Dermatology · Medical research · Publishing
Life and work
1891–1959 · Founding editor of the Indian Journal of Dermatology
Ganapati Panja was a dermatologist and bacteriologist at Calcutta’s School of Tropical Medicine, which he joined as an assistant professor in 1921. A Rockefeller scholarship took him to London for bacteriology research in 1932.[1]
His research included seborrhoeic dermatitis and Malassezia. The Indian Journal of Dermatology’s history places him alongside Hugh W. Acton in the development of dermatology at the Calcutta school. He became the journal’s founding editor in 1955 and guided it until his death in 1959.[2]
He also supported education in his home village, Majigram, establishing Bisweswari High School and Binodbehari Panja Lower Basic School in memory of his parents.[1] His younger brother, Dhanapati Panja, also became a dermatologist.[1][3]
Achintya Kumar Dutta names Ganapati Panja of Majhigram among the community’s intellectual figures, pp. 313–314.[4]
