26- Medical Pioneer of the 21st Century - Dr. Archie Kalokerinos

SAVE OFFLINE

A most stimulating autobiography of a doctor who pioneered the way to understand some of the world's most deadly diseases.

MEDICAL PIONEER OFTHE 20th CENTURY

DR ARCHIE KALOKERINOS

An Autobiography

Biological Thtrapits Publishing

Copyright© 2000 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia by Dr Archie Kalokerinos All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo­ copying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission ·of the copyright owner. Front cover photo of Dr Kalokerinos copyright © by Farina Photographs, Tamworth.

-

Biological Therapies Publishing

First published 2000 Biological Therapies Publishing Pty Ltd, Braeside, Melbourne, Victoria Ph: (61) 3 95873948 Fax: (61)3 95871720 ISBN 0-646-40852-6

FOREWORD by Dr. Ian Dettman Ph.D. (Biochem), F.R.M.I.T. (Microbiol, Biochem, Genetics), ND. Dr Archie Kalokerinos is a gentle, sensitive, dedicated man. He has not sought personal gain as the prime motive for the help he has given to his fellow human beings. Even now, well into his 70's, he still gives his timefreely to help people that he believes are being treated unfairly. Like all of us, Archie can become outraged at injustice and he becomes especially angry when young infants may be dying be­ cause of ignorance and/or bureaucratic blindness by some areas of the medical establishment. Not only did Archie perceive poor health and injustice in the Aboriginal community, he vigorously pursued the truth behind its causes. Dr Kalokerinos challenged not only government officials but the very foundations of modem medicine. His acute powers of observation and persistent determination to evaluate situations hon­ estly and fairly led of course to a great deal of conflict in his profes­ sional life. This is an exciting book. It tells of the early days of Greek migrant struggle, of his adventures at medical school and early un­ derstanding of bureaucratic bungles and cover up by some medical incompetents. The seeds are sown in these early years for the adventures (truly spectacular "Hollywood" style) to come. His disillusionment with the medical establishment was re­ inforced when they refused to believe or to do anything about the extremely high rate of infant death amongst the Aboriginal popula111

tion. He searched for answers, and despite practicing all the univer­ sity based medicine he was taught, the children (mainly Aborigines) continued to die. His disenchantment with these medical outcomes led him to postpone his medical career. He went to seek his fortune as an opal miner. Like all aspects of his life, Archie developed a deep under­ standing of opals and opal mining. In fact he became a world expert in opals and has authored some books on the subject. However, even in this area of life, his honesty and sense of fair play were set to lead him into some of the biggest adventures in his life. Because of his medical doctor status some of the villains involved in a multi­ million dollar opal robbery confided in him, and he eventually be­ came a victim of their wrath. During this opal mining time, Archie started to solve the jigsaw puzzle of the high rate of Aboriginal death. He returned to medicine and started another enthralling series of events. Archie and Dr Glen Dettman (Medical Scientist) became inseparable at this stage in solving many of the complex medical issues surround­ ing the high rate of Aboriginal infant death. Vitamin C was found to be a critical factor. Archie and Glen travelled the world several times and shared their experiences at many international confer­ ences. They befriended many notable scientists and doctors includ­ ing Professor Linus Pauling (the only man to have won two unshared Noble Prizes), Dr Frederick Klenner (physician extraordinare), Dr Irwin Stone (a very astute Medical Scientist who championed the understanding of the requirements for Vitamin C supplements), Dr Robert Cathcart (a very notable Orthopaedic Surgeon who invented the modified prosthetic hip, and later went on to become intensely involved in nutritional therapies), Dr Bob Erdmann, Dr Roy Kupsinell lV

and Dr Wendell Belfield (a very experienced and successful ortho­ molecular veterinarian who has authored several books) and many others. Because of the perserverence of Dr Kalokerinos he suc­ cessfully reduced the Aboriginal infant death rate from virtually ev­ ery second child who presented with some risk factor, to zero. He kept these records of the reduction in the mortality rate for 10 years. But still, many Health Authorities with predetermined bigoted con­ cepts that Vitamin C was only good for preventing scurvy, refused to believe him. I recommend this book to all sections of the population. It's full of excitement. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry. It will have you not wanting to put the book down right to the very end. Recently, Dr Kalokerinos has been awarded Greek Australian of the Century by the very notable and considerable Greek Commu­ nity in Australia. Furthermore, it has been suggested that he may be in line for an Australian Medical Doctor of the Century award. Why he has not been granted a formal award by the Australian Govern­ ment for his discoveries and achievements I cannot understand. God bless Dr Kalokerinos, he is a courageous man, one whose discoveries, I believe, have saved countless lives. Further­ more his message of correcting some very basic nutritional defi­ ciencies (especially Vitamin C) will eventually become enshrined in basic medical doctrine.

Ian Dettman Ph.D.

V

Acknowledgments My wife, Catherine and my children, Helen and Peter, have been my strength and comfort over the years and without them much that has been good would never have happened. My parents who sacrificed so much for my benefit cannot be forgotten. My sister, Ada Penglis, her husband Paul, my cousins Jack and Doreen Moulos, Andreas Kalokerinos and members of the Greek community have been comforters, supporters and examples for me to follow when times were good or bad. In particular, my late brother, James, will forever remain as my first supporter, my adviser and mentor. Emmanuel and Bill Petrohelos, from Collarenebri, whose lives became so intimately entwined with mine, were the ones who provided the background to events that were instrumental in shaping my future. Many Aborigines are treasured in my memory. Those who are now dead will know how I feel about the times we toiled and suffered together. Naomi Mayers, from the Aboriginal Medical Service, Judge Bob Bellear, Faith Bandier, Shirley Smith, Barbara Flick, and many others are with us still and will, no doubt, recall the events depicted in this book. The late Professor Fred Hollows, although not an Aboriginal, will always be remembered for what he was - a man who wanted to help. Beverly Oyster, who worked with me at The Aboriginal Medical Service, always seemed to be around when I needed a psychological prop. Margaret Peterson, a 'nursing aide' in the same organisation was forever gentle and caring no matter how difficult or dirty was the task she was given or undertook. I value my association with her. My Alaskan friends, Mary Ann Mills, Bernadine Atchison, and Sandy Mintz, with Arthur Zahalsky from America, earned a VI

special vote of thanks for what they did. Bob and Marie Erdmann, Oscar Falconi of Wholesale Nutrition, California, the late Dr Linus Pauling, Jay Patrick of Alacer Co-operation, California, and Dr Anthony ('Tony') Morris contributed by clarifying aspects of what I was doing. Many others in America worked tirelessly for me and made possible a substantial degree of progress. In Australia, Marcus Blackmore and Bill Hill from 'Blackmores', manufacturers of vitamin, mineral, herbal and cosmetic products have provided much needed and valued support professionally and otherwise. Dr Ian Dettman, from Biological Therapies in Melbourne, has taken over the role of his late father, Dr Glen Dettman. The chapter in this book about that remarkable man hardly does justice to what he did for me and for his fellow human beings. An associate of Glen's, Dorothy Knafelc, through her determined literature research provided Glen and I with the information necessary for the understanding of some of our clinical observations. This proved to be of extreme value and I will remain forever in debt to her. Two men who went out of their way, bravely and openly, to support me were Bill Lovelock of This ls Your Life, and Alvin Rhinebarger, from Bingara, who risked his entire future in order to help me. The citizens of Bingara rallied by my side when I was in deep trouble, as did, years before, the people of Collarenebri. David Mead, of Tamworth, kindly, and expertly, showed me how to correct spelling and grammatical errors. His son, Tim, escorted me though the maze of computer technology and seemed to be always there when disasters struck. Better Business Equipment, a Tamworth firm were more than usually helpful with my many needs. Jan Buchanan, from Sydney, patiently and kindly helped with editing. Vil

Professor Gillian Frazer, from Tamworth, corrected some glaring errors in my use of the English language. Sam Harden, in Sydney, encouraged me in many ways and paved the way for final publication. I owe these friends a great deal. To many of my colleagues I owe more than I can express. Dr Douglas Harbison and Dr Peter Wakeford, both from Tamworth, should, I feel earn a special place in the history book for what they did during their long careers. There are many others, specialists and family practitioners, who made life easier for me. Their skill and dedication is always a reminder of what the profession of medicine can achieve when the right men and women are in the right place at the right time. Dr Vera Scheibner, and her late husband, Leif Carlson, did an enormous amount of research on vaccines and the sudden infant death syndrome. This benefited my work in many ways. Leif devised an electronic marvel that monitored the breathing of babies in a manner previously not possible, and this led to a dramatic improvement in the understanding of the sudden infant death syndrome. Hiliary Butler, from New Zealand, made a special study of vaccines. She arranged meetings in several countries with individuals who transfused me with knowledge and allowed me debate on a solid foundation with sceptics and so-called 'experts'. Dr Robert Reisinger, in America, introduced me to the subject of 'endotoxin' and immediately simplified the understanding of everything I observed in Collarenebri. The manner by which this man's work has been neglected is an illustration of how the medical establishment ignores the things that really matter and concentrates on trivialities. One day, I hope, this man will be recognised for what he is - an outstanding medical pioneer. Vlll

The 'ordinary people' of Australia have supported me in many ways and at many times. Public opinion and public pressure have been my strength. I value this greatly and express my gratitude and thanks. The late Jim Conomos, from Walgett - a Kytherian - first made me aware of what Australian opal was all about. Because of this I was able to begin my opal studies on a solid footing. The late Harold Hodges, of Lightning Ridge fame, and his wife Debbie, nursed me through years of turmoil and saw to my welfare whenever this was necessary. Greg Shermann, Michael Costello, and other opal dealers assisted in the collection of opal specimens for photographic purposes. Finally I must thank my maker for showing me the way and the many who prayed when there was a need for something that no mortal person could provide.

lX

INTRODUCTION U ually, an autobiography fallows an orderly sequence of vents - one leading naturally to another until the author decides on a cut-off point where, more often than not, readers can tum the final page and know that a lifetime of work is finished. I have found it impo sible to follow this pattern because, after a critical stage, ev­ erything became mixed with events, experiences and discoveries covering widely separated fields intertwined in a manner that can­ not be followed if described in a true chronological manner. This applies, particularly, to the chapters dealing with medical problems such a The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Otitis Media, Vac­ cine Reactions, Shaken Babies and Zinc Deficiencies. Trying to under tand and solve these conditions involved years of observa­ tion, thinking, and research. Eventually, it became obvious that the only way to pass on the knowledge obtained was to simply deal with each disorder separately. They are, in fact, not separate disorders because nature has connected them in a fascinating manner. My aim is not to claim total originality or total personal credit, because many colleagues provided me with the support and information that eventually led to an understanding of what I observed clinically. I hope that what I have written will act as a stimulus towards a broader view of medicine, and take some of the stress away from physicians who are forced to deal so much with problems they cannot solve. Some academics will be critical and detail aspects where I display a lack of knowledge. There may also be some errors gener­ ated by this lack of knowledge. However, I believe that, if this is so, the errors are minor and do not, from a practical point of view mat­ ter very much. I state this because I have been able to demonstrate clearly, and beyond any doubt, that what I have learned enabled me X

to achieve a dramatic drop in infant mortality rates and treat in a better fashion many previously resistant disease patterns. The 'technical' chapter on opal acts as division between the two parts of my life. This study marked the end of what I call 'my innocent years', when the idealism of youth vanished and I was forced to face the fact that modem medicine had, in some vital as­ pects, gone off the rails and prevented progress. Often, I long for a return to the psychological calmness of my youth but I know that this cannot be when I consider the trauma initiated by many bitter experiences. On the other hand I know that I have been exception­ ally privileged and supported by Australians, Greeks and people all over the world. Obviously, anyone reading this book will realise that Vita­ min C is critical to most things that are important. Of course this is so, but for those who want to delve deeply I must suggest that the chapter on sore ears (otitis media), if properly considered, opens the door to a new and better understanding of medicine. This, more than anything else, excites me and make me realise that life has, after all, been worthwhile.

Xl

Note: The following description of scurvy is important so that the reader of this book can more clearly unders tand many of the described clinical situations.

