Murugesan Muthu Kumarasamy entered the Presidency College, Madras with a view to a degree in arts, but changed his mind and became a student at the Madras Medical College. In his first year there he won the biology medal and in his third year the anatomy medal. After finishing at the College he decided to complete his training in England but had to spend some years at Jaffna before he was able to come to the United Kingdom in 1906. He first went to Edinburgh and had no difficulty in passing the Primary Fellowship examination, but in 1909 sat for the Final and failed in surgical pathology. He then had to return to Ceylon and was appointed lecturer in anatomy, but was able to return to England in 1910 when he obtained the FRCS. He then went back to Ceylon and practised in Colombo where he was recognized as a very good clinician.