MILITARY HYGIENE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1942, Page 4

MILITARY HYGIENE

DISEASE PREVENTION SUCCESS IN NORTHERN AUSTRALIA. GREAT RESULTS ACHIEVED. Today a healthy Army is being kept healthy in the north of Australia, where 100 years ago one military post' after another failed through sickness and disease, writes Mel. Pratt, in the “Sydney Morning Herald.” The excellence of the general health of the men in this area today is the result of unceasing watchfulness by hygiene and medical officers and the contrast with sickness at the old military posts is striking evidence of the advance of medical science and its application to army purposes during the last century. The first settlements ever attempted in North Australia were at Port Essington, Raffles Bay, and Fort Dundas on Melville Island. They were all British military posts. The first land occupied was at Porß Essington on Coburg Peninsula, in 1824, by Captain James Bremer, with a party of soldiers and convicts. Because of lack of water they moved to Melville Island, about a week later, where they established Fort Dundas. Fever and ague ravaged this settlement from its inception. Nevertheless, the British Colonial Office sent out Captain James Stirling to found another settlement at Raffles Bay, nearby, in 1827. Raffles Bay had the same unhappy medical history as Fort Dundas, and raids by aborigines added to the troubles of both. The commandant at Raffles Bay, Captain Smyth, wrote to Sydney in 1828: “I need not point out that gloom hangs over both settlements. We must only trust in Providence and hope that the Almighty may ward off sickness and disease.”

Fort Dundas settlement was transferred to Raffles Bay, but the general unhealthiness caused its abandonment in 1830. DAYS OF DISEASE.

Eight years later a more ambitious attempt was made to establish a settlement at x Port Essingtdn. Fortifications were installed, and cottages, a church, hospital, officers* quarters, and a Governor’s house were built. For some years there was great optimism that Port Essington would develop into a flourishing trading centre, and would “become as valuable an emporium as Singapore.” Thomas Huxley, the . prominent nineteenth century scientist, visited the settlement in 1848, and wrote, “the unhealthiness of the place, so often denied, has shown itself in no unequivocal manner.” The settlement was abandoned the following year, 11 years after it was founded.

Fever, scurvy, beriberi, and Barcoo rot keep recurring through the pages of northern Australian history. Fever and scurvy threw the construction of the overland telegraph line in 1871 into a chaotic condition, and many of the settlers, miners, and wanderers died from these diseases.

All this happened in the same country where today thousands of troops are so fit that they are establishing records for speed and endurance in marching and playing football or hockey in a shade temperature of 80 degrees with a humidity of 60 or 70 per cent. FACTORS RESPONSIBLE.

An army ' medical officer with whom I have discussed these matters said that malaria, vitamin deficiency, and an acute sense of isolation were probably responsible for most of the sickness in the early, days. Vitamin deficiency would cause skin complaints such as scurvy and beriberi, and a sense of isolation would develop into boredom and inertia, a condition which would make the men easy victims to any disease. “However, the application of the modern principles of. public health and preventive medicine has kept northern Australia free from the stigma of “white man’s grave’,” he said. “It is free from most of the deathdealing epidemic diseases common to most other' tropical areas. Air communication has brought Australia within the range of many areas from which endemic diseases might be imported but for a careful quarantine service. We who have the medical care of the forces in our hands have much to be thankful for. We know a proportion of the aborigines are carriers of malaria and so we keep a continuous check on those natives near our troops. As far as possible we try to keep the ' aborigines away from our men. An aborigine may show no outward signal of malaria and yet be a carrier. VALUE OF VITAMINS. “Special mosquito-proof guards are provided for sentries on night duty because anopheles, the malaria-carry-ing mosquito, bites at night. Persons coming into the area from malarial countries are given a thorough examination, and if they are found to be carriers or sufferers from the disease, they are kept inside mosquito-proof netting and sent away as soon as possible. In addition, we are waging a continuous campaign against the adult and growing mosquito. “The success of these'measures is shown by the small number of cases which have developed among the WET. “Perhaps one of the greatest factors in ensuring the good health of the forces in tropical areas has been the care taken in seeing they have a properly-balanced diet and fresh fru’it and vegetables. Army vegetable gardens here have paid big dividends in increasing the general health standard, and locally-grown vegetables have been supplemented by supplies brought up from the south by air. We hope to increase the number of gardens shortly. 4 < "It was once said that to contract dengue was the fate of eveiy white man in the Northern Territory. We have made this a gross exaggeration, and are getting encouraging results from our drive against dengue. An average of 70 men a week in one area alone contracted dengue. One of our hygiene units went to work on it and the figures in the next three weeks were 19, 17, and three. FIRST AID POSTS. “The hygiene unit’s method is to bring away all the receptacles in which the Aedes aegypti, the denguecarrying mosquito, can breed, such as beer bottles or empty tins. In permanent fixtures like wells or tanks, the water is covered with oil. Flyspray teams attack adult mosquitoes by spraying dark corners of huts or houses. “We have cut down water-borne diseases, such as typhoid and dysentery, by treating any doubtful water with sterilising powder, a chlorine compound. • Men on exercises or away from camps are given sterilising tablets for their water bottles. Before they came to the area they had al ready been inoculated against typhoid and tetanus, and had been vaccinated. ADJUSTMENT NECESSARY. “Life in the tropics requires a good deal of adjustment in tjiose used to temperate climates, but men soon learn. They are taught to be careful of themselves, to use a mosquito net, wash as frequency as possible, treat cuts or scratches early to prevent their going septic —always a danger in the tropics. They are encouraged to visit first-aid posts for treatment at the first suspicion of tinea. They must wash shirts, shorts, and socks each day. Some doctors are urging the abolition of shorts, on the ground that long trousers give better protection from insects and scratches. “Above all, the men are taught to combat boredom, and the men have done this most effectively by realising that they are in northern Australia for a very definite purpose.”