[2][3] In 1964, the Government of India honoured him with their third highest civilian award, Padmabhushan, for his services in the fields of neurosurgery and medical education.

[3] "To free your teachers to teach", Alan Gregg, the renowned medical educationist[1][4] advised Jacob Chandy, "to free your students to learn, to create opportunities for your researchers to solve the medical problems of India, and above all to consider the needs of the near and oncoming future"[1] Jacob Chandy was born on 23 January 1910, in Kottayam, in the south Indian state of Kerala to an Anglican Syrian Christian family.

[1] He was instrumental in promoting the biochemist, Bimal Kumar Bachhawat,[11][12] who founded the neurochemistry laboratory, which identified the enzymopathy of metachromatic leucodystrophy, in collaboration with James H.

[1][14] He was the first surgeon in India to perform an epilepsy surgery on 25 August 1952, on a patient suffering from right infantile hemiplegia and medially refractory seizures.

After his retirement from active practice, Chandy wrote his autobiography in 1988, titled Reminiscences and Reflections, with several anecdotes from his professional and personal life.