At Beadon Street in Calcutta, there was an electric treatment room for dental patients under Dr. Ghosh. Painless extraction of teeth was guaranteed and published through the news media.

Alongside these, there was Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals (estd. 1892) and, of course, consulting chemist Dr. Prafulla Chandra Roy, DSC (Edin.) and Dr. Nilratan Sarkar, MAMD. Two hugely popular medicines of this organization are ‘Essence of Chirota’ and ‘Extract of Gulanch’. There was London Pharmacy of Dharamtala Street with its famous ‘Pyrtis Saline’ as a good health care measure.

Just as ‘All roads of the world lead to Rome’ death is the ultimate destiny for all living beings. And as regards funeral places, the complaints of the Bengalees were prevailing even during that period. Mr. Shyamal Adhya was the then Inspector of Burning Ghats of Calcutta Corporation. It was criticized in the newspapers that the relatives of the dead were being shamelessly deceived at the funeral ghats. The market price of wooden pieces (required for funeral) was 0.16 annas per k.g. and for the funeral of one dead person, it requires about 200 k.g. of funeral wood. So the cost of burning one dead body should be, at the most, two rupees and four annas whereas three rupees and seven annas were being collected. Thus an additional one rupee and three annas were being changed and yet Calcutta Corporation was allegedly silent on this issue. However, Mr. Adhya was not prepared to accept this crticism without any resilience. He responded by saying that apart from wood, it also requires ghee, frankincense, new clothes, sandalwood, tips to those arranging and performing the funeral ceremony etc. which account for the extra amount.

According to Load Curzon, many ‘faudulent’ Indians were trying to come under the net of governmental medical facilities in the name of food scarcity, the rely leading to misuse and pancity of government funds. Consequently, he said that he was busy collecting subscriptions for the Viceroys Defence Fund after having a meeting at the Town Hall. Moreover, he was busy regarding another matter. The British were engaged in a war with the Boors in South Africa. So Lord Curzon was conferred upon the job of making 21,000 military (khaki) uniforms ready. In 1899, the British Cabinet under Queen Victoria appointed General Roberts as the commander for this war. In order to assist him, thousands of horses from different parts of the country such as Kapurthala, Patiala, Faridkot, Jhind, Nava, Bhawalpur were flocked in Calcutta besides about 18 officers. It was a great occasion in Calcutta.

White way Ladlow at Chowringhee took great pride in informing that on 18th December, 1899, 5183 customers had stepped in at their place and on top of that they had received 2239 letters of order from customers outside Calcutta in the dusk of the 19th century. Who says Britain had not become Great Britan by then? And who knew that British rule in India was destined to last only 47 years more?

On the other hand, what about the Bengalees? In fact, they were at an even more precarious position. At the twilight of the new century, they were little aware of the fact that at the Government House in Calcutta, Lord Curzon was manipulating a downfall of the Congress, that a plan of partition of Bengal was being carved out. Nobody knew that there would be boycott of foreign goods in protest against Bengal’s partition within the next five years. Neither did anybody know that out of it, there would be the emergence of Swadeshi movement, national consciousness and education and the policy of Swaraj. The Bengalees who were used to be accused as devoid of backbones and satisfied to play the role of silent audience stood firm against Partition of Bengal. There was the advent of a great revolution in Bengal and then there also came about a structural transformation of the world after two world wars. Sister Nivedita had speculated that the British rign in India was fast approaching its termination.