A.I.F. DOCTOR WHO BEAT MALARIA

Chronicle (Levin), 10 June 1946, Page 2

A.I.F. DOCTOR WHO BEAT MALARIA

SYDNEY. Dr. Neil Haniiltou Fairley, of Victoria, who made victory in the Batlle of New Guinea possible, will shortb. leave Australia for England to become Director of Tropical Research ,in thc Wellcome Research Foundation ann Professor of the School of Hygiene aiul Tropical Aledicine. Dr. Fairley is re eognised as oue of the greatest authori ties 011 malaria, aud but for his efforts the New Guinea battle may have been lost or, at best, won at fabulous cost. Shy and modest, Dr. Fairley refuse.to be iuterviewed and has sworn hifriends and associates to similai secrecv. But sufficient is knovvn of the work of this brilliant expert to give him the credit for saving thousands oi lives.

Dr. Fairley was consulting phvsiciai. to the Second A.I.F. in the Middle Easr when Japan began hev swift drive south. He was recalled, and he reported to General MacArthur that the Allies were in greater danger from 'malaria than from the Japanese. His ' warning provecl true. For every casualty among Allied troops caused by a Jap bulle.l or bomb, live men Avent .dowji with malaria. The position became grave when the Japanese sunk ships carrying quinine from the Netherlands East Ilidies to Australia. The work of liuding a substitute for quinine went to - the ton level of war priorities. Dr. Fairley and a handful of experts were set up in alaboratorv at Cairns, ou the North Queensland coast. The school became the world centre for malaria research. While the scientists laboured .12 and 15 hours a day at their benches, -90 per cent. of the men in the Mrlne Bay and Buna-Gona campkign were -going down with malaria. A medical unit in Papua kept Dr. Fairley and his team supplied with 2000 malarial mosquito larvae a | week and" soon- the scientists had found that atebrin was a suppressive. ! Later they disco-vered two other drugs just as eft'ective at atebrin but which did not discolour the skin of the ; patient. They are now testing- a secret drug that has, so far, proved superioi . to both atebrin and quinine.