Understanding Vitamin C and Scurvy Without this nothing makes sense. Know it and the prac­ tice of medicine will become easier, more productive, and certainly, far less stressful. The medical dictionary definition of scurvy is 'a disease due to deficiency of ascorbic acid, marked by weakness, anaemia, spongy gums and mucocutaneous haemorrhages'. This definition almost certainly refers to the classically presenting acute symptoms of scurvy. However, scurvy is not a 'pure disease'. The so-called 'classical' descriptions, found in text books, certainly exist but there is an almost limitless list of varieties that taper off into an equally limitless variety of other conditions that, normally, one would not even remotely associate with Vitamin C deficiency. Even the 'pure' disease is almost infinitely variable. Bone changes, for example, may be found in some cases but not in others. Rib changes may be found in all ribs, or only one rib. Petechial hemorrhages may only be seen in some cases. Intracranial hemor­ rhages follow a similar pattern. And the list goes on and on. Much depends on precipitating factors. The classical ex­ ample of this is scurvy precipitated by infections. In such cases there may be symptoms and signs predominantly due to infection, or scurvy signs may dominate. Needless to say, there is usually a com-

xn

plex mixture of the two pathologies. Some individuals have a predisposition to scurvy. That is; under similar conditions - as far as can be estimated - one individual may suffer from obvious scurvy and another will not. The two major divisions of scurvy are acute (with major or acute clinically presenting signs and symptoms) scurvy and chronic (where there is a slower presentation of signs and symptoms) scurvy. 1.

Acute scurvy. This presents with the classical clinical picture of scurvy as a result of extremely low, or absent, levels of Vitamin C. Bruising, bleeding gums, general aches and pains, and ultimately, major haemorrhaging. Once presented with these signs and symptoms, unless treatment is commenced urgently, convulsions and death often follows. These final stages of Vitamin C deficiency can be induced quite rapidly by major acute infections, massive trauma or by endotoxin. *Endotoxin is produced by gram-negative organ­ isms (most often of gut origin) and is, particularly in infants, a painful and sometimes extremely rapid precipitating factor of scurvy. The final stages of scurvy, of course may also be reached a lot more slowly, but once Vitamin C levels are extremely low, or absent, the signs and symptoms of acute scurvy will be induced.

*

Endotoxin is a breakdown product of the cell walls of gram negative bacteria such as E.coli, Proteus, Pseudomonas, Sal­ monella and Shigella. It therefore occurs both normally and under disease conditions in the body, but is generally con­ trolled by a variety of molecules - including Vitamin C. Be­ ing a breakdown product only, endotoxaemia can exist with­ out bacteraemia or septicaemia. Xlll

fants.

Acute (clinical) scurvy presents differently in adults and in­ (a)

Acute Infantile scurvy. This presents differently from adult scurvy because of the active growth sites in infants and young children. Localised signs include tenderness and swelling, sometimes, most marked at the knees and ankles. A disruption of the epiphysis especially in the growth plate area results in extensive areas of rarefaction demonstrable on x-ray. Enlargement of the costochondral junctions produces the scorbutic rosary. Infants with acute scurvy are also invariably fretful, show a loss of appetite, and may exhibit pallour. Petechiae (small red spots due to escape of a small amount of blood) and bruises are less common than in adults. Bleed­ ing may, however, occur anywhere in the skin or from mucous mem­ branes including the gums (especially from teeth that have recently erupted). In infancy, intracranial haemmorrhages may be rap­ idly progressive if treatment is delayed, and death may occur. Mi­ crocytic, hypochromic anaemia is common. Older children may de­ velop characteristic perifollicular haemorrhages and hair changes seen in the adult. (b) Acute Adult scurvy. Early symptoms are weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath and aching bones,joints and muscles, especially at night. These symptoms are followed by characteristic changes in the skin and hair. Acne, broken and coiled hairs and perifollicular haemorrhages are common. Frank bleeding is a late feature of scurvy, however, bleeding into viscera or the brain can lead to convulsions and shock; death may occur abruptly.

XIV

Acute scurvy may spontaneously resolve if the precipitat­ ing factors inducing the Vitamin C deficiency (such as infection, stress or toxins) are removed or neutralised. Thus, death or major illness is not inevitable under these circumstances. However, the patient may continue to be unwell if chronically low levels of Vita­ min C persist. 2.

Chronic scurvy. This does not present with the classical picture of acute scurvy. Instead, as a result of chronically low levels of Vitamin C, patients are in poor health and have low resistance to disease, poisons and other stresses due to the vital role of Vitamin C in supporting the immune system, detoxification and glandular function. This is probably the most common presentation of scurvy in the modem era.

General Discussion Mention acute scurvy to health practitioners and they will immediately think of debilitating sickness, bruising and haemorrhage. Chronically very low levels of Vitamin C may ultimately result in an acute presentation of scurvy. As Vitamin C is required as a cofactor in the manufacture of healthy, strong cross-linked col­ lagen fibres, any deficiency in Vitamin C can manifest as poorly cross-linked, weaker, collagen fibres and/or lower levels of total col­ lagen in the connective tissue. In either case the tensile strength of the connective tissue will be weakened. Perivascular mucopolysac­ charide secretion may also be decreased in Vitamin C deficiency. The final result is capillary walls that are very fragile making the person much more subject to bruising and haemorrhage. In acute scurvy this can manifest as petechiae, generalised bruising, and in-

xv

tracranial and periosteal haemorrhages. Vitamin C is also involved as a cofactor in the coagulation cascade. Therefore, in Vitamiin C deficiency, the bleeding tendency due to fragile capillary walls will be accentuated. Haemorrhage may be further increased by excessive cir­ culating levels of endotoxin (endotoxaemia). Endotoxin in the blood stream is normally adsorbed by a host of normal metabolites includ­ ing bilirubin and uric acid. Notably, Vitamin C is very important in the adsorption and inactivation of endotoxin. This adsorption can produce a rapid reduction in Vitamin C levels and can, particularly in infants, precipitate a painful and sometimes extremely rapid acute scurvy condition. Excess endotoxin can induce widespread damage of the endothelial lining of the capillary walls, weakening them and inducing haemorrhage. Vitamin C levels can quickly be compro­ mised during this endotoxaemia, or their previously low levels may allow the endotoxin to act extremely quickly - which will exacerbate the bleeding tendency. Widespread haemorrhage and death can follow quite quickly. The amount of Vitamin C required to treat the life threaten­ ing symptoms (such as haemorrhages, convulsions and shock) of acute scurvy is in general, probably quite small - may be of the order of hundreds of milligrams rather than grams. However, the amount of Vitamin C required to treat the underlying or resulting diseases of Vitamin C deficiency, may well be much higher - in the order of many grams/day for an adult. This is certainly a point of scientific debate but is based on over 50 years of clinical observations by myself and numerous notable physicians and scientists around the world including many published papers in credible scientific and medical journals. XVl

High levels of Vitamin Care notably very virucidal, detoxi­ fying and a potent stimulant of the immune system. Additionally, time and time again, I (and numerous other physicians) have ob­ served the 'miraculous' results of many grams of intravenous Vita­ min C in treating, in particular, acute viral disorders. Furthermore, on many occasions, when high oral doses of Vitamin Cdid not work, I have found that under some circumstances 500mg or even consid­ erably more injected intramuscularly into the buttocks of severely ill infants resulted in rapid resolution of their life threatening illness. The levels of Vitamin Crequired to maintain adequate tissue levels, under most circumstances can be obtained from oral doses - either through diet or through oral supplements. However, when the body is acutely stressed the need for higher levels of Vitamin C is in­ creased. These high levels are difficult to obtain only through diet and/or oral supplementation, especially when gut absorption is poor (due for example to parasitic infestation, diarrhoea or other inflam­ matory conditions). Under these circumstances the delivery of Vi­ tamin C needs to bypass the gastro-intestinal tract and be adminis­ tered via intramuscular or intravenous injection. The history of my understanding of this phenomenon occupies much of the subject of this book. Refs:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess, MD, 1920, J.B. Lippincott Company. Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary, 21st Edition, 1968. Vitamin C, Vols 1 to 3 by Professor Alan B. Clemetson, 1989, CRC Press. Handbook of Vitamins, 2nd Edition, Ed by Laurence Machlin, 1991, Marcel Dekker, Inc.

..

xvu

A CHALLENGE There has been (and still is) a tendency to 'rubbish' Vitamin C. Why this substance has been singled out, I believe, is riddled with complex politics. There, more often than not, is very little good quality science emenating from the opponants of high levels of Vita­ min C supplementation. Now, I understand and empathise with all those medical doctors, nutritionists, and other health professionals (who have been taught at Universities and other institutions) that we require only 40 - 60mg/day of Vitamin C to prevent scurvy. So much more knowl­ edge now abounds in the literature to demonstrate the rapid utilisation of Vitamin C under a whole range of stressful conditions - necessi­ tating higher levels of supplementation to prevent chronic and acute scurvy. Why don't the academics and general medical community recognise this? Well, the major answer almost certainly lies in 'fund­ ing' of research. New, complex, exciting, exotic and patented drugs are re­ quired to make money for major pharmaceutical compaines. There simply is very little money in promoting Vitamin C as one of the most important fundamental nutrients in treating many, if not most, of the chronic and acute diseases of mankind. I challenge anyone to question the validity of my findings in this book. The implications of my discoveries (verified and vali­ dated by numerous physicians and scientists - including nobel prize winner Linus Pauling) are far-reaching. Correct and maintain Vita­ min C levels at all times as a primary fundamental treatment in vir­ tually all clinical situations. Patients will benefit enormously! To not XVlll

pay attention to this, as a primary method of treatment, I believe , with the passage of time, will become unheard of. Naturally, other supplements, drugs and methods of treatment may also be required. However, if anybody wishes to dispute my findings, the challenge I would like to make is that such person should produce more than one peer r eviewed scientific paper, con­ cerning the negative aspects of Vitamin C supplementation, that

have stood the test of time and not been invalidated subsequent to their initial publication.

XlX

STATEMENT To photographically depict or write about individuals who are dead is disturbing to many Aborigines. I respect the reasons for this and know that parts of this book will create resentment and sorrow. By fate and choice I have been burdened with the responsi­ bility of doing what I can to improve the intolerable state of Aborigi­ nal health in Australia. If advances are to be made it is necessary to make available details of the battles that have been fought and the deaths of those who have paid the price of being poor and black. I can recall many instances where publicity leading to public aware­ ness and demands has saved lives. Often I look at a photograph of a sweet little girl, dressed in a pretty pink dress, and sitting wonder­ ing eyed on my office couch. Her ankles and elbows display the scars of medical intervention. She was there only because some­ one (a nurse) had read about my work and had the courage to apply the right treatment. There is, therefore, no need for me to ask for forgiveness for tearing apart some things that normally should remain in per­ petual darkness. I ask only that people understand and utilise what we have learned rather than allow some who are alive today to die before their time.

Archie Kalokerinos.

xx

A DISCLAIMER What is written in this book is not intended as a total re­ placement for standard medical procedures. Whenever a medical problem surfaces the standard process involving the taking of a case history, a physical examination, special investigations, if necessary, and referral to a specialist or specialist team, if necessary, should be carefully followed. Vitamin and mineral supplements, including intravenously administered Vitamin C, are not intended as total replacements for standard medications or standard treatments. Advice from a quali­ fied and experienced practitioner is recommended in all cases. Self-diagnosis and self-treatment can be dangerous and is not recommended. If a conflict arises between a patient and a prac­ titioner, and cannot be easily resolved, it is recommended that an­ other practitioner be consulted.

