The Medical College & Hospital in Calcutta, popularly known as Medical College, established in 1835 by William Bentinck, the then Governor general of India, is the first medical college established in India and the entire South Asia.

Before its foundation, the British East India Company needed to recruit compounders and dressers in different hospitals. They had the intention to engage those subordinate assistants to help the European doctors and surgeons who treat European civilians and military employees and thus reduce the company's financial burdens by limiting the appointment of European doctors. This ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Native Medical Institution in Calcutta on 21 June 1822, with the aim to fill the position of native doctors in the civil and military establishments of the Presidency of Bengal, where medical teaching was be imparted in the vernacular.

From 1826 onwards, classes on Ayurvedic medicine were held in Sanskrit College, while lessons on Unani medicine were taught in Calcutta Madrasa. John Tyler, the first superintendent of the Native Medical Institution (NMI), also started to deliver lectures on Mathematics and Anatomy at Sanskrit College. Trainee medical students had to attend different hospitals and dispensaries, without performing dissection. After completion of their training, the successful native doctors were readily absorbed into government jobs.

Probably, Lord William Bentinck had some doubts about the system and towards the end of 1833, he appointed a Committee, with Dr John Grant as the president, to study and produce a report regarding the prevailing state of medical education in Bengal. The Committee submitted their report on 20 October 1834, wherein they harshly criticized the medical education imparted at the NMI. They criticized its inept and improper way of training, the unprofessional examination system, as well as the complete absence of teaching practical anatomy through dissection. The Committee recommended that the state should establish a medical college for the proper medical education of the natives.

They also recommended that, the various branches of medical science cultivated in Europe, should be taught in the proposed college and apart from proficiency in Bengali and Hindustani, the intending students should have a reading and writing knowledge of English language and Arithmetic. The report sealed the fate of the NMI, which was abolished and the medical classes at the Sanskrit College and at the Calcutta Madrasa were also discontinued by the government order of 28 January 1835.

The report also paved the way of the foundation of the proposed new college, known as the Medical College, established by an order of 28 January 1835, which opened a new chapter in the history of medical education in India. The activities of the college started with the process of admission of students on 20 February 1835. Apart from twenty-nine already selected students, another twenty students, who were educated at Hindu College, Hare School or the General Assembly’s Institution, were selected through a preliminary examination of one hundred students. At the beginning, the classes were held in an old house located at the rear of the Hindu College. However, in May 1835, the new building of the college was built in May 1835, on an extensive tract of land donated by Mutty Lal Seal for the purpose.

Initially, the courses of study of the new college, which were introduced in 1844, was based on the advice of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. However, with the foundation of the University of Calcutta in 1857 and its faculty of medicine for the award of medical degrees, the courses of were revised and the University decided to award three medical degrees, Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery (LMS), Bachelor of Medicine (MB), and Doctor of Medicine (MD). Much later, in 1906 the Calcutta University decided to discontinue the LMS examination. Accordingly, last batch of LMS students were examined in 1911. Until the admission of the 2002 batch, the college was affiliated with the University of Calcutta, after that it became formally affiliated to the West Bengal University of Health Sciences

The Medical College and Hospital Building (also known as the MCH Building) with its tall columns, is considered as a landmark in the city of Calcutta. The foundation stone of the building was laid by the Marquis of Dalhousie, the then Governor General of India, on 30 September 1848 and was opened on 1 March 1852. Due to lack of maintenance, the building became partly unusable in the early 1990s. However, after proper restoration, it was duly handed over to the authority in November 2000.

In 1838, a large female indoor hospital started functioning as the Mutty Lall Seal Ward, in recognition of his donation of the extensive tract of land for the foundation of the Calcutta Medical College. In response to the honour bestowed upon him, Mutty Lall Seal donated another one hundred thousand (100,000) rupees to the authority, for the construction of a separate building within the campus, as the maternity ward of the Medical College, which started functioning in 1832.

Subsequently, the other blocks (hospitals) started to open in the complex one by one, which included the Eden Hospital (1881-1882), the Ezra Hospital (1887) and the Shama Charan Laha Eye Hospital (1891). The Prince of Wales Surgical Block, inaugurated in March 1911, was subsequently renamed the David Hare Block in 1976. Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, established by Leonard Rogers of the Indian Medical Service with the aim to deal with the tropical disease also came up in the campus in 1914. The emergency department of the Medical College, Sir John Anderson casualty block, was opened in 1935.

Situated on the north-west portion of the campus, the college section consists of separate blocks, distinguished by its red-brick structures. The Administrative block, crowned with a clock tower, houses the Principal's offices, the General Lecture theatre, the college library on the first floor and an examination hall on the second floor. There is a small patch of lawn in front of the Administrative block. The adjacent building houses the Anatomy department, along with the hospital morgue. After that comes the Chemistry department and the last building belongs to the Pathology department.

It should be mentioned here that, CMC took a significant step to pass a special resolution on 29 June 1883, allowing the admission of women into the College. In fact, it was done to accommodate Kadambini Ganguly, one of the first two female graduates of India, who was eager to study medicine. Consequently, Kadambini became one of the first two Indian women doctors qualified to practice western medicine and in 1888, she was appointed to the Lady Dufferin Women’s Hospital on a salary of Rs 300 per month.