How peaceful life was then

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Sri Lanka Then and Now: A Memoir depicting Changes during a Lifetime

Author: CG Uragoda

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The above captioned book gives a comprehensive picture on lifestyles of the people, and goods and services available to them since early 1930s till about the turn of the Century.

The book covers a wide range of subjects such as school and university education, diseases and medical services, trade, domestic and international transport, water and power supply, wildlife, indigenous people, etc.

The information given is quite interesting and useful to researchers, development planners, Government officials, medical personnel, teachers and many others. It is good reading for the general reader too. The author has done a good service by recording and thereby preserving this information for future generations.

The book also indicates that there has been a gradual but significant change of the lifestyles, living standards, services and facilities available over the period, indicating that the country has been in the process of development although in certain identified areas there has been deterioration.

Developed areas include among others education, health care, international transport, trade and power supply.

As a medical professional, the author has given a detailed account on how health care has developed over the period owing to better living standards and hygienic practices, enhanced health education, discovery of new medicines, etc. and as a result some diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, poliomyelitis, goiter and elephantiasis that were prevalent a few decades back have totally or almost disappeared.

According to the information given in the book, the areas which have deteriorated over the period are security, freedom to travel to North and postal services. Also the intensity of ragging at universities has increased. Author is silent on two other prominent areas, i.e., bus transport and culture of politicians, which have deteriorated even more and still continue to deteriorate.

As regards bus transport, probably the author would have had no much personal experience and therefore not felt the change or the negative development. As regards culture of politicians of course the change is felt by everybody as a lot of stories are heard, which were unheard during the earlier years of the period covered by the book.

The author’s account on Jaffna indicates how peaceful the life there during those days. Unlike nowadays, people had the freedom to visit Jaffna or any other place in the North as they liked without subjecting to security checks. His journey through Pooneryn is quite interesting in the context that the road to Jaffna through Pooneryn is being rehabilitated after liberation of the area.

Another interesting subject the book addresses is wildlife. The author is a wildlife enthusiast and has undertaken many expeditions to wildlife areas sometimes under very difficult conditions.

He has described these expeditions in detail, and the information given may be of interest not only to the wildlife enthusiast but the general reader as well. It should also be noted with appreciation that the author had visited wildlife areas only to watch animals but not to kill them. He appears to be an animal lover.

The author has contributed a large number of research articles to medical journals and also to wildlife and other journals.

This means he has not only practiced medicine as a profession, but also contributed a lot to its development and at the same time for generation of information in wildlife and other subjects.

Most of the medical practitioners whom we see today appear to have no time for research or entertainment. In this context also the work of the author justifies appreciation.

Finally I wish to comment on the subject of Balaya and TB. I did not have the privilege of reading the authors’ scientific article on the subject (Uragoda, 1978). This issue may not be relevant now as it may not be necessary to keep TB patients in hospitals for comparatively longer periods owing to development of new medicines for treatment of TB.

On the other hand, the histamine content in fish also has decreased to non-toxic levels over the period as a result of development of methods for hygienic on hygienic handling of fish.

Histamine is a derivative of the amino acid histidine formed by its decarboxylation due to temperature abuse in fish handling. Histidine is found in many fish varieties notably big tunas like yellow-fin and big-eye (kelawallas), small tunas like skipjack and bonito (balaya and alaguduwa), mackerels like seer-fish (Spanish mackerel (thora)) and kumbala (Indian mackerel), sardines and anchovies (salaya and hurulla). Decarboxylation of histidine occurs due to the release of the enzyme histidine decarboxylase by bacteria present in fish.

If fish is kept at low temperatures these bacteria will neither multiply nor be active and therefore formation of histamine will be reduced to a large extent. Unlike those days, currently there is a developed ice industry that supplies ice to the fishing industry, and fishermen and fish traders have been made aware of the benefits of icing fish. As regards the export fishing industry, it is a legal requirement to subject the entire production process from the point of harvest to the point of shipment to HACCP system that ensures that, among other things, temperature at which fish kept is below that of melting ice.

Fish exporters are also required to check the histamine content of their fish products and ensure that it does not exceed 200 mg per kg, which is the highest allowable limit in EU countries. Although HACCP is still not a legal requirement for production of fish for the local market, generally the quality of fish available in the local market is acceptable owing to development of awareness of hygienic fish handling and availability of access to ice supplies.

- A. Hettiarachchi [email protected]