Archie Kalokerinos

XXI

CONTENTS Foreword ······················································ ···........................... m Acknowledgements ············································. .. ................... Vl Introductl·on ······················································.......................... x Understanding Vitamin C and Scurvy ...............................········� A Challenge ...........................................................············· · ·· XV11l Statement ................................................................................. xx A Disclaimer ............................................................................ XXl Contents .................................................................................. xxii CHAPTERS Part 1: The first forty years From childhood to a search for reason ...................... 1 1 ..... My Father and Mother ..................................................... 2 2 ..... Childh()()(} .......................................................................... 9 3 ..... Medical School ............................................................... 20 4 ..... The Intern ....................................................................... 28 5 ..... Ships Surgeon ................................................................. 39 6 ..... Merry England ................................................................ 46 7 ..... Homeward Bound .......................................................... 56 8 ..... Collarenebri .................................................................... 59 9 ..... The Aborigines ................................................................ 72 10 ... Infant Deaths .................................................................. 77 11 .... Opal Fever ...................................................................... 83 12 ... The Opal Miner ................................................. ............. 92 13 ... Strange Happenings ...................................................... 104 14 ... Opal Formation ............................................................. 1 ()() 15 ... The Multimillion Dollar Game of Chess Coober Pedy Style ..................................................... 111 16 ... The Great Opal Robbery ............................................... 118 17 ... The Fascination of Opal ............................................... 143 18 ... The Dreamtime Beckons ............................................. 155

XXll

Part 2: The road to discovery is paved with suffering And it has no end ......................................................... 168 19 .... The Dramatic Solution ................................................. 169 20 .... The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, 'SIDS' .............. 175 21 .... The Trial of Nancy Young ........................................... 192 22 .... The Response .............................................................. 206 23 .... Glen Dettman .............................................................. 212 24 .... The Twins .................................................................... 234 25 .... Zinc, The Second Miracle ........................................... 239 26 .... Research and Conspiracy ............................................ 252 27 .... The Pintibi Tribe .......................................................... 258 28 .... Fred Hollows ............................................................... 270 29 .... Vaccine Dangers ......................................................... 288 30 .... Sore Ears (Otitis media) .............................................. 301 31 .... A Dramatised Documentary ....................................... 314 32 .... Queensland .................................................................. 318 33 .... The Swine Flu Vaccine - Mafia Connection................ 324 34 .... The Cancer Cure that Wasn't ..................................... 334 35 .... Marriage ...................................................................... 343 36 .... The Aboriginal Medical Service .................................. 346 37 .... Peter Campbell - Aboriginal Death In Custody .......... 364 38 .... The Dark Disease of Naples ....... ................................ 370 39 .... Good News .................................................................. 377 40 .... Country Practice.......................................................... 381 41 .... North to Alaska ........................................................... 396 42 .... Shaken Babies ............................................................. 403 43 .... The Australian Nanny - Justice Denied ..................... 434 44 .... A Judgement................................................................ 452 45 .... Epilogue ............................................................ ........... 457

XXlll

PARTl The first forty years From childhood to a search for reason

1

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CHAPTER 1 MY FATHER AND MOTHER According to family folklore, my father's family originated in Constantinople, about 1500 AD. During the next 400 years there are records of Kalokerinos men in Crete and the little island of Kythera that is situated between Crete and the mainland of Greece. Movements seemed to be random in nature but were probably initiated by three factors -business, trade and serious incompatibilities with the Turks. Eventually three remotely related families settled in Kythera and that is where my father was born. The history of that now tranquil little piece of paradise is a horror in itself. For hundreds of years pirates found Kythera to be an easy target whenever the urge to murder, rape, enslave and plunder appealed to them. Barbarossa was the most brutal, hated and feared pirate of them all. He landed during the quiet of one night, surprised the defenders with a ferocious attack, and spared no one as he stormed up the hill towards the castle of Paliohora. The Kytherians, and some Venetian soldiers, fought until the last man lay dead in the river of blood flowing around him. The women, rather than submit to the hated Turks, threw their children over the cliff then jumped to join them. In 1809, the English gained control of Kythera - thus bringing an era of peace and safety to the island, but the mainland of Greece remained under Turkish domination until 1821 when the Greeks began a successful rebellion. Independence resulted in a fever of patriotism. Kythera sought union with the motherland - a movement that was supported by the British. Kythera became a part of Greece and remains as such to the present day. In the 1800's two Kalokerinos men became famous for

2

MY MOTHER AND FATHER somewhat different reasons. One of these, Andreas Kalokerinos, moved from Kythera to the island of Milos where he was to be adopted by a wealthy Greek. However, before the adoption was completed the stepfather-to-be died. Andreas remained on Milos long enough to play a role in the discovery of the statue of the Venus de Milo. One of his descendants settled in Crete, where he became an important and very outspoken patriot who specialised in upsetting the Turkish administrators in every possible way. As a result of this, a price was placed on his head. He was captured, decapitated and his head presented, on a platter, to the Turks. The other notable Kalokerinos, appropriately named 'Minos', owned a block of land near Herakleion in Crete. He had dug some trenches and found parts of huge stone walls and some earthenware jars known as pithoi that were as large as a fully-grown man. The famous German archaeologist, Schliemann, displayed an interest but did not proceed to purchase and excavate the area. According to some historians this was because Minos lied about the value of the land and the number of olive trees it contained. However, family folklore suggests that the real reason was the determination of the Turks not to allow excavation. Schliemann then decided to search elsewhere and moved across the Mediterranean Sea to the site of ancient Troy. The story of what he found there is like a dream that came true. One day, realising that he had stumbled on something utterly magnificent, he dismissed his Turkish diggers by telling them that it was his birthday and they could have a holiday. Alone with his beautiful young Greek wife, Helen, he dug from under a wall a treasure of gold and jewels that almost defied description. Often I imagine the scene as he bedecked Helen with all this wealth. Schliemann had certainly placed his name in the pages of history.

3

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY He smuggled the treasure into Germany where it remained until it was confiscated by the Russians at the end of the Second World War. For many years its whereabouts remained a mystery. Recently it has resurfaced in Russia and there is certain to be a lengthy legal battle between the Turks, Germans, and Russians for ownership. While Schliemann was excavating Troy an Englishman, Sir Arthur Evans, was thinking about Crete. He had seen some strange coins in a dealer's shop in Athens. When he was told that they came from Crete he concluded, with rare brilliance, that somewhere near Herakleion was buried the ancient city of Knossos. In the spring of 1894 he arrived in Crete hoping to convert this assumption into reality. The Turkish authorities were discreetly provided with money, and permission was granted for the excavation to proceed. What was found rewrote the entire history of the ancient world. Homer had mentioned it. It was the legendary home of King Minos and his daughter, Princess Ariadene, who gave Theseus the thread that led him into her arms after he slew the Minotaur. In Knossos was a civilisation stretching back to 3000BC. Sir Arthur had triumphed. Today it is possible to visit the site and recall the glory of the ancients and the astuteness of the man who revealed it all to us. It is strange that associated with it all was a modern Greek with the name of Minos. By the mid 1800's the three Kalokerinos families had become established in the village of Alexandrades, well inland from the coast of Kythera - a site probably chosen to provide some protection from pirates who tended to raid coastal villages. In 1895 my father was born. Following tradition he was named 'Nicholas' - after his paternal grandfather. Only one other child, a girl, was born into the family. She was called 'Katina' - after her paternal grandmother.

4

MY MOTHER AND FATHER

Each family in Alexandrades existed on a minute plot of land separated from its neighbours by stone walls. A pear tree grew from the middle of the wall separating the Kalokerinos plot from the Petroheloses next door. The pears were of the prized 'Athenian' variety so there were many battles fought over ownership. By an incredible stroke of fate one of the Petrohelos sons, Emmanuel, was to become in Australia, many years later, the influence that controlled everything that mattered in my life. It seems that there is a power above us all that guides, or forces, some of us along certain paths. I find it difficult to believe that it was just a series of chances that entwined my life with that of my father's neighbour. Kythera during those times was at peace with the world, but limited arable land produced insufficient food for an increasing population. As children were born, resources were stretched to the limit and it became necessary for boys to migrate overseas as soon as, or before, they became teenagers. Many found a home in America but for a period that door was closed to Greeks. That is why my father came to Australia - in 1908, when he was just 13 years old. Other Kytherians who had come before him became established in fish shops and cafes and had developed a scheme that helped new arrivals. When a ship docked in Sydney harbour a proprietor from a fish shop or cafe would be there to meet it. Employment and accommodation would be offered. In this way my father learned to clean fish, to wash plates, to cook, to mop floors and something of greater importance - to speak English. In a remarkably short time he was ready for the next stage. A grapevine was in existence that somehow managed to filter information to Sydney from all the close and remote parts of Australia. My father was told, 'There is a place called Emmaville, five hundred miles away. It needs a cafe. Go there

5

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY and start one.' Easier said than done! In Australian terminology Emmaville was a 'hole'. That is: not a very nice place. It was, in reality, a series of holes because its existence depended on tin mining. The miners were a mixture of 'Australians' and Chinese. Brawls and drinking were the order of the day. Fortunately my father had grown big and strong. He could handle the roughest of the rough - and he could work. With the aid of a wood-stove and gas lamps he cooked steak and eggs, ham and eggs, sausages and eggs, and meat pies. He made his own ice-cream, cut sandwiches, squeezed oranges and lemons to make drinks, and sold cigarettes and tobacco. The cafe would remain open until well after midnight. It would be serving the first breakfast by 6am. For a period my grandfather came out from Greece to assist. He objected to the long hours that my father worked and sometimes threw water over the stove to extinguish the fire. 'There,' he would say to my father, 'you can no longer cook steak and eggs. Go to bed.' Twenty-five miles from Emmaville was the larger town of Glen Innes. There, before the tum of the century, a Kytherian named Panaretos had established the Paragon Cafe. Although this was not as well known as its famous namesake in Katoomba (in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney) it was always regarded as a 'good business'. During and just after the first war it was owned by Peter Crethary, another Kytherian. Further along the main street, opposite the Post Office, was a fruit shop. Jack Megaloconomos (from the Kytherian town of Potomos) had purchased that establishment, shortened his name to 'Conomos', and worked hard to save some money. In those times, Greek men accepted the role of carer for their sisters and younger brothers. Jack accepted this responsibility

6

MY MOTHER AND FATHER

gladly and managed to bring to Australia three of his sisters. One of them, Mary, was to become my mother. In a double wedding, she and her sister, Natalia, were married by a Greek Orthodox priest in the Church of England Church in Glenn Innes on April 13, 1924. When I researched the origins of my family I found it difficult to trace my mother's side. Her parents were extremely poor. Her mother's brother was extremely rich. He was the 'mayor' of Kythera. He owned the olive oil factory and entertained all the important people. By all accounts he was a good man. Many of his descendants were to settle in Australia and become men and women of considerable note. The Kalokerinoses certainly had established themselves in the history books but the descendants of the Megaloconomos family achieved their own special brand of fame by imprinting themselves, with remarkable ability, upon the present. As a small girl, my mother struggled to survive with the rest of her family. She grew her own flax, spun the thread and wove a glory-box full of everything that a girl was supposed to need when she got married. For some reason all of this was left behind when she left Greece. Eventually, after my mother's death, some of it emerged in Australia and was given to me. It includes a huge sheet made for placing on the ground during olive-picking time. Before she reached her teens my mother was sent to Egypt to act as a housemaid for a wealthy Greek family. That was how she made her first contact with Australians. They were soldiers preparing to fight the Turks and Germans during the first war. She had reason to fear them as she saw them drunk and rioting in the streets of Egypt. Later, when she learned that she was to come to Australia, her initial response was far from happy. However, after marrying my father she found herself in a country where she was treated

7

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY kindly, and opportunities for progress and security were open to anyone who wished to take them. She did not know, of course, just how extensive these opportunities were and how deeply involved her children were to become in the future of the country she had been directed to adopt.

8

CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER 2 CHILDHOOD Australia is by all standards a vast stretch of country. On one side the Pacific Ocean rolls in to a series of golden, sandy beaches and the wonders of the Barrier Reef. There is a coastal strip that reaches inland for a distance of up to thirty miles or more until confronted by the abruptness of the Great Dividing Range. This runs from the northern tip of the continent to the southern comer facing the island of Tasmania. Its grandeur is inspiring. For many years after white settlement its fearsome cliffs and gorges prevented exploration of the inland. There are mountain streams and waterfalls and the scent of gum trees mixed with the tinkling calls of bellbirds. Then, almost as suddenly as they begin, the ranges level to a tableland that spreads westwards for sixty miles or so before gradually sloping to the almost never-ending plains and deserts of Central Australia. Glen Innes is on the tableland. I was born there on September 28, 1927, in a cottage-sized nursing home run by a motherly woman, simply known as 'Nurse Robinson'. Two other boys preceded my introduction into the family. Emmanuel was born far to the west in the town of Moree. The rest of us were Nurse Robinson's babies. James was fifteen months older than myself, Ada five years younger, and Leo the last by a few more years. Our mother lost two babies either at birth or very soon afterwards. We were raised in a few rooms perched above the Paragon Cafe. Tradition was followed when names were decided for Emmanuel, James ('Demetrios') and Ada ('Adriana'). After that my father was free to choose and he went back to the history of ancient Greece. However, he must have been half-asleep when lessons in that subject were taught because he got things terribly

9

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY wrong. I was named after the hero Alcibiades. During the process of translation the spelling was mixed a little and officially my name is spelt 'Archivides'. One historian records part of the life of Alcibiades. 'In all Greek history there is perhaps no figure that so intrigues the mind as this wayward but fascinating adventurer. His exceptionally handsome looks were the talk of the town. His private life, if even a quarter of the ugly tales were true, can have been little better than a prolonged debauch.' He was a famous general. In the early days, following Athenian custom, he fought in battles alongside his best friend, Socrates. During one battle he saved Socrates's life-a favour that was reciprocated during a later battle. His audacity was clearly demonstrated when he seduced the wife of the king of Athens. Banished, he joined forces with the enemies of Athens in Sparta, where he seduced the wife of the king of Sparta. Banished from there he fled to Persia where he eventually met a rather nasty end. I can think of few qualities that are shared by Alcibiades and myself. Leo ('Leonidas') fared a little better than I did. His namesake died gloriously fighting as a Spartan king in the battle ofThermopylae. The town of Glen Innes was founded about 100 years before I was born. Scots and Englishmen claimed the area surrounding it and named it 'New England' because of a resemblance to parts of England. The low, rolling hills and the fertile river flats produce fine wool, wheat and a variety of other crops. The town's population has not changed much over the years and stands at about 6,000. During my boyhood, tin mining and sapphires kept many families from the poor house. Most of my friends and I collected little glass bottles full of sapphires 'panned' from the local plains. We also found gold by searching in crevices in the beds of creeks and rivers flowing towards the coast.

