Ishanchandra’s son Pareshnath Banerji (1891-1971) imbibed the values of both his father and his illustrious uncle, and himself became a legend.
A serious student of chemistry and homeopathy both before and after his graduation, Pareshnath, like his father and uncle, became well known for his commitment to serving the poor.
in 1918, he based himself at Mihijam, not too far away from Karmatar, where he invented Lexin – a drug for treating snakebites, the use of which became widespread in and outside India, and earned him enough money to meet not only the needs of his family, but also to offer free treatment and medicines to the thousands of poor people who came to him, many of them also being served food cooked in the Banerji kitchen!
Pareshnath used to have thousands of patients whom he could not have treated by following the ‘classical approach’ of homeopaths. With his analytical brilliance, he devised a new approach to homeopathy, by simplifying it and reducing the time required for examining patients, and gave homeopathy a veritable re-birth.
Pareshnath’s brilliance as a homeopath who was also a humanist and a philanthropist, attracted thousands of patients from all over India, and the Indian Railways were compelled to arrange for stoppages at Mihijam’s small railway station for the trains in which they travelled! Pareshnath’s patients and well-wishers included Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy (who was one of the best-known allopaths of his time), Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan.
Pareshnath Banerji served as an inspiration to his sons and grandsons who have successfully carried on the practice of homeopathy in his family till today.
Dr. Pareshnath Banerji’s second son Prasanta Banerji (1933 – 2017) started assisting his father at Mihijam after completing his education, in an environment where thousands of patients were treated free of charge under the simplified system of treatment his father had developed, with the time required for examining patients considerably reduced. Under his father’s guidance, he learnt how specific homeopathic medicines could cure the ailments from which 80% of their patients suffered. In Kolkata, where he relocated in 1960 and commenced practice, he had to attend to 500 patients per day within two years, and, based on what he had learnt and experienced, thought seriously about the need to standardise treatment protocols for the treatment of all diseases and ailments. Based on this thought, he prescribed specific homeopathic medicines for specific diseases – as done in conventional medical treatment – often with specific potencies and dosage patterns, and often in combination with other homeopathic medicines.
These thoughts took concrete shape as the Banerji Protocols – a new method of treatment with homeopathic medicines with which Dr. Prasanta Banerji and his son Dr. Pratip Banerji are readily associated.
Dr. Prasanta Banerji’s only son Pratip, born in 1964, completed his BHMS from the Calcutta University, placed 2nd in its order of merit. He post-graduated from the London College of Classical Homeopathy (UK) with a Diploma in Teachers Training and an offer to teach at the College, and also an offer from the Board of the British Registrar of Complementary Physicians to practise anywhere in the UK.
He came back to India in 1991 and started practice, seeing over 300 patients every day at the charitable clinic his father had set up. He also completed his Doctor of Medicine (MD) from the JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth (Deemed University), Udaipur.
At the clinics run by him and his father, Dr. Pratip Banerji painstakingly documented data, prepared case studies, and wrote scientific articles for peer-reviewed journals. More important, he introduced processes of data accrual and documentation based on the highest international standards, making such data verifiable, usable for research, and acceptable to the international scientific community.
In popularising their method of treatment, Dr. Prasanta and Pratip Banerji initially faced problems – in the form of opposition on the one hand from those representing the conventional system of medical treatment and the international scientific community who felt that homeopathy had no scientific basis, and, on the other, from those who practised ‘classical homeopathy’.
However, since the 1970s, what engaged the attention of the international scientific community and the medical fraternity were (a) a perceptible lack of success of conventional medicine to cure various diseases and ailments, notably cancer, and (b) the serious, and growing, concern of researchers to identify options for medical treatment offered by various streams of alternative medicine, including homeopathy.
