Atmaram Pandurang

Atmaram Pandurang Turkhud (1823–1898) was a Bombay physician who spent his life on two fronts that in his day were connected: public health and the reform of Hindu social practice. He studied at the Elphinstone Institution, where Dadabhai Naoroji was a fellow student, and joined the first cohort at the newly opened Grant Medical College on 1 November 1845 alongside Bhau Daji Lad. His early practice was in Bhiwandi, where he ran a smallpox vaccination campaign, and he later helped frame Article 14 of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1868.

On 31 March 1867 he founded the Prarthana Samaj at his own house in Bombay, a theistic reform society influenced by Keshab Chunder Sen. Its declared aims were to denounce caste openly, to bring in widow remarriage, to encourage the education of girls and to abolish child marriage. He went further than most of his contemporaries on the last point, arguing publicly that girls should not marry before the age of twenty, which was not well received by conservative opinion. He gave evidence in the Maharaj Libel Case, testifying that the plaintiff was suffering from venereal disease. He also helped found the Bhandarkar free library and was a Fellow of Bombay University.

His scientific interests produced the institution he is now best remembered for: with Sakharam Arjun he was one of the two Indian co-founders of the Bombay Natural History Society. He served briefly as Sheriff of Bombay in 1879, and died on 26 April 1898 of a lung infection. Obituaries described him as holding views too advanced for the comfort of some of his colleagues. Several of his children continued in medicine and science, among them Dnyaneshwar Atmaram Turkhud, who worked at the Haffkine Institute and directed the King Institute of Preventive Medicine at Guindy.[2]