10

CHILDHOOD The great depression was in full swing during my childhood. Our family, fortunately, was spared the financial hardships experienced by many others. Some of my schoolmates never wore shoes. They could not afford to buy them. Winter and summer they were barefooted and their feet became hard and characteristically stained brown with the colour of the local dirt. They lived in shanties rudely fashioned from kerosene tins flattened into metal sheets. But there was some good in it all because everyone lived secure and free from the problems that have since developed in our community. It seems that when our country was poor we were, in some ways, a better race of people. Many years later I was to discover that a price was paid by some for the tranquillity of my childhood. The first settlers had totally erased all traces of the original owners of this land - the Aborigines. At school I was not taught about the tribes that once roamed around the hills and valleys of this beautiful place. It was as if they never existed. There wasn't even a spear or a club or the head of a stone axe to remind me of what once had been. I now know what happened. While the foundation stones of three magnificent churches were laid in Glen Innes the local Aborigines were either removed by force or killed. I find this difficult to explain because those entrusted with my education and care were all, apparently, fine men and women. Yet, some were the offspring of those who committed genocide. They fought in two wars and lost many fine young brothers and sons in order to save the world from genocide. Yet, their fathers were guilty of this crime. Of course, as a child I was totally oblivious of this history and lived in a world that was ordered and serene. One ambition, and one ambition only, drove my father during

11

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY his life in Australia. With an enormous passion he wanted his children to live a better life than the one he was forced to live and, particularly, he wanted them to be respected in society. All this had to be done by hard and honest work. The pattern he developed in Emmaville was put into use. By 6am he was out of bed preparing the kitchen and cafe for the first customers. My mother, burdened by five children born in rapid succession, was forced to follow. At midnight, often later, they got to bed. There were no breaks. Seven days a week, fifty- two weeks a year, winter and summer this was what had to be done. For this reason contact with our parents was scanty. As children we were not taught to speak Greek. Our parents addressed us more often than not in Greek that we clearly understood but we always answered in English. Reflecting on the hardships that my mother experienced saddens me, and I wonder how she managed to keep body and soul together. One day, at the age of six, I ran into a moving car in the main street opposite the Paragon Cafe and suffered a compound fracture of the skull. Dr. Gaul operated under an open ether anaesthetic, skillfully saving me from permanent disability apart from an almost imperceptible degree of spasticity in the right hand. Many years later Dr. Gaul's son was to administer anaesthetics for me when I operated in Collarenebri. School began for me, as it did for most children, in the kindergarten. My teacher was a beautiful young lass named Miss Brown. She later married my cubmaster and I mention this because it was the beginning of very happy relationships with a series of teachers and others who influenced and guided me during my early days. With only one exception teachers recognised my needs, my talents, and the need to encourage me during periods of struggle.

12

CHILDHOOD

The day before I commenced the final medical examinations at the University of Sydney my headmistress during those early school years, Miss Bennett, sent me a telegram expressing her interest and best wishes. Outside school hours I was kept busy with the church, Sunday school, the cubs, scouts and juvenile lodge. One talent, only partly recognised, was the possession of a particularly fine treble voice. I enjoyed singing in the church choir and wherever else opportunity offered. However, I was told nothing about the onset of adolescence. When my voice eventually broke it was as if the whole world had come to an end. There was one aspect of those times that I intensely disliked. My father had noted that most of the boys who proceeded to social and professional success could play a musical instrument. Emmanuel and James were taught to play the piano. Little me was presented with a violin and lessons were arranged in St. Joseph's Convent. I was the only boy in Glen Innes cursed with this instrument. I had to carry it to school every morning, spend half an hour in the convent before school started, and carry it home again in the afternoon. On Saturday morning, while all the other boys were playing cowboys and Indians, I was learning about the theory of music. During the May and August school holidays I was forced to practice for up to two hours each day. I hated it. Other boys poked fun at me. Many times I would drop the violin in the street and chase some of those who teased me beyond endurance. Often it would end in a brawl. So I rebelled. First, I coated the keys of the violin with grease preventing stabilisation of tuning. Then I placed stones inside the body of the violin and finally, because all my endeavours failed to achieve the desired result, I simply did not attend lessons. When my

13

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY father found out about this all hell was let loose but he finally seemed to understand and the lessons came to an end. That is why I never became a concert violinist. At the end of 1939, after the war had started, my older brothers had completed two years in high school and I was about to start. Our father studied the situation and arrived at a clear conclusion. Most boys educated solely in Glen Innes failed to achieve the status of professional men. Many boys performed better in Sydney schools. Furthermore, those from certain suburbs tended to become high achievers. Since there was insufficient money to send us to boarding schools, or buy a house in one of these suburbs, and it was necessary that a living be earned, a solution was found that satisfied all necessary criteria. A 'mixed' business - that is one that sold groceries, food items and a variety of other goods - was purchased in Rose Bay, the heart of the elite. We lived behind the shop in Old South Head Road. The move was, for me, a cultural shock of major dimensions. I was a boy from the bush at home with open spaces and of tree-covered hills with wattle and the enchantment of the season's change. Sydney was a collection of dreary houses with people who seemed to come and go as if they were zombies. I missed the friends of my childhood. I had nightmares during which I went back to Glen Innes but there was something strange that prevented me from actually being a part of it. I would wake up and hear the rumble of trams and the constant noise of the traffic. To make matters worse I could not adapt to attending the school at Rose Bay. It was late November when I enrolled in that institution. For some reason the yearly examinations in Glen Innes had been delayed. The Sydney students had already completed them so it was necessary for me to do them alone under the supervision of a not very

14

CHILDHOOD

understanding headmaster. My marks were low, and the headmaster classified me towards the bottom of the scale. I was told that I could not proceed the next year to a high standard secondary school and would be sent to Darlinghurst Junior Technical High School where students of calibre similar to myself would learn to become tradesmen. This meant that I would not be taught a foreign language. At the time a pass in an examination for a foreign language was necessary for entrance to the university. In other words; I would never satisfy my father's ambition. However, there is more than one way to skin a cat. My father arranged for me to have private tuition in French. I was a dreadful pupil. The lessons went the same way as the violin lessons. My father gave up. Emmanuel and James had, over the years, become students in the same class, probably because James was promoted or started school early. They began their schooling in Sydney at Randwick High School, and like me did badly in the examinations, but the headmaster took their background into consideration and allowed them to proceed, on probation, to a higher class. One year later they were both near the top of their class and well on their way to a university education. Darlinghurst, however, did not tum out to be a total disaster. I had a series of good teachers in all subjects. The science master was a bright young man named John Watson. He taught physics and chemistry with zeal and interest. He enthused his students and I found that this enthusiasm was fertilised by my older brothers who were on hand at home to answer difficult questions and teach me more about the wonders of science. Emmanuel in particular was good at mathematics and chemistry and eventually graduated with honours in chemistry at the university. My father's shop became a

15

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY sort of meeting place for some of the brightest students in Sydney. What was discussed varied from day to day but always left me feeling astonished that boys so young could accumulate such knowledge. It was at Darlinghurst, during one of John Watson's lessons that I became aware of a stubborn streak in my personality. John stated that the circumference of a circle was 21tr and that 7t was 22/7. In a rare moment of failure as a teacher he did not explain that this had been decided by a process of trial and error. I refused to accept it because I could not see the reason why it was so. There was a vigorous argument that tested the determination of us both. The matter was never resolved. Years later as I was about to graduate from the university I met John in the University Union. He had given up teaching and decided to become a doctor. The third year of my high school days was spent at Ultimo - a dedicated one-year technical school. It was there that something occurred that has tickled my sense of humour ever since. One day I was given the task of making the tea for the teachers. At home in Rose Bay we used a teapot that had a hinged lid. Whenever it was necessary to empty it I simply inverted it over the sink. When I looked around for somewhere to empty the teacher's teapot I could not find a sink. So I inverted it over the toilet. The lid came off and fell into the bottom of the toilet bowl. I fished it out with a piece of wire, rinsed it with some water and made the tea. Four years passed. In a city street one day I came across Mr. Gilchrist, one of the Ultimo teachers. He invited me back to the school to have tea with the staff. There on the table was the same teapot. I was not so much concerned with what I had done with it years before but more worried about the possibility that some other student had done the

16

CHILDHOOD same thing more recently. Woodwork was one of my favourite subjects and strengths. I read the theory notes so often that I could recite them from memory. During the exam I simply wrote what I had memorised. When the results were handed down the teacher began with the marks of the top student, another Greek boy by the name of Sarantides. I was a little surprised because I expected to hold that position. Then the second, third and all the other student's names were called, and mine was still not amongst them. Finally, my paper was produced and I was asked to come forwards. According to the teacher I had cheated. He compared what I had written with the class notes he had issued and they matched word for word. 'How do you explain that?' he asked. I answered, then began to recite what I had memorised. The teacher scratched his head for a moment, carefully went through my paper, deducted one mark for some trivial reason and declared that I was now top of the class. This is a story that I tell not just because it did in some way demonstrate an apparent superiority but because I did equally well in the other so-called 'technical' subjects - a feat that brought me to the attention of the authorities and resulted in promotion to a special class of students who were destined to become manual arts teachers. My fourth year at high school was therefore spent at a particularly fine institution - Sydney Technical High School. That was the year that Emmanuel and James commenced courses at the university. Two factors influenced the faculties they entered. Our father had asked some parents of university students what costs were involved and had calculated that he could not afford to put more than one son through medicine. Furthermore, there was a quota for entry into the medical faculty. James scraped in by the back door.

17

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Emmanuel did not and enrolled in the faculty of science. After a few terms our father got a very pleasant shock. Many of the so­ called 'costs' he had been told about included cigarettes, whisky, wild women and cars. Since Emmanuel and James restricted their participation in these pleasures, costs were low, and our father found that he could put three or four sons through medicine for the cost of what he had thought was one. Emmanuel became an excellent science student with special abilities in chemistry, theoretical and applied. After graduation with honours he enrolled in medicine. James was a popular, about average-to-good student. His special talents surfaced like an erupting volcano during his first year as an intern. The last two years at high school were more or less non-eventful. The teachers were all particularly good. However, I was beginning to find in myself a fundamental weakness that made the retention of some fine details difficult. This became apparent during studies in physics. Textbooks at the time were either too complex for my limited brainpower or too poorly written. At the end of my school days when the exam results were published I received what was called a 'lower' in physics. That is, just a poor sort of a pass rather than a total failure. Had I proceeded on to become a teacher this would not have mattered but a series of events changed the significance of it all. During a technical drawing lesson at the college I argued with the teacher about what type of pencil could be used. The teacher declared that only a HB pencil was permissible. I wanted to vary the type of pencil when I considered that the particular task at hand needed it. The teacher and I could not agree and it ended in an impasse with nasty feelings all around. Next we attended our first lecture in psychology. Something that was said by the lecturer did

18

CHILDHOOD not make sense. I politely questioned it and was curtly told to learn and not question. So I said. 'If that is the case it is obvious that your lectures are not worth attending.' There was an awful row. My career as a teacher ended before it had begun. At that time the war was just coming to an end. Australia decided that it needed more doctors and the quota system for entry into the faculty of medicine was abolished. At the same time it was decided that a pass in a foreign language would no longer be a requirement for matriculation. My father was quick to see the possibility. But what about that 'lower' in physics? The answer was to have coaching lessons in physics and sit for a special exam called the 'matriculation'. I had become friendly with a fellow Sydney Technical High School student named George Sonter. He had boarded with a man who ran a coaching college and advised strongly that I should seek this man's help. I did. It worked. In March 1945 I was able to enrol at the university as a medical student.

