Three Calcutta doctors give the world its first frozen embryo baby

Doctors Subahs Mukherjee, S.K. Bhattacharjee and Sumit Mukherjee - a medical breakthroughIn a confidential report submitted to the West Bengal Government, the three Calcutta doctors, who joined hands to give the world its second test-tube baby, Durga, have set all scientific doubts at rest. It claims that the entire freezing operation was not conducted in a sophisticated laboratory, but in Dr Subash Mukherjee's study in his South Calcutta appartment.The freezing mix, they say, was actually a successive application of liquid carbon-dioxide and liquid nitrogen. Surprisingly, the freezing and its subsequent maintenance was manually operated and did not even require a continuous supply of power. The report also mentions that two of the three fertilized ova that were impregnated into the womb, later slipped.The method of the Calcutta doctors differs from that of Britain's Steptoe-Edwards in many ways. The Steptoe-Edwards team used a laparoscope for collection of ova from the ovary. The laparoscope, which is an internal sighting-cum-operating device, can be introduced through the navel inside the peritoneal cavity after application of either carbon-dioxide or nitrous oxide. This enables the whole peritoneal cavity to be viewed.But the Mukherjee team resorted to posterior colpotomy. This involves an incision into the peritoneum, forcible manipulation of the ovaries and extrusion of ova with the help of a micro-syringe. The other major difference was that while the Brown embryo was introduced into the mother's uterus only 72 hours after the extraction of ovum, the Agarwal embryo was kept in a deep freeze for full 53 days. This permitted the mother to undergo an entirely new ovulation cycle and come back to exactly the same condition prevailing at the time of ovum extraction.Secret Experiment: Nani Bhattacharya, 57, the state health minister said: "I was in total darkness about such an experiment being carried out. I read about it in the papers. But I found out later that no laboratory belonging to any state Government institution was used by them." Said Dr M. K. Chhetry, 57, director of health services: "The refusal of the scientists to keep the Government informed about the project does not conform to certain Government services regulations. We should have heard about it earlier." Dr Sreemanta K. Banerjee, a well-known gynaecologist said in a TV interview that lots of questions remain unanswered. "But the three doctors cannot hold it back for long because they would be exactly like the 17th century Peter Chamberlain who, after having invented the surgical forceps, hid it for three generations." Another eminent practitioner commented: "One has a right to call him Dr Sphynx instead of Dr Mukherjee."Dr Subash Mukherjee, 49, the chief architect of the Calcutta embryo transfer is the son of a well-known radiologist in the city. Unlike most of the medical men who enter colleges soon after passing their Intermediate Examination, Subash opted for the hard way. He did his honours in physiology from the Presidency College, Calcutta, before entering the National Medical College. After doing his MBBS in 1954, he went back to Calcutta University for higher study in physiology. Soon he got his doctorate.The Team: During his nine years stay abroad, Subash was mostly engaged in physiological research. After securing a Ph.D in the subject from Edinburg University, he came to London for his MRCOG. In 1974, he claims to have identified in endometrael hormone which could check fertilization by effecting a break-up of the vitally important cell structure capus luteun. Mukherjee says that for him a transition from sterility to fertility research was easy. He got the opportunity to put his theory in practice when the Agarwals approached him to cure Bela's infertility.The two other scientists who collaborated with Mukherjee are Dr Saroj Kanti Bhattacharjee, a gynaecologist and Dr Sunit Mukherjee, a biochemical engineer teaching at Jadavpore University.Dr Bhattacharjee carried out the colpotomy operation on Bela last year when ova were extracted from her womb. He also did the caesarian in October. Dr Sunit Mukherjee's job was to maintain fertilized ova in a deep freeze for 53 days so that the embryo could be in a state of suspended animation.Dr Mukherjee is flooded with requests from childless couples. They all want a test-tube baby. Dr Subash Mukherjee says he is yet to work out the total cost of the project. But it is not much, he observes. In fact, the total cost can be reduced if more couples are willing to participate in a comprehensive project. However, in the meantime he has to satisfy the doubting Thomases in the profession as well as in the academic circles and prepare a paper on the experiment. It would be read at the Indian Science Congress to be held in January next year.THE FAMILY: A NEW ARRIVALLord Sinha Road, where a sprawling mansion houses the intelligence wing of the state police, is one of the noisiest streets in Calcutta. For years the road has witnessed processions of freedom fighters, terrorists, and Naxalites being carried in and out of the Intelligence Bureau.In the second week of October, however, the road experienced the procession of an altogether different crowd. The press - local, national as well as international - swooped down the street to watch the goings-on inside the ground-floor flat of a building two blocks away. On October 5, the Calcutta station of Doordarshan put out a story that the world's second test-tube baby had been born in Calcutta on October 3. The parents of the baby lived on Lord Sinha Road.Childless Prabhat Agarwal, 36, and his wife Bela, 31, had no idea back in 1974, that they would make medical history. Their family physician, Dr Kailash Chowdhury, had referred