his hand a stone which he had picked up from Israel, in the stream where David picked up the stone that killed Goliath. When he dropped that stone, Helen knew that he had died. Quite a remarkable end to an extraordinary life. Yes, alive or dead, John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964) was one of his kind.
PS: The Kalinga Prize for popularization of Science was instituted in 1952 by the Chief Minister of Orissa the late Biju Patnaik, who brought Haldane to Orissa, India Among its recipients were Julian Huxley, Arthur C. Clarke and Fred Hoyle. The award was renamed UNESCO-Kalinga Prize since 2009, and will be awarded for 2011 to the Mexican scientist Rene Raul Drucker on January 3, 2012 at Bhubaneswar by the Prime Minister of India.
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To read the earlier articles in this series please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/facets_of_india/