19

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CHAPTER 3

MEDICAL SCHOOL The relaxation of entry requirements into the faculty of medicine resulted in a record number of enrolments. Three hundred students, more than twice the usual number, crowded into the lecture theatres of the Old Medical School and hoped to eventually be tagged with the title of 'Doctor'. There were, however, some major hurdles to overcome. Six years of study would be highlighted with a series of examinations. At the end of the first year fifty percent would fail. Some more would be weeded out at the end of the second year. Most of the survivors, except for a few that would die from natural illness or commit suicide, would reach the treasured goal. The examinations would dominate almost everything. Brilliant students

had little to fear, but the average ones feared even the simple tests because there was so much to learn in such a short space of time, and it was impossible to cover every subject with confidence. In other words, Lady Luck would decide the fate of many. For me she proved to be more like a guardian angel. I knew that physics would be my first stumbling block. With an enormous effort I read and re-read the textbook until I could recite most pages. This, unfortunately, proved to be my undoing. The theory exam paper included a question on the electric motor. I drew a diagram and labelled it clockwise. My mind, unfortunately, was thinking about a diagram labelled anticlockwise. The text that I wrote was for an anticlockwise diagram. The examiner, who was a senior lecturer, spotted this, decided that I had learned the subject parrot­ fashion (correct), had no understanding (correct), and despite the fact that the subject matter written by me was, apart from that fatal diagram, correct, awarded me no marks. I had broken a university

20

MEDICAL SCHOOL

record by becoming the first student to achieve the distinction of a zero mark! The practical examination in physics was, nearly, another disaster. I was having great difficulty arranging the components of an experiment in the correct order. The supervisor, Dr Nichol, (a co­ author of the physics textbook), watched my efforts for a while until she could no longer stand my discomfort. Quite openly, she walked over to the bench, arranged the components correctly and said, 'I think that you will find that that is better,' and walked away. Yet another disaster was in the pipeline. The theory paper on chemistry included a compulsory question on physical chemistry. Somehow, the particular portion of that subject had escaped my attention. I was unable to answer it, and therefore faced the bitterness of failure. When the examiners met to decide our fate the physics lecturer was quite adamant. As far as he was concerned I would never become a doctor and should be cast out of the university with little ceremony. But that was not to be. Sometime later one of the examiners, who lived in Rose Bay and followed my progress with interest, told me what happened. Despite my obvious failure in physical chemistry the chemistry professor was so impressed by my practical work that, as far as he was concerned, I was not only fit to complete my training as a doctor but would make a good doctor. All of the other examiners strongly supported me. The physics lecturer was forced to agree with the others and allow me to sit for what was called a 'post'. This was a second examination in that subject in other words, a second chance. With that opportunity granted it would be necessary for me to study hard for a few months and I would need to know the specific aspects of physics on which I would be examined. So I come face

21

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY to face with my enemy. He listed for me the various topics that, according to him, I would need to study. This list did not include the physics of sound. I queried this and received a definite assurance that sound would not be included. A few months later when I sat in the Great Hall, and opened the exam paper, I was shocked to find a compulsory question on sound. I had been betrayed! Someone, my guardian angel perhaps, came to my rescue. At the examiners meeting an argument ensued. Once again the physics lecturer wanted my blood. Once again the others wanted to allow me to continue as a medical student. The 'goodies' won. I was given a third chance to demonstrate my ability - an opportunity rarely offered. Fortunately, that opportunity resulted in success. Otherwise I would not be writing this book. It was, however, a very subdued Archie Kalokerinos who sat amongst the other students when our second year commenced. However, all was not yet won. Biochemistry was a notorious executioner for any careless second year student and I knew that I would be a candidate for the noose. The textbook, even in those days, was an enormous tome filled with, what was to me, meaningless symbols. I looked at it knowing that I could never master this beast. Something had to be done. Some tactic had to be devised to save my soul and body from eternal damnation. I turned to my brother James. During his second year as a student he had summarised the textbook. In beautiful handwriting and with remarkable ability he had summarised what he considered to be the essentials of biochemistry. However, even this was too much for me. Fortunately, James had proceeded further. He had summarised his summary. That is what I studied. I studied it until my eyes were sore and my brain was working along train lines. Because it lacked detail there

22

MEDICAL SCHOOL

was, of course, no true understanding involved but it had to do. When examination time came around I wrote what seemed to be a reasonable paper. Afterwards, outside the exam room, I compared notes with the bright lads and realised that my answers were very different. Thus, I considered the possibility of failure. At the very least my confidence was shaken. The practical exam in biochemistry was a farce. There were three questions. Facing me first was a heap of whitish powder and the question, 'Is this powdered milk?' I was supposed to perform a series of tests and arrive at a conclusion. The tests were not easy to perform and took quite a long time. I decided to use a short cut and simply tasted it. It was obviously powdered milk so I did not bother to actually do the tests. I just wrote them down as 'positive'. By the time I completed this task ten minutes had passed. One hundred and seventy remained. Next, I was looking at a stain on a rag. The question? 'Was it blood?' Now that was really a difficult test. I could never get it to work properly even without the stress of an examination. First, I applied the 'smell test'. This did not reveal an odour that might have helped. So there was only one way for me to go. Mentally, up went the coin. Down it came. Heads! On such a gamble rested my entire future. According to my answer the stain was blood. Later I found that only some stains issued to students consisted of blood. The others were boot-polish stains. Mine happened to be blood. The third section of the examination involved the estimation of the amount of sugar in a specimen of urine. I had plenty of time to relax and perform the test carefully. It so happened that I was spot­ on - a combination of luck, care and a little skill. The examiner's meeting, that year, was another circus. The

23

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY lecturer in biochemistry was an astute man (whom I admired). He deduced that, although my theory paper was technically perfect, I demonstrated little understanding. He therefore wanted to fail me. The professor, however, argued that my work was 'perfect' - and that would be that! I was given a 'high distinction' - the only one ever achieved by a Kalokerinos. Bad news was to follow. I was appointed as a 'demonstrator' in biochemistry and delegated to assist in the teaching of students. Never will I forget the embarrassment that I later suffered when the students realised that, despite having a high distinction, I knew virtually nothing. Forty years later, at James's funeral I related how he had so brilliantly summarised the biochemistry textbook and how I obtained the high distinction. Geoffrey Kellerman, professor of biochemistry, who knew James and myself, approached me and said, 'I always wondered how you did it.' Third year medicine was hard but straightforward work. Fourth year saw us begin studies in hospitals and with real patients. Although we had all dissected preserved bodies in the anatomy department, when we were faced with the freshly dead and the reality of autopsies the final traces of childhood innocence vanished. We had entered the real world of suffering and responsibility. This was clarified during the fifth year when specialties, obstetrics, gynaecology, skin, eyes, ear, nose and throat, children and psychiatry were studied. There were, of course, examinations in each subject. Some were more-or­ less straightforward. Others could be difficult. Lady luck, and that guardian angel that always seemed to be there when needed, calmed what could have been for me, troubled waters. The pressure of so much to study in such a short period was beginning to take its toll. Some subjects were neglected to an extent and one happened to be eye diseases. There was an oral exam

24

MEDICAL SCHOOL

complete with patients who had a variety of diseases. I was surprised to be called in ahead of my tum. A kindly looking old doctor, who was to examine me, came straight up to me, shook me violently by the hand, invited me to sit down, called his secretary, instructed her to fetch me tea and sandwiches, and began to talk about everything but eye diseases. When the tea and sandwiches were finished he said, 'I suppose we should proceed with the examination.' I was escorted to a patient, given an instrument and asked, 'What do you think of that?' 'That' happened to be something that I could not recognise. It was just a dark mess. So I simply said nothing. The examiner slapped me gently on the back, said, 'You will be O.K.' Then shaking my hand again, added, 'Your brother, Jim, was the best resident ("intern") that I ever had.' With this sort of influence I entered the final year and the universal horror of the final examinations. The theory papers seemed to be straightforward without being easy and I moved on to the oral examinations and the most important one of all - 'the case' . This involved a patient in a hospital away from where I trained. In three hours I was supposed to take a history, perform a physical examination and recommend treatment. Patients selected for these examinations were told not to divulge certain details that would give the student an unfair advantage. I found myself sitting behind a screen next to a 'rough diamond', from a slum area in Sydney. When we were left alone she reached over, patted me on the knee and said, 'The boy who had me on Tuesday got me wrong and they tell me that he has failed. I would not like the same thing to happen to you. I have high blood pressure and they are going to do an operation'. Only a few seconds had passed and I had the diagnosis and the treatment!

25

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Half way through the examination, while I was busy writing, the consultant physician, Thomas Greenaway, (later Sir Thomas Greenaway) noticed me as he did rounds with a dozen or so hangers­ on. He stopped, looked over the screen and asked me where I came from. When I answered, 'Sydney Hospital Sir', he said, 'Do they teach you all about essential hypertension and the indications for sympathectomy there?' Then before I could say another word he walked away. Apparently he knew that the other student had failed and considered the diagnosis unfairly difficult. There are many gentlemen in medicine. Sir Thomas was recognised as one of the best. The medical oral examination was another possible stumbling block. The well-dressed examiner sat behind a table that was littered with bottles containing various pathology specimens. He reached amongst them, found what he wanted and pushed it towards me. It was a 'glioma' - a particular type of brain cancer. This was something about which I knew 'everything'. My neighbour in Rose Bay had one. I saw the operation and, when my neighbour died, attended the autopsy. I knew the fine details of the history and various special investigations. 'What is it?' I was asked. To answer that was easy. 'Have you ever seen a patient with one?' was the next question. I was able to confidently state 'Yes.' 'Then tell me what you know,' was the final request. My summary was concise but detailed when necessary. The examiner was most impressed. But my luck was about to run out - or so I thought. As a final test I was escorted to an X-Ray screen on which there was a chest X-Ray. The question was, 'What is that?' I looked at 'that' carefully. There appeared to be nothing abnormal about it but I hesitated because it could have been a deliberate trap for the unwary. I opened my mouth, said,

26

MEDICAL SCHOOL 'The lung fields ... ' then hesitated because of nervousness. I meant to go on and say that the fields were normal. But I never got the chance. The examiner slapped his fist on the screen, exclaimed, 'Good lad. I knew you would get it. You are the only one who has. It is the lung fields.' Never have I seen an examiner so pleased. He looked down at the list of names in front of him, ticked against mine, looked up and said, 'I believe that you have a very clever brother too.' In this way I graduated as a doctor. In January 1951 my name was entered in the medical register. I was free to practice as a surgeon and a physician. One part of my life had ended. Ahead was the unknown. I'm glad that it was so because, in retrospect, I doubt that I would have welcomed the sufferings that I was to experience.

27

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CHAPTER 4 THE INTERN

Dr Norman Rose, medical superintendent of Sydney Hospital, was a man who in his relatively short lifetime, for very many reasons, earned the respect and admiration of his colleagues and the Australian community. He was by necessity a man who demanded obedience. My brother, James, had worked under him for over one year without any problems but my own relationship with Dr Rose was a little clouded. Every student training at Sydney Hospital was sooner or later challenged to a game of billiards and it so happened that at that particular game Dr Rose was skilled. While he was in the process of defeating his luckless opponent he would loudly proclaim his own skill and poke fun at the clumsiness of his victim. I was determined not to take this without a fight. When I was asked if I would like to play billiards I replied, 'Yes sir, provided that after the game we put on the boxing gloves.' If Norman Rose was going to beat me at his game I was going to beat him at mine. Of course, this did not go down very well. In time I learned to be a little more diplomatic. One day I assisted Dr Rose with an appendectomy. During the operation he asked me (it was more like a 'demand') to take the operation specimen to the pathology department, follow its progress and hand him the pathologist's report. Later, when I went to collect the specimen, I was told that a nurse had flushed it down the sluice. Now, there was no way by which I could explain this to Dr Rose. Something had to be done to cover up this dreadful crime. Armed with some scissors I visited the autopsy room while one was in progress, waited until no one was watching, and went 'snip'. The pathologist's report was an education in itself. It stated that the appendix was an 'interesting' specimen because it demonstrated

28

THE INTERN

unusual features of inflammation. When I handed the report to Dr Rose he said, 'I hope that you have learned something.' I certainly had! After graduation, when the time came for the listing of hospital postings I was not allocated to Sydney Hospital. I am certain that this had nothing to do with Norman Rose, despite our rather sour relationship. Our year was record in size and all the teaching hospital appointments went to the best students. More than half of my fellow students had examination marks superior to mine. But I was fortunate because I was granted my first choice in other hospitals - the Lismore Base Hospital, six hundred miles north of Sydney, twenty miles inland from the coast. The area was well known to me, I had many friends and some relatives scattered around the district. The nearby beaches and rocky headlands were my favourite fishing spots. Life there would be very pleasant. The oppressive humidity of a semitropical summer greeted my arrival In Lismore. The receptionist in the hospital entrance had been expecting me. She told me that Dr Rawle was in the casualty room examining a small boy. It seemed a good place and time to commence work, so I left my bags with the receptionists and walked the few paces to a small room that was to become a part of me. To this day I can recall how Dr Rawle looked up after being introduced and said, 'This boy has polio.' The little patient was fair, beautiful to look at, obviously in pain but cooperative and very brave for one so young. He was to suffer a great deal over the next few weeks and, as I was to discover to my horror, he was the first of many polio victims. The 1951 epidemic was one of the worst experienced in Australia, and Lismore was to become a base for diagnosis and treatment. Poliomyelitis is a viral disease that can damage parts of the

