Dilip Mahalanabis

Dilip Mahalanabis was a paediatrician and public health researcher whose work made oral rehydration solution (ORS) the standard treatment for diarrhoeal disease around the world. He was named for the Padma Vibhushan posthumously in 2023 in the field of medicine, from West Bengal ^[1].

From Kishoreganj to Calcutta

Mahalanabis was born on 12 November 1934 in Kishoreganj, in what was then East Bengal, and his family moved to Calcutta at Partition ^[2]. He took his MBBS at the Medical College, Calcutta, and trained in paediatrics in Britain’s National Health Service ^[2]. He later worked with the Johns Hopkins International Center for Medical Research and Training, the World Health Organization and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh ^[2].

The refugee camps of 1971

During the Bangladesh war of 1971, huge numbers of refugees crowded into camps in West Bengal, where cholera and diarrhoea were killing children and adults and there were few medical supplies ^[2]. Without enough intravenous fluid, Mahalanabis and his team gave patients a carefully measured drink of glucose and salts instead ^[2]. The death rate among the children they treated fell by about 90% ^[2].

Taking ORS to the world

The WHO took note and asked him to promote ORS internationally, and he joined its diarrhoeal disease control programme ^[2]. The practice he championed is now estimated to have saved between 50 and 100 million lives ^[2]. He later became director of clinical research at the Bangladesh centre, worked with Kolkata’s National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases and the Institute of Child Health, and founded the Society for Applied Studies, a clinical research unit in Kolkata and New Delhi ^[2].

He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1994, shared the Pollin Prize for paediatric research in 2002, and received Thailand’s Prince Mahidol Award ^[2]. He died on 16 October 2022 ^[2].