In 1839 Stewart-Mackenzie, the British Governor of Ceylon, started sending a small number of Ceylonese to study medicine in Calcutta.

[4] The establishment of a medical school in Ceylon was advocated by Governor George William Anderson in 1852.

[3][6] In 1867 governor Hercules Robinson appointed James Loos, the colonial surgeon for the Northern Province, to investigate the depopulation.

[7] The school's courses lasted five years after which students sat examinations and if they passed they received a diploma of Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery (LMS).

[9][10] The school benefited from large endowments, including land and buildings, provided by locals.

[9][11] In 1875 Mudaliyar Samson Rajapakse gifted three and a half acres of land on which the school's successor, the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, stands today.

[6] In the same year his uncle Mudaliyar Susew de Soysa donated the school buildings which housed the colonial medical library, the pathology museum and the biological laboratory.

[6] His son Mudaliyar J. W. C. de Soysa provided the funds to build the bacteriological institute in 1899.

5 1905 (Medical Registration Ordinance) allowed the Council of the Ceylon Medical College to register individuals (including holders of the Colombo LMS) allowed to practice medicine and surgery in Ceylon.