He died 4th May 1904.
Dr. Samuel Fisk Green working
as an American Medical Missionary at Manipay, Jaffna,
trained as doctors – Danforth, Waithilingam,
Hitchcock, Mills, Paul, just to
mention a few of the 115 that graduated between 1848 and 1879, from the
Hospital at Manipay, Jaffna.
Excerpt from a letter
from Dr. Loos to Dr. Green.
Dr.
James Loos, wrote
in 1873 to Dr. Green,
“ …the work we are carrying on ( in
Colombo ) – a work in which we are humbly imitating you. Medical education in
Ceylon is deeply indebted to you and your predecessors”.
Dr.Edwin Lawson Koch - The second Principal.
The
founder of the family in Ceylon was his great
grandfather, Godfried Koch of Brandenberg, who came to the East
in
1755.
Edwin
was born on 29 November 1838, the son of
Johann Godfried Koch (Lawyer)and Angenita Dorothea Aldons, at
Jaffna,
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
He
had his early education at
Jaffna, and must have spent
many
a dreamy afternoon among the beautiful, sturdy ramparts
of
the old Dutch Fort where his grandfather had served as a
Lieutenant
(Artillery) Johann Godfried Koch in the VOC .
At
the age of twenty he won a
government scholarship which
enabled
him to enter the Medical College at Calcutta. There he
further
distinguished himself. Besides other prizes he won in 1862
a
Gold Medal and the prize for General Proficiency.
At
Calcutta he met and afterwards married
Miss Emma Millar.
He
began his professional career in Ceylon as a Government
doctor
on
the 25th July 1862.
‘As
a writer he was of the highest order’.
‘He
published information about the Medical
history of Ceylon’.
Dr.
Koch was one of the three lecturers - Drs. Andree
and Vanderstraaten being the other two.
In
1875 he succeeded Dr. Loos as the Principal of the Medical
School which post he held till his tragic and
untimely death two
years
later.
The late Dr. J. L. Vanderstraaten,
also famous in his time, described him as
"a bold surgeon, a successful physician and an expert
obstetrician."
The
year 1877 will always be remembered
as the saddest in the
history
of the Ceylon Medical College.
On
November 9th, of that year Dr. J. C. Evarts, demonstrator in
Anatomy,
and a brilliant and promising young doctor, received
a
wound
while assisting Dr. Koch, Surgeon
of the General Hospital.
In
spite of Dr. Koch's skillful medical attention, the young
doctor died on November 17th from the effects
of blood poisoning.
Within
less than a month of the death of Dr.Evarts, Dr. Koch
himself
was
similarly
infected from the result of a slight scratch sustained in the
course
of a post mortem
All
the best doctors in the island hurried to his bedside, including
Dr.
Pieter, Daniel Anthonisz of Galle, and the Head of the Medical
Department, Dr. Kynsey. But even their combined
efforts were of
no
avail.
He
died within a week of getting the injury on
December 20th,
1877
when he was only 39 years old, two years after his
appointment
as Principal .
"
His short life was full of good deeds,…, he
served the poor with
Special generosity and
devotion, and was widely known
and love
as
their benefactor
and friend’.
The
grateful fishermen of Mutwal paid a striking tribute to his
memory
at his funeral,
by spreading white cloth all
along the route
from
his home to the cemetery gate
His
son, Dr. Vincent Koch, was given a medical education in Great
Britain
with subscriptions offered by a grateful public.
The
following stanzas are from
a poem written in his honor on behalf of the Freemasons of India:
Wail,
Lanka's sons. We grieve to-day, For him whom Death has snatched away ;
Whose
skill oft bade the tyrant stay , Successfully.
Yet
not for him we grieve, for all
Before
that awful scythe must fall
The
loss is ours ; who heard the call resignedly,
We
mourn the heart that soothed our grief;
The
kindly hand that brought relief;
The
voice, whose music, all too brief, fell soothingly.
We
mourn the MAN, whose honest brow,
Still
looking skyward, taught us how
To
live, to work, to trust, to bow—The end to see.
We miss the skillful master-mind}Who
taught us how to serve our kind;
Feet
to the lame, eyes to the blind,
Continually.
Peace
to his ashes ! There lies one
Whose
useful life, though scarce begun,
Has
soared that highest need, " Well done !
More
blest than we.
‘Through
Dr. J. L. Vanderstraaten's efforts… a clock tower was
erected
to his memory in the grounds of the Medical College by
public
subscription amounting to Rs 3,000, and Sir James Longden,
the
Governor at the time, induced the Legislative Council to donate
the
handsome clock at a cost of Rs 5,000.’.
‘As
a centenary effort … a suitably
inscribed marble tablet in order
to
make the monument better known to the present generation to
whom his high ideals and noble life should
serve as a good
example’.
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The Koch memorial clock tower at Kynsey road. |
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The memorial slab at the base of the clock tower.
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