Having realised the potential of the new method of treatment that they had developed, Dr. Prasanta Banerji since the late 1970s, and thereafter he and Dr. Pratip Banerji together since the early 1990s, prepared and presented case studies on their successes at various international forums. They were invited to numerous prestigious international conferences, symposia, seminars and meetings to deliver lectures, present papers, or discuss important aspects of their work – in the USA, Canada, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Brazil and many other countries. Lectures and paper presentations apart, Drs. Banerji have had many scientific papers and monographs published in well-known medical journals.
In 1993, Drs. Banerji set up the Dr. Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation (PBHRF) with a view to make homeopathy a system of medical treatment for the masses, and ensure the best possible collection, documentation and use of vast amount of data for meaningful research in future. The operations of PBHRF and the development of the Banerji Protocols helped Drs. Banerji give their method of treatment a scientific basis, and make it eligible for scientific research. Drs. Banerji were involved in collaborative research projects with American institutes of international renown which include The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Columbia University and the University of Kansas Medical Center. Conclusive proof about the status and the scientific basis of the Banerji Protocols were provided to these institutes, as well as to St. Luke’s Hospital, Kansas and, most important, to the US Government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI).
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) was particularly important to Drs. Banerji and the PBHRF. Based on a request received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the USA in 1996, Drs. Banerji submitted in 1998 complete records of their successes in the treatment of 14 patients with various kinds of malignancies under the Institute’s Best Case Series Program launched in 1991 to identify alternative approaches to cancer treatment, evaluate clinical data from practitioners belonging to alternative healthcare systems, and support research projects utilising therapies based on this Program. Drs. Banerji’s presentation was accepted in 1999 after a detailed scrutiny by the NCI; subsequently, there was also the unanimous acceptance of their six-hour presentation by a 17-member Cancer Advisory Panel which included cancer specialists from all leading American Comprehensive Cancer Centers, including the Washington Cancer Institute, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Johns Hopkins Medical Center. This represented the first ever tie-up of a US Government health institution with any branch of alternative medicine for research on cancer treatment. Moreover, the agreement signed between the PBHRF and the NCI’s Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicines (OCCAM) and the NIH was the first document in the world which recognised the importance of the Banerji Protocols in the treatment of lung cancer.
In 2007, Drs. Banerji presented a paper of ‘Possible Use of Homeopathic Medicines for Health Problems during Lunar Missions’ at the Rutgers Symposium on Lunar Settlements, organised at the Rutgers University, USA.
With a view to acquire first-hand knowledge, and have detailed interactions with Drs. Banerji on the treatment of cancer under the Banerji Protocols, medical practitioners and highly placed officials of important Universities and institutes have often visited the PBHRF in Kolkata; these include the National Cancer Institute, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Columbia University, the University of Southern California and the University of San Diego in the USA, and the University of Barcelona in Spain.
Drs. Banerji have over the years been invited to the USA, Spain, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Italy and other countries to teach the Banerji Protocols to homeopaths and other medical practitioners. Many of those trained in the use of the Banerji Protocols have set up their own private practice. At present, consultation is offered online to patients in more than 200 countries. In Spain, there is a Valencia-based web portal for cancer support, which is visited by nearly 1000 persons daily, not only in Spain, but also in Spanish-speaking countries elsewhere in the world – with many enquiries on the Banerji Protocols.
In India, Drs. Banerji have taken part in teaching seminars on the Banerji Protocols held in Nagpur, Ranchi, Agartala and many other cities, and many doctors trained by them in the use of the Banerji Protocols have set up their own clinics at several places outside Kolkata. Online consultation is offered, and medicines sent, to thousands of patients all over India.
From the early 1990s, Dr. Pratip Banerji, has been a pioneer in integrating the practice of homeopathy with research initiatives acceptable by contemporary medical research standards.
Now the Managing Trustee of the PBHRF, he runs two clinics in Kolkata, where the daily footfall of patients varies from 1000 to 1200, with free consultation offered to 300 to 400 of them. One of these clinics has been upgraded recently, based on Government of West Bengal’s Health Department directives regarding sanitisation and hygiene, as precautions to guard against the spread of COVID 19.