Himmatrao Bawaskar

Himmatrao Saluba Bawaskar is a physician and researcher who founded the Bawaskar Hospital and Research Centre in Mahad. He is known around the world for his work on treating scorpion stings and snakebites. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of medicine, from Maharashtra ^[1].

A rural posting by choice

Bawaskar was born on 3 March 1951 into a humble family ^[2]. He took his MBBS at the Government Medical College, Nagpur, in 1975 and his MD at B. J. Medical College, Pune, in 1981 ^[2]. To carry on his research into scorpion stings he asked to be posted to the rural hospital at Poladpur in Raigad district, and his wife, Dr Pramodini Bawaskar, joined him in studying the signs of scorpion poisoning ^[2].

Prazosin

In 1983 the couple tried sodium nitroprusside and then prazosin, a blood pressure drug, to treat the severe fluid in the lungs caused by scorpion venom ^[2]. They reported a 40% fall in deaths, published in The Lancet that year ^[2]. With no outside funding he later ran a randomised trial of prazosin with scorpion antivenom, published in the British Medical Journal, and was invited to write a review on scorpion poisoning for the New England Journal of Medicine ^[2].

He has published more than 108 research papers, trained many doctors in rural India in managing snakebite, and helped draft the national policy on snakebite management ^[2]. His Marathi autobiography is widely read ^[2].