29

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

brain and spinal cord. In most cases the disease is so mild that the person infected is totally unaware of any problem. Some patients will have obvious paralysis of one or more muscles and the most severely affected develop paralysis of the respiratory muscles making unaided breathing impossible. A few patients will progress to paralysis of some of the essential centres in the brain and death will be inevitable. If survival is achieved, the amount of muscle movement that recovers is variable. Often there is a degree of permanent paralysis, varying in severity, of one or more muscle groups. Some individuals appear to have natural immunity that is inherited from their parents. It is thought that this is because the parents had come in contact with the disease, suffered an obvious, or not obvious, ('subclinical') infection, developed antibodies which protect against infection and passed the antibodies on to their offspring. There is no doubt that amongst the multitude of factors predisposing an individual to a clinical attack is excessive exertion during the incubation period. This was dramatically demonstrated by one of the patients who came under my care. I was called one day to see a young soldier in the back of an army vehicle parked in the hospital driveway. An army doctor was bending over him and holding a bowl into which the soldier was vomiting. By that time I had seen so many polio patients doing just that that I could make the diagnosis without any further investigation. So I simply said, 'This man has polio.' The doctor thought that I was crazy. We helped the soldier walk into the ward. I had great difficulty performing a spinal tap (to collect spinal fluid for testing). The young man could not remain still, but I did manage to obtain some fluid that confirmed the diagnosis of polio. A few minutes later it was all over. As I signed the death certificate I attempted to piece together the

30

THE INTERN

details of this obviously unusual case. The soldier had been exercising vigorously during the past few days and this had reduced the power of his immune system. The polio virus simply took over. That much was obvious. The specific factor involved in this, however, was elusive. Unknown to me, at the time, was the work of an American chest physician, Frederick K.lenner. This pioneer had published details of his treatment of a variety of viral diseases, including poliomyelitis, with intravenous injections of Vitamin C. The medical establishment, unfortunately, reacted in an extremely hostile manner. Dr K.lenner's treatment was not accepted. The result was tragic. Untold suffering and many deaths could have been prevented. Almost certainly, the treatment would not have saved my soldier patient (because the disease had progressed beyond the point of no return) but it would have saved many others. In those days if a patient developed respiratory paralysis we helped the breathing by placing him (or her) in an 'iron lung'. This was a box-like structure with an opening at one end through which the head and part of the neck protruded. A diaphragm around the neck provided a seal that was necessary, because a pump produced relays of positive and negative pressure, that pressed the chest in, then allowed it to relax back, thus forcing air into and then out of the lungs. After a few weeks there was a row of these machines with polio victims struggling to stay alive. Caring for the patients was sometimes hectic and desperate. I was vomited upon and dirtied by faeces, urine, and sputum. Infection control during those times was, to say the least, crude. The hospital domestic staff seemed to be more concerned than I was, and for a period refused to clean my living quarters and wash my clothing. In retrospect I realise that I was running an enormous risk. Fortunately I did not suffer from a

31

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

clinical bout of polio. A colleague of mine, Brad Norrington, was not so fortunate. He spent the rest of his life in a wheel chair but with incredible detennination learned to live with his disability and become a valued specialist in the field of rehabilitation. There were other infectious diseases even more alarming in onset than polio. Of these diphtheria topped the list. Some cases were mild but many went on to develop membranous casts that blocked the breathing passages and threatened life. I became, through necessity, expert in the art of quickly cutting through the windpipe below the voice box and letting air into the lungs below the point of obstruction. One little lass, however, developed a membranous cast that extended down to the smaller air passages in the lungs. I was able to insert a tube that permitted observation of the area but could not grasp the friable membrane with forceps or suck it out with the sucker available. Obviously, I needed a stronger, controllable sucker. But where could I get such a machine in the few minutes that were necessary? One of my mother's brothers, Michael, had at one time, a dairy farm. He milked by hand but some of his neighbours used machines. It occurred to me that a milking machine would be ideal. One quick phone call was all it took. Within half an hour I had the machine installed and in use. I almost shouted aloud with relief when the membrane came away and the little girl's colour changed from grey to an acceptable pink. For many days afterwards I found myself unable to resist the temptation to pick her up and feel the life in her that had been so close to ending. Times have changed since then. There are now, of course, more refined methods of dealing with complications but the present­ day bureaucracy would never permit the instant action that saved this girl's life. There would be a host of forms to fill in; conferences,

32

THE INTERN

meetings, papers to write, officials to consult and six months would pass. By then the patient would be dead! Tetanus was the other terrible infection that I was to confront. The first patient, a little Aboriginal boy, died. In this way I was to learn about the horrors of infectious diseases. Years later when I fought to have certain complications of vaccines against these infections recognised I was accused of not knowing how dreadful were the days before vaccines were introduced. My accusers stated that had I seen cases of polio, diphtheria and tetanus I would not be so keen to highlight rare complications following the administration of vaccines. The luck that was with me during university exams did not desert me during my internship. One patient, a man in his twenties, was dying from a mysterious form of heart failure. He had been more or less 'written off'. His legs were swollen; his lungs full of fluid and it seemed that his end was near. One evening I was reading a medical textbook. It had been a hard day. I was tired and began to doze. My eyes, half closed, read the same line over and over again - beri-beri. Then instantly I was wide-awake. Beriberi -a vitamin B deficiency disease that could result in cardiac failure. The patient was an alcoholic. His diet was almost pure alcohol and certainly vitamin deficient. I threw the textbook onto the floor and rushed up to the ward. 'Did we have some injectable vitamin B ?' The answer was, 'Yes.' I administered several ampoules intramuscularly - and waited. Next day the recovery was dramatic. And it is said that one must not go to sleep on the job. At least I had demonstrated that being half-asleep was sometimes better than being fully awake. Treating accident victims was another test of efficiency and resolve. One evening I was called to an ambulance. In it was a

33

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY collection of bits and pieces. Someone driving a car had collided with a train at a level crossing. With the dead were two who were living - an old man and a little boy. They both needed intravenous fluids and blood urgently. I could treat one. I knew that by the time another doctor arrived or I finished with the first the other patient would be dead. There was only one thing to do. I picked up the little boy and carried him inside. I gave him the two bottles of blood we had in stock. A few minutes later the old man was dead. He was the little boy's grandfather. Another accident was not so bad. A young man had been given a motorcycle for his eighteenth birthday. A few nights later he was coming home on the correct side of the road. A car coming towards him was on the wrong side of the road and driven by a man under the influence of alcohol. The two collided on a bend. The young man was killed. I examined the driver of the car and determined that he was under the influence. All this was documented. Some weeks later I was summoned to give evidence at the inquest inquiring into the motor cyclist's death. I was the only doctor called. I was asked one question and one question only, 'What time did the young man dje?' Nobody asked about the driver of the car. Nobody wanted to know if he was drunk or sober. I was not allowed to offer any further evidence. I was unable to understand why further evidence was not called for. Many, many years later, I was listening to the news on a radio. I heard that the car driver and his mother had been killed in an accident. At least, the names were the same. It is possible that they were different people. One sad episode was, at the time, rather strange but proved to be of considerable importance to me many years later when I struggled to understand why so many inf ants and children died

34

THE INTERN suddenly and without known rca on . I kn w the father of th childr ·n involved because he worked in the ho pital. He had vcral children including, if my memory is right, a son aged about eight and a daughter aged about ten. These two had been mildly unwell and both died suddenly within a few hours of each other. l performed th autopsies. The only abnormalities noted were yellow patches in the Ii vers what I assumed to be areas of partial liver death. As far a I wa aware the only cause for that was poi oning by a toxic agent. When I suggested that all hell broke loose. It was as good as accusing someone of murder. Fifteen years later I was to find the real reason for those deaths. It had nothing to do with an introduced poison. Bacteria in the gut had manufactured a toxin that could not be adequately detoxified by the liver and sudden death resulted. Life for me in Lismore was not all work. In the town there was a big Greek community and they were nearly all Kytherians engaged in the business of providing food and drinks to the local population in a number of cafes, milkbars, fruit shops and fish shops. I could, with little difficulty, trace some family ties and this generated a problem. Their hospitality was touching in its extent and sincerity. Just being a Kytherian was sufficient to explain this, but added was the fact that doctors of Greek descent in Australia at the time were rare creatures. I was regarded as someone rather special and whenever my crowded timetable permitted I was entertained in homes and fed with nothing but the best Greek-style food. Unfortunately, I was unable to accept more than traces of this magnificent hospitality. Furthermore the hospital food was only just edible. On occasions I would find myself with just sufficient time to race down to the town centre and order a meal in one of the cafes. This, however, generated another problem. None of the cafe owners would accept payment and this was an

35

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY embarrassment. So I searched for an establishment where, to the best of my knowledge I was unknown and payment would be accepted. One busy lunch hour I walked into the Vogue Milk Bar, sat down and ordered a ham salad. The place was packed with diners. Sitting opposite me was a stranger who heard me make my order. He saw what was a very nice ham salad served. He then heard me order a 'banana split'. The waitress gave this order to a gentleman working behind a counter. I noticed that there was some delay in filling it but when it was finally delivered I was astonished to see a gigantic plate loaded with all sorts of ice cream, fruits, nuts and flavourings. My fellow diner nearly choked with surprise. I saw his eyes scan the menu, 'Banana Split... one and threepence'. He called the waitress and placed his order, his face gleaming with anticipation. But he was soon disillusioned. When his banana split arrived it was microscopic in size. His expression changed considerably and I was glad that I had eaten what was in front of me and was able to arise and walk towards the payment desk. It was there that I learned the facts of life. Payment was refused. The owner introduced himself and his wife. Jack and Patra Baveas were Kytherians. To them it was a tradition and an honour to provide me with whatever they could. To accept payment would be to offer an insult. Many of the old Kytherians are now dead but the tradition survives. About ten years ago I was passing through the town of Grafton with my wife and two very small children. We stopped in the main street to stretch our legs and look around. I was surprised to run into Irene Notaras, the daughter of my mother's first cousin. She had just reopened the 'Saraton' ('Notaras' spelt backwards) picture theatre that had been built by her father and uncle but had

36

THE INTERN

closed after the introduction of television. That night there was to be a gala premiere of 'Crocodile Dundee'. My wife and I were invited to attend as guests. But what were we to do with the children? A passer-by solved that. His sister was the little girl whose life was saved by the milking machine and his wife would be only too happy to act as a baby sitter. While we yarned about old times a little lady joined our group. 'Do you know who I am?' she asked. I reached back into the past but failed to come up with an answer. She was Matina Coroneas. The same priest had christened us, in the same water, in Glen Innes. She had lived in Lismore during my time there. I recalled her beautiful children. Strangers used to stop her in the street and comment about how beautiful they were. Her husband now owned one of the hotels in Grafton. Would we honour her by being guests for dinner? And that is how we got a free meal, free baby sitters and free tickets to the cinema! I cannot end this account of the time I spent in Lismore without mentioning the local doctors who taught and guided me through my period of initiation. 'Old Man Opie' was a foundation member of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons. He was a skilled practitioner with a sense of duty and caring that would satisfy the most ardent disciple of the Hippocratic oath. His son, Jim Opie, was a physician. His son-in-law was Dr Nugent Brand. Tom Boyd-Law was the ophthalmologist, Dr Robertson, the ear, nose and throat specialist, Don Sillar, Tom Hewett, Ken Lawrence, Sam Hatfield, Dr Meek, Dr Ryan and Dr Gribben were general practitioners and surgeons. They earned my admiration and respect. They helped to make me what I am and I look back with a sense of gratitude and appreciation. Two more individuals entered my life during those times. The first was Bob Turnbull, the radiographer for the Lismore Base hospital.

37

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Bob had 'been around'. He showed me the simple but important tricks of the trade. Whenever I needed him he was there. Some years ago his son, Bill, commenced practice as a radiologist in Inverell, near where I practiced for ten years. He followed in his father's footsteps and to this day, whenever I have a problem involving aspects of radiology I seek his help. Ted Lamberton was the second. As the pharmacist in the hospital he was a senior with many years of practical experience. As much as possible he injected a sense of 'fun' into the practice of medicine. Beneath it all, however, was a world of common sense and clinical judgment that was of immense value as I struggled to understand the practicalities of pharmacology. It was with this background that I changed from being a medical student to a doctor in the accepted sense of the word. Within eighteen months my initiation was complete and my footsteps turned to the next stage of my career. I needed further training in many fields that Lismore could not provide. There were very few posts in Australian hospitals and I could not compete with the brighter graduates of my year. The only alternative was to go to England where positions were freely available. Brother Jim had done this two years earlier. Obviously, I would have to follow him.

