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Col. R. N. Chopra ( Ram Nath Chopra)

Col. R. N. Chopra (Ram Nath Chopra)

Name: Colonel Sir Ram Nath Chopra

Father: Raghu Nath Chopra

State: Jammu and Kashmir

Date of Birth: 17 August 1882

Year of Death: 1973

Eduaction: Government College, Lahore (with brilliant academic record)

Professional area: Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine in 1921 as the first professor of pharmacology

Field of interest: General pharmacology, chemotherapy, indigenous drugs, drug addiction and drug
assays

Position: Chairman, Drugs Enquiry Committee (1930-31)

The Drugs Enquiry Committee:

Lt. Col. R. N. Chopra (Chairman)

Dr B. Mukherjee (Assistant Secretary),

C. Govindan Nayar (Secretary),

reverend Father J. F. Caius,

H. Cooper,

Abdul Matin Chaudhury

The recommendation of the Drugs Enquiry Committee for compilation of Indian Pharmacopoeia did not receive serious consideration of the Government. Instead a committee was constituted, with Sir R. N. Chopra as the chairman, to prepare an official pharmacopoeial list

Sir Ram Nath Chopra continued on the Committees involved in the preparation of the Pharmacopoeia of India (Indian Pharmacopoeia) (1955) and its 1960 supplement, and the new edition of the pharmacopoeia which followed in 1966

For the 1955 edition Sir Ram Nath Chopra chaired the ‘Co-ordination Sub-committee’ and for the 1960 supplement and the 1966 edition he headed the Indian Medicinal Plants Sub-committees.

Col. Chopra became the general president of the Indian Science Congress, having earlier been twice sectional President in Physiology and Medical Sciences of the Congress

Colonel Sir Ram Nath Chopra passed away on 13 June 1973 at his own home at Srinagar, Kashmir

The Indian Pharmacological Society, of which Col. Chopra had been the founder president (1969), instituted ‘Chopra Memorial Oration’ in 1976

In Chopra’s honour the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department issued a commemorative stamp on 17 August 1983

Col. Chopra’s contributions towards promotion of Indian systems of medicine were also significant. The recommendations of the Committee on Indigenous Systems of Medicne at which he presided brought focus on the Indian systems and the process for their consolidation started. The recommendation for integration of Indian and Western systems still remains a far cry. A beginning was made for preparing the Ayurvedic and Unani pharmacopoeias through the respective committees chaired by him.

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