by Michael Woodhead  

The BMJ has made its full archives dating back to 1840 available online for free this week, including some interesting articles relating to medical matters in the early days of the young colony of Australia.

In 1843, Dr George Gregory notes optimistically in the journal that “neither small-pox or measles have yet reached our Australian colonies.”

Only a few years later, however, the reader of the journal would learn that despite having “the healthiest climate in the world” Australia was not a suitable place for patients with tuberculosis. Like rabbits, the tuberculosis bacillus had also adapted well to the new country, to the detriment of colonists, writes Dr William Royds in 1883.

Relations between the medical profession and government have also changed little in the century or two. A mass resignation of junior doctors from the Adelaide hospital receives much coverage.

“In their opinion, the medical men newly introduced from England, and since flattered and peculiarly favoured by the Ministry, are incompetent to perform their duties,” an editorial in 1869 notes.

Medical registration is also an early issue (“a cleverly perjured declaration may deceive for a time, only to be detected, how-ever, in the end),” write Dr JW Springthorpe, who adds that “quackery is rampant in the more scattered districts...”

And as we struggle to contain swine flu, it is interesting to see the Assistant Health-Officer for Port Adelaide writing in 1869 to challenge claims in the BMJ  that “quarantine has never yet kept an infectious disease out of a country.”