them to Dr Subhas Mukherjee, a physiologist. Dr Mukherjee had sworn the couple to secrecy about his experiments and forbidden them to ask questions about his method, so much so that after reading about the birth of the world's first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, at Oldham in England, the couple rushed to him suggesting that he could have adopted a similar method earlier. Little did Bela know that the baby she was carrying had been transplanted in a way similar to the one in which the embryo had been transplanted in Leslie Brown, the Oldham mother.Background: The old patriarch of the wealthy Calcutta family of Agarwals is 59-year-old Purushottam Agarwal. He has now branched out into the hosiery and garment trade from real estate and stock market. They have three properties in Calcutta and one each in Varanasi and Deoghar in Bihar. Agarwal has three sons, two daughters, and nine grandchildren. Prabhat is the eldest son who had fathered no child. He graduated from Calcutta University in science and commerce, and was given the charge of the family's hosiery interests, after his marriage in 1963. Bela, is the product of the prestigious La Martiniere Girl's School.There were raised eyebrows in the family as well as in the community when the young couple failed to produce a child for five years. Said Purushottam: "I thought at first that the boy and the bahu had fallen prey to one of those modern ideas of delaying the baby." Later, Purushottam and his 58-year-old wife Panna Devi realized that "something was amiss".Prabhat and Bela are too modern in their outlook to search for the ubiquitous Baba or some other tantrik methods practised in rural Bengal to end sterility. But others in the family were believers in faith healing and prescribed to Bela various alternatives.Treatment, largely of a therapeutic nature, began in 1970. Most of the city's leading gynaecologists who are now vying with each other to prove the Calcutta test-tube baby a hoax, had been consulted during those years. Explained Purushottam: "All those big fellows with fat fees were unanimous in their opinion that a surgical operation on Bela's fallopian tubes should be done. But nobody said with certainty that an operation would lead to an end to the parents' problems."Despair: In 1973 when even Prabhat's youngest brother fathered a baby, Bela's frustration reached its peak. "I could do anything to get a baby at that time," Bela confided to a neighbour who had rung up to congratulate the mother.In 1974, Mukherjee told them that he could solve their problem provided they kept quiet and asked few questions. Asked Agarwal: "What is your method?" The doctor answered: "It's a naya (new) method."The birth of the world's first test-tube baby might have taken place in Calcutta instead of Oldham had the West Bengal Government, unaware as it was of Mukherjee's project, not transferred him to Bankura Medical College about 200 km from Calcutta in 1974. The project was delayed but not deserted. Dr Mukherjee kept shuttling between Bankura and Calcutta to spend his week-ends in the city.The concentration of spermatozoa in Prabhat's semen was carefully counted and was found low. He was given injections of hormones over months to improve his sperm count. Bela's menstrual cycle was watched with great attention. The conditions of Bela's uterus were also noted to the last detail. Finally, in December 1977, a small incision was made through Bela's posterior peritoneum to recover five egg cells from the ovary.Earlier, Prabhat's semen was collected in a test-tube. The ova were made to meet the free floating sperm cells in a dish and the five fertilized eggs were put in a refrigeration chamber cooled to minus 195 degree centigrade by liquid nitrogen. Fifty-three days later, after the lapse of one full ovulation cycle, three of the egg cells were put back into Bela's uterus.No Mercenary: Unlike the Browns who had sold exclusive reporting rights of the birth of their baby to London's Daily Mail, the Agarwals are very sensitive on the subject. They have already refused an offer from a Japanese news agency to visit Japan for a month. Though Purushottam would not admit it, the offer of money was large. Said Agarwal firmly: "God did not give us this child to earn money."The family has also developed an aversion for the press. The mother and the baby are kept in an inner room and are not allowed to be photographed. Photographs of Prabhat and Bela have also been removed from the family album. Said Purushottam Agarwal: "Some of the Bengali papers even had the cheek to name the baby as Nalini. They are behaving as though the baby belongs to the entire nation. I want to tell them that it belongs to us, the Agarwals of Lord Sinha Road."Much to the embarassment of the Bengali Daily, Jugantar, which ran banner headlines calling the baby Nalini, the old patriarch decreed that the girl should, be called Durga-because she was born at 11.14 a.m. on October 3,14 minutes after the ritualistic invocation of the Goddess Durga had begun heralding the beginning of Devipaksha.An enterprising photographer made a fast buck by selling copies of Durga's picture at the rate of Rs 200 each. The Agarwals are firm on their resolve not to allow the baby and the parents to be photographed again. Said Purushottam Agarwal: "After a month I shall release Durga's pictures to the press and let them hear a taped version of the baby's birth as narrated by the parents."Published By: AtMigration Published On: Mar 18, 2014 09:56 IST--- ENDS ---

Download App

Get 37% off on an annual Print +Digital subscription of India Today Magazine

Three Calcutta doctors give the world its first frozen embryo baby

PUBLICATIONS

TELEVISION

EVENTS

RADIO

GAMING

USEFUL LINKS

PRINTING

WELFARE

DISTRIBUTION

SYNDICATIONS

WEBSITES

EDUCATION