The only Indian to have discovered a structure in a human body

Though Indians have been in the forefront of several branches of science and many discoveries and inventions are ascribed to them, there is one field in science where only a lone Indian figures among the elite.

What makes this feat all the more astonishing and astounding is that he is the only Indian credited with the discovery of  a structure in a human body and this is the field of medical science.

I am not talking about the DNA or RNA or Genes (Dr. Har Gobind Khurana) where Indians have made path breaking discoveries. I have restricted myself to modern medical science and not to earlier discoveries by Indian surgeons and Vaids in Ayurveda and other indigenous fields of medicine.

What should make Bangaloreans feel more proud is that this discoverer was himself a Bangalorean and he was one of the Superintendents of Victoria Hospital, the premier Government hospital in Bangalore.

He is none other than Dr. T. Seshachalam, who was the Superintendent of Victoria Hospital from 1939 to 1949. He discovered an accessory artery to the Appendix which supplies blood to the organ.

He was Professor of Surgery in Bangalore Medical College (BMC)

This artery runs through the mesoappendix. The mesoappendix is the portion of the mesentery (Very roughly it means the membrane that covers the abdominal cavity. It actually means the double layer of Peritoneum that suspends the Jejunum and ileum from the posterior wall of the abdomen) connecting the ileum to the appendix. It may extend to the tip of the appendix. It encloses the appendicular artery and vein, as well as lymphatic vessels, nerves, and often a lymph node

The artery he discovered is a branch of the Iliocolic artery. (The ileocolic artery is the lowest branch arising from the concavity of the superior mesenteric artery). His discovery is important as it established the fact that the artery that pumps blood to the Appendix is an accessory appendicular artery.

Medical science has named this discovery in the field of anatomy as the artery of Seshachalam. To this day, he remains the only Bangalorean and Indian to have an organ in the human body named after him.

Victoria Hospital has a photograph of this man of medicine along with photographs of other Superintendents.