Features
Professor Herbert Allan Aponso : ‘The Great Centenarian’
Herbert Allan Aponso, a true legend, the doyen of Paediatrics / Child Health, Professor Emeritus celebrated his 100th birthday on the 25th of March 2025, thus becoming a centenarian.
What a rare and glorious moment of anyone’s life!
I simply cannot recall any university academic achieving this exceptional milestone in Sri Lanka.
Born on the 25th of March 1925 in Lakshapathiya, Moratuwa, Professor Aponso has witnessed and thrived through a century of immense global change. It is fascinating to reflect on the world and Sri Lanka as they were in 1925. At that time, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was still a British colony, 23 years away from independence, with a population of just 4 million and an average life expectancy was below 40 years.
The world political map in 1925, was vastly different from that of today. One single large India without Pakistan and Bangladesh, one single Korea, no official Israel, and it was just three years after the fall of Ottoman Empire.
In the medical field, too, no United Nations, no WHO, no antibiotics, no blood banks, and no organised immunisation programmes. Diseases such as smallpox posed a dire threat to humanity, and devastating epidemics, such as the malaria outbreak in Ceylon in the early 1930s, resulted in negative population growth for the first time in history. Professor Aponso has survived through all these extreme challenging threats over the past one hundred years!
In 1964, he joined the Department of Paediatrics as a Senior Lecturer at Sri Lanka’s (then Ceylon) newly established second medical faculty, Peradeniya thus becoming a pioneer academic staff member of the Faculty of Medicine. He played a very vital role in teaching many a generation of doctors.
His brave decision to leave the position as Senior Lecturer at Faculty of Medicine, Colombo and relocate with his family to Peradeniya, is truly beyond belief as he left his birthplace and the more affluent Colombo life. At the time, the small town of Peradeniya was considered distinctly remote and less privileged.
He then became the quintessential ‘Peradeniya Man’, getting involved in the establishment of Kandy Society of Medicine (KSM), Peradeniya Medical school Alumni Association (PeMSAA) and in consolidating both the Department of Paediatrics and the Faculty of Medicine.
He retired from university service in 1993 after three decades of dedicated and remarkable service to the Faculty of Medicine and to the medical fraternity at large.
All staff members of Faculty of Medicine, Peradeniya and elsewhere who graduated before 1993 have invariably had exposure to his teaching, including myself and my wife Chandrika.
I also had the privilege of serving as Registrar in Paediatrics between 1985 and 1987 under his wing.
He is also blessed with three very caring children – Ajith, (Dr) Heshan and (Dr) Charmalie and many grandchildren and great grandchildren, all of whom care for him and look after him very well.
Professor Aponso is truly amazing and is perhaps the most complete man we can ever imagine, as he is a combination of numerous rare features moulded into one person. He has an attractive and gentle yet commanding personality, authority of a different kind, intelligence, kindness, passion, calm mind, commitment, high social standing and blessed with happy and exceptionally high-quality long life along with his gracious late wife (sadly passed away in 2017) Mrs Vimala Aponso and three caring children,
A devout Christian, Professor Aponso’s faith has been a guiding force throughout his life. At the same time, he has always recognised and respected the values of other faiths, particularly Buddhism. He often quoted the Buddhist scripture:
“Pûjâ ca pûjanîyânam” (Honour those who are worthy of honour) – Khp 5, Maṅgala Sutta.
This is well and truly appropriate and relevant to him.
He is a true legend of our time and above all a great human being.
I wish him a HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY!
Ananda Jayasinghe
(Retired Professor in Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya)