The Regional Health Support Agency South Queensland has, through the kind offices of the Director of Health Services, Colonel Vlas Efstathis, OAM, RFD, RAAMC, donated three books to the Australian Military Medi¬cine Association’s Library:
- Arms and Aesculapius
- Reflections and Rwanda
- Across the Bar
The cover jacket summaries of these books follow. Each of them is available for loan from the Association’s Librarian:
Russ Schedlich
Tel: (02) 9563-4504
Fax: (02) 9563-4519
E-mail: tatsch@ozemail.com.au
Pearn JH. Arms and Aesculapius. Brisbane; Amphion: 1996
Medical history teaches and re-teaches one consistent lesson – that campaigns are won or loss dependent on the morale and health of the combatants. A history of the origins of military medicine in Australia thus gives a perspective to the formation of the health services of the Army, Navy and Air Force which protect the nation today. History is a tool for all who would wish to make optimal decisions for the future: and in this context this book is an account of the earliest steps towards the maintenance of health of Australian servicemen and women who have served the nation on four continents.
This book documents the evolution of the emergent armed forces in pre-Federation northern Australia. It traces the tentative origins of the Volunteer Force, the Militia Movement and the development of the medical and health services which supported them. It describes the origins of naval medicine in northern Australia. The men who formed the military Ambulance Corps, the Regimental surgeons who led them and the first Australian naval surgeons all came from communities in northern Australia which felt themselves vulnerable to invasion by foreign powers. In 1903, two years after Federation, the Australian Army Medical Corps adopted as its motto, Paulatim, literally translated as “little by little”. The gradual evolution of the medical and health services in the military context was truly encapsulated by that phrase. This book describes the saga and adventure of that development.
Pearn JH. Reflections in Rwanda. Brisbane; Amphion: 1995
Reflections in Rwanda is another chapter in the history of Australia’s international contribution to humanitarian aid and world peace. This phot-archive records some of the day-to-day experiences of men and women serving in the Australian Medical Support Force in Rwanda in 1994 and 1995; and of the life and experiences of some of the Rwandese themselves. It portrays, in a series of photo graphic moments-in-time, a period of singular importance in African history; and of the world’s response to a civil war of ferocity and genocide not seen for more than half a century.
On 6 April 1994, the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were assassinated; and the whole of central Africa was affected by the resulting Rwandan Civil War. The United Nations urgently established a peacekeeping force in Rwanda, UNAMIR II, which had grown to 7,000 uniformed troops by May 1995. Australia responded also to the crisis, providing the crucial medical support for the UN Force; and in addition treated tens of thousands of sick and injured Rwandese. This account records some of the humanitarian and military aid given to Rwanda during the 1994-95 Australian deployment there. As the world becomes a smaller place so, more importantly is the maintenance of its peace.
Curran T. Across the Bar: The Story of Simpson, the Man with the Donkey, Australia and Tyneside’s Great Military Hero. Brisbane; Ogmios; 1994
For 24 days, from the day after The Landing at Anzac, John Simpson Kirkpatrick toiled up and down the broken, overgrown track, carrying wounded soldiers from the head of Monash Valley to the beach hospital, on the back of a donkey. He worked all day and halfway into the night, totally exposed for most of the time to the rifle, machine-gun and shell fire which constantly swept the ‘Valley of Death’. Several of his donkeys were killed, and some of his passengers were hit again, some fatally, right next to him. How he survived for so long is quite incredible. Making between 12 and 15 trips a day he rescued somewhere in the region of 300 wounded soldiers. Five statues or statuettes throughout Australia honour the deeds of “the most legendary Anzac of them all”.
This is his story.
