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“You can never plan the future by the past” (Edmund Burke 1729-1797) I have now just completed nine months as the Director of the Joint Health Support Agency. I often get asked how long I have been in the job, as many people imagine, for some bizarre reason, that I have been in the job… Read more »
Abstract In the tropics of Australia, the Royal Australian Navy operates two permanent bases and conducts a large number of operations. Despite an overall incidence of melanoma not significantly different to that of the general Australian population (Standardised Incident Ratio, SIR = 149, p>0.05), older members of the RAN (SIR = 236, aged >29 years)… Read more »
Vaccines are effective at protecting not only individuals, but also communities. In the last fifty years, global immunisation programs have developed such strong “herd immunity” that some diseases, e.g. smallpox and polio, have been effectively eliminated. Currently, in terms of commercially available vaccines, the traditional methods of vaccine development are still leading the attack against… Read more »
Most medical personnel will not have seen smallpox, the disease resulting from infection by the variola virus. Hopefully, they never will. The last case of naturally acquired smallpox occurred in 1977, in Somalia, and global eradication was declared in 1980. From 1981 to 1986, the World Health Organisation (WHO) undertook a program to implement post¬… Read more »
Abstract Aortic trauma is often poorly recognised in a trauma setting and represents a significant cause of lethal injury. Most casualties will die at the scene. This article attempts to define the mechanisms and clinical features of aortic trauma. An understanding of aortic trauma may allow early recognition of such an injury in a trauma… Read more »
‘Murder by poisoning is a crime of devilish wickedness and inhumanity which no language can adequately describe. ‘ John Glaister (1954) Introduction Gail Bell, in her book ‘The Poison Principle’, tries to establish why people use poison2. She looks back over the centuries, from Cleopatra and Socrates to more modem poisoners like Crippen, and speculates… Read more »
On technology: The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). German philosopher On information: Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire; it wafts across the electrified borders. Ronald Reagan… Read more »
The discipline of military medicine necessitates an understanding of the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the motor unit. Nerve gases and their antidotes effect the third link, the neuromuscular junction, of the four-link chain which comprises the motor unit. Similarly, agents such as botulinum toxin with their bioterrorist potential also act at this site. Certain paralytic… Read more »
(Reproduced with permission from Allen and Unwin) SURGERY, SAND AND SAIGON TEA is one of Allen and Unwin’s latest releases. This book is a candid and frank look at Australian service in Vietnam from a Citizen Military Force (Reserve) anaesthetist’s point of view. Although Marshall Barr prefaces his Vietnam memories with short accounts of his… Read more »
In this her first attempt at nonfiction, Colleen McCullough has excelled. Not only does she tell the life story of a great Australian, but she also explores the question – what makes the man? Is it family values, education, soldiering, life tragedies, politics, diplomacy or sheer heroism? For this man, she leaves us a little… Read more »
It has been called the greatest disaster in the history of polar exploration. Led by Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, two state-of-the art ships and 128 hand-picked men – the best and the brightest of the British Empire – sailed from Greenland on July 12,1845, in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. Fourteen days later,… Read more »
The Military Surgical Section of the RACS An¬nual Scientific Congress was held in Canberra on 10 May and 11 May 2001. The section was convened by Richard Nugent from Canberra. Two papers were also presented in the Trauma Section, which has a close relationship with the Military Section. These were LTCOL John Crozier presenting on… Read more »
Rosenberg E, Caine Y. Survey of Israeli Air Force line Commander support for fatigue prevention initiatives. Aviat Space Environ Med 2001;72(4):352-356. Background: Sustained and continuous high-intensity military operations have increased in scope in recent years. These mandate ever more sophisticated efforts to prevent and ameliorate aviator fatigue. Successful implementation of new fatigue countermeasures requires thorough… Read more »
Srinivasan A. Kraus CN, DeShazer D, et al. Glanders in a military research microbiologist. N Engl J Med 2001;345(4):256-8. Comment: This is the first reported human case of glanders in the English medical literature since 1949. It was, unfortunately, laboratory acquired at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease. A couple of interesting… Read more »
