First patient inoculated in Trinco 207 years ago

by K.D. Jayasekera

Trincomalee can be proud of being one of the first four towns to set up hospitals by the first British Governor Fredrick North. Hospitals were simultaneously set up in Colombo, Galle, Trincomalee and Jaffna. Trincomalee can take pride of being the first hospital to inoculate a patient over 207 years ago.

Smallpox, cholera and other epidemics were rampant in Trincomalee in the early British period. Though the Portuguese and the Dutch too had suffered heavily, no records were available on them.

Trincomalee was considered a dreadful place by the British troops in the early 19th century. There had been many deaths among the Europeans in Trincomalee probably due to the lack of understanding of the tropical diseases and the precautions to be taken against them.

Smallpox caused wide spreads havoc and eventually a hospital was established in Trincomalee as well as in Colombo, Galle and Jaffna. Vaccination was then in its infancy, but it was Trincomalee where in 1802 a patient was inoculated for the first time.

Conditions prevailing in Trincomalee at that time have been vividly described by British gunner, Alex Alexander who was stationed there in 1803.

Alexander in his book published in Britain states: "Trincomalee was the worst station on the whole island. The climate and the great fatigue and more specially the food had begun to fall upon us in a fearful manner.

The diseases most prevalent among us were dysentery, liver complaints and the berry-berry, the inflation of the stomach and bowels and fever.

The mortality rate was so great and our duties so severe at this time we were often obliged to get assistance from the 19th Regiment in the melancholy office of burying the dead."

Gunner Alexander has found that the food in the barrack were so badly cooked that it made him ill, and as such he decided to take a native wife to cook for him.

He stayed in Fort Fredrick where he got better food from the Pettah (the area outside the Fort). He had obtained permission from the Commandant to build a house for his family within the Fort, a procedure which was quite in line with the practice.

Fifty six men - commissioned officers and privates, two women and a child of H.M. 78th Highlanders who were carried off by an epidemic of cholera within less than a month were buried in the Christian cemetery opposite the Big Maidan.

Trincomalee has changed through the years and it is now considered one of the best coastal towns in the country which can attract more foreign tourists than any other seaport town.