Inside this Edition

There are a number of themes that run through this edition. Firstly, a paper outlining recent deployments undertaken by the Australian Defence Force to help with humanitarian assistance following the Earthquake on the Indonesian Island of Nias which sadly, during this later deployment, a helicopter crashed and nine of our people paid the ultimate sacrifice.In another paper, colleagues from the Centre for Military and Veterans’ Health outline how they are proposing to undertake surveillance of the health of those deployed on overseas deployments, using the example of East Timor. We can expect a great deal of important material from this group in the future. As Susan Treloar notes in a commentary on this work, the stakeholders involved in this program are extremely optimistic as to what will be achieved. Neil Westphalen provides us with a comprehensive biography of one of Australia’s leading naval surgeons, the late Surgeon Rear Admiral Lockwood. There are two features that you may wish to note. First, this brilliant naval surgeon suffered from mental illness – before most of his stellar career. Clearly, people with such diseases can be successfully rehabilitated, and go on to make important contributions to the Australian Defence Force. The other feature of the biography is the descriptions of blast injury provided by the late Admiral.
After reading Admiral Lockwood’s description of blast injury, you will find Ben Mackie’s important paper reviewing the world literature on lung assist devices in blast lung injury even more interesting. Sadly, we live in a world where military and civilian intensive care units will need to use this knowledge. The legislative and administrative basis for successful rehabilitation of injured defence personnel is outlined in a paper by Jim Porteous. As outlined in the paper, there is a new focus on early identification of injury or illness. Blast injury of another kind is identified in the paper that we have reprinted from The Lancet of 1915, in which Myers first described shell shock, with an attached commentary.
And this buffet of delights on military and veterans’ health is rounded off by a toxicological essay on hemlock poisoning by Andy Robertson. As you can see from the article, the plant that gives rise to hemlock is common in Australia, and fatalities have occurred. Yet another concern for military health with units deployed in the field.