38

SHIP'S SURGEON

CHAPTER 5 SHIP'S SURGEON The cheapest and easiest way by which young Australian doctors could get to England during the early 1950's involved becoming a ship's surgeon. The term was not strictly accurate because, since the days of sailing ships, surgery at sea was rarely performed. 'Ship's doctor' would have been a better description. One applied for a position through the various shipping lines and waited. I did just that but did not remain idle. I filled in my time by relieving Dr Bob Macarthur in Bombala, on the southern highlands of New South Wales. His father had been a family doctor in that town for many years and, as an elderly man, had studied for, and qualified, as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of London a feat requiring more than considerable ability. Bob went away for a few weeks and left me in Bombala with his mother, who would cook meals and see to my welfare. This rather active lady loved one thing more than anything on earth. Every midday she would down tools and listen to her favourite radio serial - Blue Hills. For the uninitiated this was a top-rating Australian rural drama, written by Gwen Meredith. It did not particularly interest me, but Mrs Macarthur insisted that I join her before lunch, and take it all in. I thought of refusing, but Mrs Macarthur had a huge dog that took upon himself the task of protector. If I did not sit down with Mrs Macarthur the dog saw to it that I did. My education was therefore enhanced with much radio rural gossip. The heroine at the time was the daughter of a wealthy Australian grazier. Her mother was extremely ambitious and was arranging to send her to England for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the hope that she would meet a titled gentleman and marry. I was not very impressed with this, but the details did sink in

39

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY and were to be recalled a year later with startling clarity. In October 1952 I joined the crew of the Imperial Star in the port of Newcastle just north of Sydney. My father came to farewell me. I was not to know that we would never meet again. As I stood at the top of the gangway and saw him walk away with his brother­ in-law, George Crethary, I wondered what my future would bring. It happened to be a beautiful day. The water of the harbour spread blue and inviting away to the river mouth. The ship looked magnificent. She was a cargo vessel, a floating refrigerator, part of the Blue Star Line owned by Lord Vesty. This was something that I had dreamed about since early childhood. It was going to be an adventure, an experience that most would envy. My father was about fifty-seven years old. He had, I thought, many years of life ahead. That this would not be was something that I could never have imagined. Built as a cargo vessel the Imperial Star was also equipped to cater for about a dozen passengers. They came aboard the next day. Leading them were Mr and Mrs Sillar. Mr Sillar was the brother of Dr Sillar from Lismore. Then there was Gwen Harrison and her husband. I was soon to discover that she was 'Gwen Meredith' of 'Blue Hills' fame. Another passenger was Gwen Plumb- an actress friend of the Harrisons. She played a role in Blue Hills. Finally, there were a few others including one family with a young pre-teenage daughter. The crew was a mixture of Englishmen and Liverpool­ Irishmen. Captain Gaudie headed them with the assistance of Mr. Ray, the chief engineer. I cannot recall the name of the chief steward, although his deeds were to demonstrate that he was the living epitome of Casanova. In every port one of his many 'friends' would come on board to be entertained in a manner fit for royalty.

40

SHIP'S SURGEON

For a few days we all enjoyed the tranquillity of Newcastle harbour while we waited for the loading of some cargo. My first duty was to check the ship's medical stores. They appeared to be adequate so I was rather surprised when the chief steward presented for signing an order form for a colossal amount of injectable penicillin. ·we will never use so much,' I tried to explain. 'If we treat every member of the crew in every port between here and London for gonorrhoea we will never use so much penicillin.' 'Just sign,' I was told gently but in a manner that suggested that a refusal would not be welcome. So I signed! Next day there was another order to be signed. This time it was for about two thousand condoms. I was flabbergasted. I thought of the reaction of the staff in the office in Sydney when the order came to their attention. They would probably think that I was about to embark not just on a sea voyage, but on one big sexual orgy. For a few moments I thought that there should be some discussion about such an order but once again the expression on the chief steward's face left no room for compromise. I signed. I never did discover what happened to the penicillin or the condoms. Certainly they were not on board when we eventually docked in London. I was allocated a magnificent cabin overlooking the length of the forward holds. The one next door was occupied by Gwen Meredith. Each night I could hear her typewriter at work as she composed future episodes of Blue Hills. Naturally, I wondered how she developed her themes. She never spoke about them although together we enjoyed ship life and explored foreign ports when opportunity made this possible. One day while playing a deck game Gwen slipped and strained her hip. There was only one pair of crutches on board and as luck would have it they were far too large.

41

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

With the help of the ship's carpenter I cut them down to size and Gwen was able to hobble about until recovery enabled her to walk normally. Six months later, in England, I received a series of 'please explain' letters. When the episodes of Blue Hills went to air, the heroine, whose mother was so eager to see her married to a titled gentleman, was travelling on a ship to England for the coronation. She fell on the deck and broke her leg. The young and handsome ship's doctor attended to her in not just an ordinary professional manner. There were some very tender love scenes and the not very happy mother expressed considerable displeasure as her hopes of a title in the family vanished overboard My mentor during the voyage was the chief steward. He warned me not to lean over the rail at night while alone because, he said, many a person was deliberately flipped overboard and never seen again. I had reason to recall thi's one balmy night in the tropics. I had decided to take a stroll around the decks before retiring. Rounding a comer near a lifeboat I saw the ship's baker struggling for his life as a young crewman tried to force him over the side. My intervention prevented this, but despite reporting the issue, to the best of my knowledge no further action was taken. The crewman was drunk and this was my first experience of violence initiated by alcohol - a subject that I was later to become very familiar with. This was to be my only unpleasant experience during the voyage to England and Europe. Cruising through the tropics and around the coast of Africa to Tenerife was sheer luxury. Then, as we moved northwards the temperature dropped and we were gripped by the icy blasts of winter. It was during this period that the chief engineer suffered a mild but worrying coronary occlusion. I had grown to like

42

SHIP'S SURGEON this man. His obvious skill, quiet efficiency and fatherly manner had endeared him to everyone on board. When I gave him the usual physical examination I was to learn a great deal about him. Both buttocks were badly scarred. He was on a ship sunk by the Graf Spee during the war. Confined for many days to a lifeboat he gave his lifejacket to another person and therefore sat on a hard wooden seat instead of a soft cushion-like life jacket. The result was a deep ulceration of the buttocks. With enormous confidence he told me that he would survive his 'trivial' heart attack and live to see the white cliffs of Dover and his family waiting for him in England. He did, I'm glad to report, but I was asked by the captain to stay on the ship while it visited various European ports in case the engineer suffered another attack. Apparently there was some bookwork that could only be completed by the chief engineer and, as the whole world knows, bookwork in an English-run institution must receive top priority. That is how it came to be that I found myself one extremely cold day walking along the famous beaches of Dunkirk. Very few traces remained of the war not long finished. When I could not stand the cold any longer I sought refuge in a beachside inn where I hoped to warm myself with a hot drink and good French food. The innkeeper, fortunately, could speak English. When he found out that I was an Australian he was all over me like a rash. ' You must not eat with ordinary common people. You must be my guest. My wife will cook something special just for you.' I was very touched - even more so when the best bottle of wine was produced. I knew that alcohol and I did not go well together. But what could I do in the circumstances? After only a few glasses I was somewhere between heaven and an anaesthetic. Then through a haze I thought that my host said, 'You must meet my daughter. You will like my daughter.'

43

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

I could not believe my good fortune. Men of my age will recall that it was during the early 1950's that French movies began to circulate around the world. In many of these there was a beautiful blonde 'maiden' - usually an innkeeper's daughter - who was prepared to enliven the hearts of men and shower upon them French hospitality at its best. So there was I, still very innocent, only just parted from my mother's apron strings and about to sample pleasures beyond my wildest and best dreams. All that study, all those exams, all that responsibility. Every bit, I thought, was now worthwhile. Fuel was added to it all by the innkeeper's wife who came in from time to time to report on the progress of the cooking and tell me about the virtues of her beautiful daughter. Everything was just like the wonderful, romantic French movies. Then more wine was pressed upon me. There were more glowing reminders about the beauty of the young daughter. My imagination ran wild. What could be better? I discovered the answer to this after a few more glasses of wine when the daughter was finally produced for my admiration and attention. She was, to say the least, plain and ugly! Instantly I was sober. I must have been shocked as well because I could feel a cold sweat running over me. Then I remembered that the ship had to sail on the high tide. The dial on my watch was for various reasons unreadable. I was unsure about the direction I should aim at as I fled. I do recall half-crawling, half-walking, up the gangway and the not very amused expression on Captain Gaudie's crimson face. For the next few days I was terribly 'seasick'. The remainder of the voyage was relatively trouble free. We crossed the channel entered the Thames and berthed in the King George V dock. I was officially 'signed off' with a pay of two shillings, took a cab to the city, arranged accommodation and rang my brother,

44

SHIP'S SURGEON James, who was a senior casualty officer in the Hillingdon Hospital near London airport. It was bitterly cold. A dense 'pea-souper' fog engulfed everything. I did not see a ray of sunshine for a whole month. At nights I had 'nightmares' when I dreamed that I was on Bondi beach with the blue sky and warmth of the sun. Then I would awake to the dreariness of the fog and its peculiar smell. Homesickness overwhelmed me and I seriously thought of boarding the first boat back to Australia. A visit to James and a few hours in the company of some remarkably fine young doctors changed all that dramatically. I was amongst some of the finest doctors in Britain. The conversation, the keenness, the obvious dedication was like a blood transfusion. I had to become a part of it. Life without it would be intolerable. All thoughts of an early return to Australia vanished into the mist and dampness of the English fog.

45

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 6 MERRY ENGLAND First, I needed to become registered as a medical practitioner in England. Before leaving Australia I had obtained the proper documents and the process should have been a matter of routine. Unfortunately, during the voyage to England, the rules had changed and one document that I needed, and did not have, was a character reference from a registered British medical practitioner. I did have one from the Archbishop of Sydney but that was not acceptable. Day after day I went to the registration office and attempted to instil what I thought was some sense into the problem, but the bureaucracy remained unmoved. On several occasions I even swore. That certainly did no good. Then one day I happened to say that the only registered medical practitioner in England who knew me was my brother. The official looked up at me with surprise. 'He will do,' I was told. So I paid another visit to brother, James, who obliged with, 'This is to state that I have known Archivides Kalokerinos for a period of twenty-five years and he is of good character.' It did the trick. Next, I went to the British Medical Association and was given a list of available positions in the field of surgery. I was rather surprised, because I had been led to believe that to obtain such a position, it was necessary to have passed the primary examination for the fellowship of surgery. But my skin was thick and I decided to try anyway. An appointment was made for an interview at the Staffordshire General Infirmary, just about dead centre in the heart of England. Three days before that interview I developed a dental problem that necessitated the extraction of a molar. Someone had told me.that the finest dental unit in England was in Guy's Hospital so I found my way there. A very young but efficient graduate gently

46

MERRY ENGLAND

injected some local anaesthetic and applied the extractors. Nothing happened. He tried harder. Still nothing. Eventually he had to give up and call for help from a slightly older colleague. This did not succeed, so a third and finally a fourth, much older, man decided that all Australians had jaws constructed like granite and some bone would need to be chipped away before the tooth would move. I was left with a very sore and swollen face. Two days later there were obvious signs of infection. Some antibiotics were commenced and I tried to sleep in preparation for the train journey to Stafford. By midnight I was still awake and feeling rather dreadful. It was obvious that unless I did something the interview in Stafford would be a disaster. Amongst my emergency medical supplies were two medications benadryl (an antihistamine and anti-seasick remedy), and amphetamine (legal in those times). The benadryl would act as a sedative. I had never taken such medication before but I knew, from personal experience, that antihistamine cough mixtures over acted on me and made me excessively drowsy. So the benadryl would give me some sleep. The problem then would be to wake up and appear normal by the time I arrived in Stafford. I took one benadryl capsule, set the alarm clock and went to sleep. Six hours later the alarm woke me. I took one tablet of amphetamine, reset the alarm and went back to sleep. One hour later I was awake, reasonably normal and fit for the journey north. There were many reasons for me to believe that I was wasting my time. I had not sat for and passed the primary exam for the fellowship of surgery, and this appeared to be an impossible hurdle. Furthermore, I expected that there would be a long queue of applicants for the position, with each applicant having qualifications superior to mine. However, I was in for a pleasant shock. I was the only

