Ramaswami Mahadevan was born on 6 January 1903 in Tamil Nadu, South India, the ninth child of Ramaswami Iyer, headmaster of a secondary school. He was educated at Presidency College, Madras, before entering the University of Madras Medical College from which he qualified in 1926. After hospital appointments in Madras he came to England working as clinical assistant at the Brompton Hospital and passing both English and Edinburgh fellowships in 1938. Returning to India he was initially appointed to the chair of operative surgery in Andhra Medical College and later professor at Stanley Medical College and at Madras Medical College. He retired from his chair in 1958 but was then appointed surgical consultant to the KDHP Company Group of Hospitals until 1972 when he retired from surgical practice altogether. In 1969 he was president of the Association of Surgeons in India. He married in 1928 and had four sons and three daughters. Two of his sons have graduated in medicine. The eldest, Mahadevan Srinivasan, FRCS 1958, is professor of surgery, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, and his son, Mahadevan G Krishnan, is a surgeon in New Jersey. His grandson Srinivasan Ravi is a consultant in general surgery and another, Srinivasan Subramamiam, FRCS of the Glasgow College, is a consultant in ophthalmology. Both are based in the UK. He listed his extracurricular interests as tennis, music and photography, and trying his level best to popularise family planning in India, especially among the village population, with particular reference to ‘the pill’. His keen interest in the affairs of the College lasted almost until his death. He died after a prolonged illness on 10 March 1990. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 7 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**