I am reproducing a write up which I have received from Prof PS Banerjee, Editor in Chief, Journal of Veterinary Parasitology. I had a chance to meed this distinguished scientist only once in my life time and that is narrated afterwards :
Punjab
University Agra University PAU PAU , he remained Dean, College of Veterinary
Science Bombay
(matter in parentheses have been taken from the fellow book of Indian Science Academy,New Delhi) *********************************************************************************************
This is the event of late eighties when Dr Gill retired from PAU and have joined some Pharmaceutical firm as Consultant. He was working on hump-sore ,caused by Stephanofilaria assamensis, and has published a research paper on chemotherapy on the hump-sore in some foreign journal . Anyhow, he came to know that I have worked for my Master's degree on different aspects of ear-sore, caused by Stephanofilaria zaheeri under Dr SC Dutt. He contacted Dr HL Shah, who was at that time Professor and Head of Parasitology and asked about the information. I informed him that at Jabalpur, we are having large animal slaughter house where its easy to collect affected buffalo's ears and their processing result in recovery of adult male, female, S.zaheeri along with developing larval stages.Dr Gill made his tour program for Jabalpur, stayed in Kalchuri hotel (which is near our college) ; I went to the hotel to meet him for a courtesy call. I found this retired scientist possessing the quality of mixing with much junior , young Parasitologist very casually . The slaughtering was occurring in the evening hence I requested him to come in the department in the evening to show the detailed procedure. Next day, in the morning, we were able to collect a good number of the nematodes with larval stages ; the stereoscopic microscope helped in collecting larvae and we demonstrated how we can collect microfilariae from skin scrapings .
It is important to remember Professor Gill as an icon of Indian Parasitology. First because of his contributions in Protozoology. Though surra or Trypanosoma evansi was discovered in 1880 from India by a British Scientist (Griffith George Evans), the first monograph on Trypanosomiasis was written by Dr HN Ray- perhaps in 1954. Dr Gill extensively worked on surra while he was at IVRI and provided important new findings. He published monograph on trypanosomiasis two times -first in 1977 and second in 1991.
When he was at PAU he started working on tropical theileriosis ,caused by Theileria annulata and he was the pioneer to develop culture vaccines in India against theileriasis .As referred above his expertise was recognized internationally and he was invited at different forum to air his views.
Another important quality in Dr Gill was that he was a good administrator; here I do not mean good for being able to carry over his work. He was a good administrator as he did good for veterinary profession as well as for Parasitology. The one example comes when he persuaded Dr SC Dutt to leave ADG post of ICAR and join PAU as Professor and Head of the newly created department of Parasitology. Dr Gill did all the best to retain Dr Dutt at PAU, provided bungalow in the campus and helped to establish a laboratory where he could work ,even after his retirement . Dr Dutt completed his monograph on Paramphistomes but that could not be published in his life time and this monograph could see the light with the help of Dr Gill.
Dr Gill also enriched PAU with different schemes in Parasitology which were responsible for applied research work needed for the state.The Parasitology science desires such scientists who not only conduct good research work but becomes instrumental to create a second line of researchers so that work should continue.... Dr Gill, Dr Dutt, Dr Pande are few such examples.
(matter in parentheses have been taken from the fellow book of Indian Science Academy,New Delhi) *********************************************************************************************
This is the event of late eighties when Dr Gill retired from PAU and have joined some Pharmaceutical firm as Consultant. He was working on hump-sore ,caused by Stephanofilaria assamensis, and has published a research paper on chemotherapy on the hump-sore in some foreign journal . Anyhow, he came to know that I have worked for my Master's degree on different aspects of ear-sore, caused by Stephanofilaria zaheeri under Dr SC Dutt. He contacted Dr HL Shah, who was at that time Professor and Head of Parasitology and asked about the information. I informed him that at Jabalpur, we are having large animal slaughter house where its easy to collect affected buffalo's ears and their processing result in recovery of adult male, female, S.zaheeri along with developing larval stages.Dr Gill made his tour program for Jabalpur, stayed in Kalchuri hotel (which is near our college) ; I went to the hotel to meet him for a courtesy call. I found this retired scientist possessing the quality of mixing with much junior , young Parasitologist very casually . The slaughtering was occurring in the evening hence I requested him to come in the department in the evening to show the detailed procedure. Next day, in the morning, we were able to collect a good number of the nematodes with larval stages ; the stereoscopic microscope helped in collecting larvae and we demonstrated how we can collect microfilariae from skin scrapings .
It is important to remember Professor Gill as an icon of Indian Parasitology. First because of his contributions in Protozoology. Though surra or Trypanosoma evansi was discovered in 1880 from India by a British Scientist (Griffith George Evans), the first monograph on Trypanosomiasis was written by Dr HN Ray- perhaps in 1954. Dr Gill extensively worked on surra while he was at IVRI and provided important new findings. He published monograph on trypanosomiasis two times -first in 1977 and second in 1991.
When he was at PAU he started working on tropical theileriosis ,caused by Theileria annulata and he was the pioneer to develop culture vaccines in India against theileriasis .As referred above his expertise was recognized internationally and he was invited at different forum to air his views.
Another important quality in Dr Gill was that he was a good administrator; here I do not mean good for being able to carry over his work. He was a good administrator as he did good for veterinary profession as well as for Parasitology. The one example comes when he persuaded Dr SC Dutt to leave ADG post of ICAR and join PAU as Professor and Head of the newly created department of Parasitology. Dr Gill did all the best to retain Dr Dutt at PAU, provided bungalow in the campus and helped to establish a laboratory where he could work ,even after his retirement . Dr Dutt completed his monograph on Paramphistomes but that could not be published in his life time and this monograph could see the light with the help of Dr Gill.
Dr Gill also enriched PAU with different schemes in Parasitology which were responsible for applied research work needed for the state.The Parasitology science desires such scientists who not only conduct good research work but becomes instrumental to create a second line of researchers so that work should continue.... Dr Gill, Dr Dutt, Dr Pande are few such examples.
