Mallampati was born in the state of Andhra Pradesh, British India in 1941. In 1968, he studied medicine at Andhra Medical College, the oldest such college in the state. In 1971, he emigrated to the United States and began his training in anesthesiology at the Lahey Clinic in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1983, Mallampati published a letter describing a difficult intubation in a female patient whose mouth could open widely but whose tongue obstructed view of the faucial pillars and uvula. He hypothesized that the size of the tongue was a significant factor in predicting difficult laryngoscope usage since a large tongue would likely occlude the oropharynx. In 1985, alongside his colleagues, he published a paper in the Journal of the Canadian Anesthesia Society that involved 210 patients and studied the correlation between decreased visualization of the soft palate, faucial pillars and uvula,…