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VOL. XXIV NO. 1, April 16-30, 2014
The multi-faceted Edward Balfour
('Pages from History' by Dr. A. Raman (araman@csu.edu.au))

Edward Balfour sparkles in the science history of colonial Madras as a multi-talented person. He came to India to join the army medical service. He later featured prominently in various academic and administrative arenas of the Madras Presidency: from an army-surgeon to a diplomat, from chief administrator of the Madras Medical Department to contributing significantly towards the development of science. In whatever work he undertook, he achieved the best outcomes. His profundity in meticulously documenting his observations on diverse aspects of science, be it medicine, biology, agriculture and forestry, and even astronomy, is stunning. This article remembers the contributions of this Scot to Indian science. But there were so many other facets to Balfour, that each could do with a separate article.

During his stay in Madras, Balfour supported granting Independence to India, although it materialised only in 1947, long after his return to Britain. In high likelihood, his mother’s brother Joseph Hume (1777-1855), a medical doctor and a radical British parliamentarian, influenced Balfour in this direction. Allan Octavian Hume (1829-1912), son of Joseph Hume, who too trained as a medical doctor but served as an Indian Civil Servant, who was also an avid ornithologist and horticulturist, was his first cousin. Many readers will recall that Allan Hume was a founding pillar of the Indian National Congress in 1885, the concept of which was conceived at a private meeting held during a Theosophists’ convention in Madras in December 1884.

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Edward Balfour, who retired as the Surgeon-General of the Madras Presidency, was born the second son of George Balfour and Susan Hume in Montrose, Forfarshire, Scotland, on September 6, 1813. He received his early education at the Montrose Academy. He qualified for the licentiate of the Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeons (L.R.C.S. [E.]). Motivated British youth enrolled in medical training early in their lives, therefore it is not surprising that Balfour qualified for his L.R.C.S. (E.) at 20.

Balfour arrived in India and entered the medical department of the Indian army in 1834. He was commissioned as an assistant surgeon in June 1836. After serving as a medical officer with the European and native artillery, the native cavalry, and the infantry of the Madras and Bombay armies, then as the staff surgeon in Ahmadnagar and Bellary in the Ceded Districts, he became a full surgeon in 1852. In 1850, he was the acting government agent at Chepauk and the paymaster of the Carnatic stipends.

During his early years of service, Balfour learnt different Indian languages and achieved mastery over Hindustani and Persian. Balfour translated and published in 1851 Gul-dastah-i-Sukhan (the Bunch of Roses), a lithograph of a series of extracts from Persian and Hindustani poets. He established the Mohammedan Public Library in Madras, an institution that included books in English and the Oriental languages. This service to Muslim literature and culture in India, was gratefully acknowledged on his departure, in a Persian address presented to him by the leading Muslim citizens of Madras. For further notes on this subject, refer to S. Anwar, Madras Musings (XIX, 2010).

Between 1858 and 1861, Balfour was commissioned to investigate the debts of the Nawab of the Carnatic (earlier, the Nawab of Arcot), which were owed to many of the British in Madras. Some notations on this assignment refer to Balfour as a ‘political agent’ at the Court of the Nawab. For a short period, he officiated as the Assistant Assaymaster at the Madras mint, and the Madras Examiner of Medical Accounts in the Army Finance Department of India. He joined the administrative grade of the Madras medical staff in 1862. He was the Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals during 1862-1870. During this period he also served as the Deputy Surgeon-General in Burma, the Straits Settlements, and the Andamans, twice in the Ceded Districts, twice in the Mysore division, and for four years with the Hyderabad subsidiary force and Hyderabad contingent. While displaying an enormous level of administrative acumen in these roles, he continued to sustain his interest in science and in the promotion of science. One dazzling example is the establishment of the Madras Museum in 1851, the Madras Zoo in 1855, and Mysore Museum in 1866 through his committed efforts.

Balfour became the Surgeon General, heading the Madras medical department, in 1871, a post he held until his retirement in 1876. During this period, he drew the attention of the Government of Madras in 1872 to the need for qualified women doctors, as local social customs restricted women from receiving treatment from male doctors and attending public hospitals. The Madras Medical College opened its gates to women in 1875. Balfour’s service in this context was commemorated with the establishment of the ‘Balfour Memorial Gold Medal’ in 1891 at the University of Madras with the singular object of encouraging women studying medicine.

