The first effective drug for kala-azar
AI-drafted · awaiting admin review
Did Upendranath Brahmachari in Calcutta create the first effective cure for kala-azar in 1922?
India first (well documented)Medicine & health
Indian claim
Dr Upendranath Brahmachari synthesised urea stibamine, an antimony compound, at the Campbell Medical School in Calcutta and showed in 1922 that it cured kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), which killed most of those infected.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- Urea stibamine was widely used in Assam and Bengal in the 1920s and 1930s and is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
- The Nobel archive records that Brahmachari was nominated for the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1929 and five times in 1942 for this work and for describing post-kala-azar dermal leishmanoid.
Commonly credited to
Earlier antimony treatment (tartar emetic), introduced by Gaspar Vianna in Brazil in 1912 for skin leishmaniasis and used by others for kala-azar from 1915, was toxic and only partly effective.
Evidence for the other claim
- Antimony compounds were already known to act against Leishmania; Brahmachari's advance was a much safer and more effective pentavalent compound.
What historians and scientists say
Urea stibamine was the first highly effective treatment for kala-azar, and it was made in India by an Indian scientist. It is one of the clearest Indian firsts in modern medicine.