Forced emigration, favourable outcomes

The discipline of public health and preventive medicine in Australia and Ne w Zealand had its genesis in the advocacy of 18th and 19th century military pioneers. Military (Royal Navy and British Army) surgeons were posted to A ustralia as part of their non-discretionary duty. Civilian doctors emigrate d variously for adventure, escapism and gold fever. One group, a particular ly influential group disproportionate to their numbers, came in one sense a s forced emigrants because of chronic respiratory disease in general, and t uberculosis in particular. Tuberculosis was an occupational hazard of 19th century medical and surgical practice throughout western Europe. This paper analyses six examples of such emigration which had, perhaps unforeseen at the time, significant results in the advancement of public health. Such emi gration was in one sense voluntary, but in another was forced upon the vict ims in their quest for personal survival. In Australia, such medical indivi duals became leading advocates and successful catalysts for change in such diverse fields as social welfare, public health, the preventive aspects of medical practice, child health, nutrition and medical education. A number o f such public health pioneers today have no physical memorials; but their i nfluence is to be seen in the ethos of medical practice in Australia and Ne w Zealand today. Their memory is further perpetuated in the names of Austra lian native wildflowers and trees that symbolise not only a healthy environ ment but the longterm investment, accrued with interest, of the institution of public health measures for which their advocacy achieved much success.