Balfour returned to Britain in 1876, after 42 years of residence and service in India. He died in Hyde Park, London on December 8, 1889, at the age of 76. He had married the eldest daughter of Dr. Gilchrist of Madras on May 24, 1852. His portrait was placed in the Government Central Museum, which is the Madras Museum of today. Balfour was a Fellow of the University of Madras, and a corresponding member of the Imperial Royal Geological Institute of Vienna.

* * *

Balfour’s contributions to Indian science

Balfour displayed a variety of interests in science. He came to India as a medical doctor. His adeptness in writing on a range of subjects is astonishing. He wrote over 30 major publication on Astronomy, Biology, Climatology and Forestry, Geology, Medicine and Public Health, and Museology, not to mention work he did in Persian, between 1845 and 1863. In this article, I refer to some of his major works and treatises, for want of space and time.

Public health & medicine

Edward Balfour.

In 1845 Balfour published the Statistical data for forming troops and maintaining them in health in different climates and localities (Madras) and the Observations on the means of preserving the health of troops by selecting healthy localities for their cantonments (London), which brought him into prominence as an authority on public health. These two publications were key drivers in establishing the military hospital at Wellington, the Nilgiris. He seems to have been seriously interested in the epidemiology of cholera which is supported by two of his publications, the Statistics of Cholera published at Madras. In 1850, he published Remarks on the causes for which native soldiers of the Madras Army who were discharged the Service in the five years from 1842-3 to 1846-7.

Economic biology

In 1849 he received the thanks of the Madras Government for his report ‘On the Influence exercised by Trees on the Climate of a Country and by publishing in Madras a work on The timber trees, timber, and fancy woods, as also the Forests of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia,’ which ran a second edition in 1862, and a third in 1870.

At Govt. Central Museum

In 1850 an offer made by Balfour to the Government to establish a museum in Madras was accepted, and the Government Central Museum came up with Balfour as its ‘superintendent’, with no remuneration, till 1859. While holding this appointment, he issued, besides several catalogues and general reports on the work of the museum, several publications relating to special branches of scientific study. These included a Classified list of the Mollusca (Madras, 1855), a Report on the iron ores: the manufacture of iron and steel, and the Coals of the Madras Presidency (Madras, 1855), and Remarks on the gutta percha of Southern India (Madras, 1855). He also wrote a prefatory description of the districts dealt with in Barometrical Survey of India issued in 1853 under the editorship of a committee, of which Balfour was chairman, and he published Localities of India exempt from cholera.

His masterpiece

In 1857 appeared the 4-volume work by which Balfour is best known: The Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and -Southern Asia, Commercial, Industrial, and Scientific. This book embodied profound experience, extensive reading, and indefatigable effort. A second edition, in five volumes, appeared in India in 1873, and between 1877 and 1884. Balfour revised the book for publication in England. After the first edition, the word ‘cyclopaedia’ was substituted in the title for ‘encyclopaedia’. The third edition, which was published in London in 1885, was at many points superior to  the earlier impressions. Balfour’s outlay on it was lavish and ungrudging, but the usefulness of the work was soon generally recognised, and the whole expenditure was met within two years. While working on the updated and third revision of his Cyclopaedia of India in London, he published Indian Forestry (1885) and The Agricultural Pests of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, Vegetable, Animal (1887).

Miscellaneous publications

Before leaving India Balfour wrote two pamphlets -under the general title Medical hints to the people of India, of which one was The Vydian and the Hakim, what do they know of Medicine? and the other was Eminent medical men of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, who have advanced medical science. Both were published in Madras in 1875, and ran into second editions in the following year. He also translated J. T. Conquest’s Outlines of Midwifery into Hindustani and procured and printed at his own expense translations of the same work in Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. He also translated Tate’s Astronomy into Hindustani; he prepared Statistical Map of the World (1854) in both Hindustani and English, which was also printed in Tamil and Telugu.

* * *

Balfour amazingly linked science, science administration, and human values, while serving in India. Quite appropriately, this remarkable Scot is remembered today in Madras in Balfour Road, Kilpauk.

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In this issue

An insensitivity everywhere
Madras Landmarks
Of 'official' slums and 'unofficial' ones
Save Our Heritage
Seeing Scenes in Perspective
The Multi faceted Edward Balfour
The Principal from the Punjab
A.F.Wensley and other Coaches

Our Regulars

Short 'N' Snappy
Dates for Your Diary
Readers Write
Quizzin' With Ram'nan
Madras Eye

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