Scholars were aware that it was impossible to simply wipe out what Indians had learnt over the centuries and swap them with Western theoretical structures.

It was completed under the title of Śärîravidyā ("Science of Things Relating to the Body")[8] and was taken up for publication by the Asiatic Society, but was abandoned after page thirty-six,[10] due to conflicting opinions on which language it was to be published in.

As a consequence, the Ayurvedic and Yunani courses taught at the Sanskrit College and the School for Native Doctors’, both originally established by the EIC, were abolished.

[2] Newly founded in March 1835,[12] Gupta was transferred to the CMC, as a native teacher, where he became involved in the execution of the first entrance examinations[7] and where he also assisted Henry Goodeve and William Brooke O'Shaughnessy.

This conviction, the 1834 report on the state of medical education in Bengal, along with the resulting formation of the CMC and its then affiliation with University College London, all played their part towards meeting the growing need of trained native doctors for a mounting British army.

Adding to this, the persistence of Lord William Bentinck, Henry Goodeve and others and the surrounding abundant supply of dead bodies in Kolkata, created a passage for practical anatomy from Europe to India.

[15][11] In order for the influential Indian community to accept human dissection,[2] Gupta was influenced by Drinkwater Bethune[16] and requested by David Hare, who also sought advice from Radhakanta Deb, to produce the necessary supporting literary evidence from traditional Sanskrit Ayurvedic literature.

[6] Gupta, as the principal native teacher, was instrumental in gathering support from traditional Sanskrit Ayurvedic literature in order to attain the approval to dissect a corpse.

[13] Fourteen years later, Bethune described how "at the appointed hour, scalpel in hand, he [Madhusudan] followed Goodeve into the Godown" and after the first cut, "a long-gasping breath" came from the relieved on-lookers.

[13][11] To protect the students and the CMC authorities, Gupta took sole responsibility for the act[2] which became hailed as a major victory for western civilisation, so far as to cite numerous doubtful references of a fifty-round salute from Calcutta's Fort William.

[13] Despite this, suspicion, reservation and resistance preoccupied western medicine in India and a deep aversion to dissection persisted amongst many Indians.

[23] Organised by the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal and Bethune, Gupta faced questions from an assembly of pundits, under the supervision of the Maharaja of Nabadwip.

[25] Original documents of the dissection, found at CMC in 2011, indicate that the influential Tagore may have had a hand in smuggling the corpse to the anatomy rooms.

[16] In 1838, as a result of the rising public and medical interest in dissection and anatomy, the 'Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge' was established by a group of Bengali youths.

[2] To keep the event in memory, Bethune commissioned S. C. Belnos to paint a portrait of Gupta, complete with a skull in his left hand, depicting his object of study and to be hung in the CMC.

In the 1830s, there was enough evidence to suggest that many Hindu students were ready to overcome prejudice and pick up a scalpel and "touch a dead body for the study of anatomy".

[3]Following the first dissection, the college authorities requested that Gupta should complete formal medical qualifications to avoid any future student objections to being taught by a "mere kaviraja" or non-doctor.

[2][27] As a successful practitioner, well regarded amongst his Indian contemporaries as well as by his European colleagues, Gupta was called before the General Committee of the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements on 3 June 1836.

[4] This book gave "with the English, Latin and names the mode of preparation of Acids, Alkalis, Confections, Decoctions, Plasters, Infusions, Linimentts, Metals, Pills, Powders, Syrups, Tinctures, Ointments".

[7] In the mid-1840s, he acquired information on the puberty of Hindu wives of students at the college, data he then divulged to Goodeve, who in turn forwarded it to John Roberton and then finally found its way into Roberton's Essays and Notes on the Physiology and Diseases of Women, and on Practical Midwifery[33] and his research into the discrepancy between puberty in India as compared to England.