47

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

applicant. The only qualifications that anyone was interested in was the ability to read, write and talk. One week later I was installed as the Resident Surgical Officer ('RSO') at the Staffordshire General Infirmary. Under my command was a surgical medical officer, two whole years my junior, and a casualty officer. I was to assist the senior surgeon, while he performed major routine operations, and perform most of the emergency operations unaided by a superior. The truth of the situation was that I had never performed a major emergency operation by myself. Strangely, nobody seemed concerned. Apparently this sort of situation was accepted as 'normal'. It was to be a difficult initiation. Two things saved me from total disaster. I had a natural flare for diagnosing problems, somewhat like brother James but still far from his standards. Then there was Mr. Sworn - the senior surgeon who turned out to be something like a surgical genius, an excellent teacher and a man of exceptional ability. Although he was not present while I attended to emergencies (such as acute cases of appendicitis, ruptured stomach and duodenal ulcers, ruptured gall bladders, ruptured ectopic pregnancies and a wide variety of accident cases) he was able to advise me and teach me during the periods I spent assisting him and sitting with him in the outpatients clinics. It is now forty-five years since I worked under Mr. Sworn . Hardly a week goes by without a patient of mine benefiting in some way from his teaching. I often wish that he were still alive so I could express, personally, my gratitude to him. There was another surgeon in Stafford who was to influence me in a very different way. He was Mr. Davies, a man who loved his golf almost as much as he loved his work. He was also the consultant surgeon to a huge mental hospital not far from the infirmary. Quite frequently he would tell his staff that he would be absent for a few hours and if

48

MERRY ENGLAND

any problems emerged they were to contact Kalokerinos at the infirmary. In this way I became familiar with my psychiatrist colleagues. I vividly recall my first contact. A phone call informed me about a patient in the mental hospital who had a large 'hydrocoele', which is a fluid filled cyst on the scrotum. Attempts had been made to drain the fluid with a wide bore needle but these had not succeeded. I found myself walking through wards packed with patients confined, almost always, to bed. Apparently it was easier to manage them in this way. Charles Dickens would have felt at home in such a situation. I found it difficult to realise that I was living in the 20th century - not during the era of David Copperfield . In my best modern style I performed an examination of the patient. His scrotum was certainly swollen but it was not a hydrocele. It was a scrotal hernia containing loops of small and large bowel. A not very sterile needle had been repeatedly inserted through this mess, releasing contaminated faeces into the tissues and initiating a not very pleasant smelling infection. I was able to order a transfer to the infirmary where at least some sort of correct treatment could be performed. As I was walking out of the ward I recognised the features of a patient lying in a comer bed. Mr Sworn had performed a gastrectomy on him, with me assisting, about one month previously. After discharge from hospital the patient began to act strangely- so much so that his local doctor had him 'certified' and incarcerated in the 'nut house'. I looked at his chart, and it immediately became apparent that he had a violent swinging temperature. It was a simple matter to take him back with me and drain a pint of pus from under his diaphragm. This promptly cured his mental instability. Needless to say, for many years, my opinion of psychiatrists was not very high.

49

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY There were many fine general practitioners in the Stafford area and I learned to respect them. There were also a few that were not very good. One particular practitioner would never perform a physical examination. He did not even have a chair in his consulting room for patients to sit upon. I tired of reading the crazy letters he sent with patients and eventually decided to express my feelings directly. A man turned up with a letter that simply stated, '?Chest'. I did examine him; no problem existed in the chest or elsewhere. I wrote a note, 'Chest present,' and sent the patient home. Another doctor rang me with, 'I have delivered the baby but cannot express the afterbirth.' One hour later I delivered a very much alive second of a set of twins. It was easy, of course, for me to be critical of some colleagues but I was not entirely perfect in my own work. Once I delayed making a diagnosis of a ruptured stomach ulcer until 24 hours after the onset of symptoms. Fortunately, the patient survived. After four months in Stafford I felt that I was ready for the next step in my career. The hospital staff had been most cooperative during my stay and decided that a farewell party was in order. Since one needs a partner at a party I looked around for a pretty nurse and I found one. Audrey Wood was her name. Her father was English. Her mother was Spanish. During the party I had a little too much to drink. At one stage, in order to enliven the proceedings, I unrolled a giant fire hose. Unknown to me (and I did not read the 'instructions') once the unwinding was complete the hose automatically shot water out in torrents. The result was a flooded X­ Ray department. Ironically, the fire brigade had to be called in to pump the water out. Within a few months Audrey and I were married. It was decided

50

MERRY ENGLAND

that I would work in another hospital during the winter and study at the Royal College of Surgeon in London for the primary examinations in the spring. I applied for a position, and was accepted, as casualty officer in Southend. Audrey would be able to live with me in one of the cottages supplied by the hospital. I was to assist the newly appointed surgeon. Mr. George Bonny. and attempt to reorganise the casualty section to reduce patient waiting times. George Bonny was the nephew of Sir Victor Bonny, the world-renowned gynaecologist after whom the antiseptic paint used by gynaecologists and generally known as 'Bonny's Blue' was named. He was the bright young boy of orthopaedics, filled with enthusiasm, a brilliant dissector and absolutely honest. He hated the bureaucracy intensely - and for good reasons. He was also the ultimate teacher. I admired him. I respected him and I appreciated him. With his guidance I learned to do nerve transplants, tendon transplants and most of the commonly performed orthopaedic procedures. It was stimulating work punctuated by periods when I was faced with problem patients who had been treated in ways not compatible with modern techniques. I became accustomed to these cases and thought that I had seen everything until a man arrived in the clinic with an unusual problem. Some time previously he had sustained a simple fracture of an upper arm bone, the treatment for which (at the time) should have been a plaster slab and a sling. Instead an operation was performed. A series of complications followed and it took all of the skill possessed by George Bonny to operatively correct the damage. Eventually the patient achieved good arm function. One particular practitioner, had over the years developed a habit of placing all the X-rays of individual patients on the screen at the

51

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

same time. Now, that was impossible if there were more than two or three films so the nurses were forced to cut out the shapes of the bones with scissors and try to arrange the pieces on the screen. Of course, there were no names or other detail that normally permitted identification. On one occasion this placed me in a ludicrous situation. A particular patient had, in the past, hit his ulnar ('funny-bone') nerve on the left elbow and damaged it with resulting paralysis. The treatment was to surgically free it from its bed and move it to the front of the elbow where constant elbow movements would no longer irritate it. Unfortunately, in those times, patients were moved onto and off the operating table on a stretcher that consisted of a canvas sheet with a slot sewn onto each side into which a carrying pole was inserted. For convenience this was removed during the operation and reinserted when the procedure was complete. Care had to be taken during the act of reinsertion because rough insertion of the pole could, if an elbow were in the way, damage an ulnar nerve. It so happened that whoever inserted the poles when this patient's operation was complete did not use adequate care and the right ulnar nerve was damaged. A worker's compensation claim had been lodged for the first injury. I was asked to be present and issue a separate report while an orthopaedic surgeon, working on behalf of the insurance company, examined the patient. The orthopaedic surgeon refused to accept the fact that the patient's right ulnar nerve was damaged even after I politely pointed out obvious signs. So we did not get on together particularly well and he clearly expressed his displeasure. Came the stage when he asked to see the X-rays. What could I do or say? I decided to say nothing. To this day it serves to amuse me, to re-establish a sense of humour

52

MERRY ENGLAND

when times are difficult and depression threatens. The site of dozens of jig-saw-like pieces of unidentified X-ray pieces faithfully cut out by nurses to enable 'all' the X-ray's to be displayed at once - and the look of absolute astonishment on the surgeon's face I will never forget. Eventually the patient's second elbow problem was solved by freeing the nerve and taking care to have the scar tissue photographed for evidence. Also, in true British justice style a compensation court found in favour of the patient. One day, while going through some records, I came across another startling case. An elderly person had fallen and broken a hip. The standard procedure at the time was to insert a thick steel pin and hope that the fragments would be held in position while healing took place. The pin was not only wrongly inserted; it was not even in the bone. It fell out into the bed after the operation. George Bonny did more than teach me about fractures, injuries and orthopaedic surgery. He alerted me to the horrors, the nastiness and meanness that could become so entrenched in some bureaucracies. With the passing of the winter it was time for me to leave Southend and prepare for the course in the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It was decided that Audrey, who was a month or so pregnant, would stay with her parents in Rugely, near Stafford, and I would board somewhere in London. When the course commenced I found myself side by side with some old Sydney University mates and Dr Brand from Lismore (he later, to his credit, topped the examination list) who had decided to become a specialist surgeon. I found studying difficult. I could not retain the mass of detail that was presented and I was constantly concerned about Audrey. The exam at the end of the course was a farce. I recall being asked during an

53

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY oral test for the formula of Vitamin E. My answer was, 'I do not know and do not care'. The examiner was not impressed and asked me not to bother appearing again. I had no intention of doing so. Forty years later I was asked to present a paper on Vitamin E to a medical conference in America that included some of the top scientists in the world including a Nobel Prize winner. Before I spoke several physicians had described, in scientific terms, why Vitamin E was useful. When my turn came I began by stating, 'It is only because of Vitamin E that I am here today.' Everyone expected me to proceed with a personal testimony about how Vitamin E had saved my life. Instead I recounted details of the examination in The Royal College of Surgeons and said, ' If it were not for Vitamin E I would not be here today. I would have become a rich orthopaedic surgeon in Harley St. and never been bothered by Vitamin E. It was with a sense of relief that I decided to forgo the ambition to become a surgeon. There happened to be a position available in the Standon Hall orthopaedic hospital near Stafford. I would be able to live there with Audrey and the baby and earn a reasonable salary. This, for a few years, turned out to be ideal for both Audrey and myself. I assisted two fine surgeons, Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Walker, there and in Stafford, and I performed many routine procedures such as fracture operations by myself. Audrey gave birth to our daughter, Ann, before Christmas, in Wolverhampton, when the snow was deep and the cold intense. A few weeks later we were a family in Standon Hall and I settled down to a few years of interesting and instructive work. My two superiors were leaders in their field. Mr. Wainwright was regarded as an international authority. Mr. Walker worked with speed and efficiency and almost uncanny ability. I was treated well and would have stayed in England forever had it not

54

MERRY ENGLAND

been for some difficulties arising later concerning salary levels. I was paid less than some of the general workers were paid in the hospital. Then there was a rise in accommodation costs without an increase in salary. Obviously, I could never make financial progress. I would have to return to Australia where, even as a general practitioner, I could earn as much in one day as I did in one month in England.

55

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY HOMEWARD BOUND

CHAPTER 7

My brother, Emmanuel, sent me the money for the fares, by sea, to Australia. Ann was just two years old and still in nappies. We embarked from Tilbury on a sunny spring morning. I had every reason to expect a life of prosperity, financial stability, professional respect, family security and happiness in Australia - but it was not to be. At that time not a hint of problems had disturbed my marriage to Audrey. Everything appeared to be as normal as one could hope. It was, therefore, a surprise when, after a few days at sea, Audrey told me that she no longer loved Ann or myself. My life was a shambles. I was in a state of shock and there was, of course, the embarrassment of a situation that was obvious to all on board. Arriving home was not exactly a worthwhile experience. For Ann's sake I decided to attempt to try to keep the marriage together. I would do some 'locums' (relieving other doctors) until I saved sufficient money to commence a practice of my own and the future of my marriage was decided. My first job in rural Australia was an eye-opener. I was asked to give an anaesthetic to a Greek lady who was having a baby. Now I did not exactly agree with the way that the case was handled. The doctor was struggling to get the baby out when another doctor walked in. He was asked to help but was not prepared to do so. Eventually, with a degree of good luck and my help, the baby was delivered. I felt at that time that there could have and probably should have been more co-operation between the doctors for the patients benefit. So my education in the professional etiquette (or sometimes lack of it) of doctors continued to develop. A few days later a mother came into the consulting room with

56

HOMEWARD BOUND

a badly burned infant. I rang the hospital to say that I was bringing the patient to the hospital. When I arrived with the patient and requested assistance, I was shocked to find that nobody was prepared to give me and the patient immediate assistance. So, I carried the patient into the ward. Still nobody was prepared to help me. Finally, I cornered a nurse who gave it to me straight. 'Dr Kalokerinos,' she said, 'While this patient remains under you nobody will help. You must hand her over to someone else'. To this day I remain horrified and extremely disappointed that immediate attention to the patient was not provided. A few weeks later I was looking for another job. I wanted to get as far away as possible from where I had just been so when a phone call came from a gentleman who introduced himself as 'Reg Renton', secretary of the Collarenebri hospital, five hundred miles north-west of Sydney I listened. He really wanted a permanent doctor. I thought that was a joke. Collarenebri was regarded as a 'dump', an isolated dusty spot in the middle of nowhere. One would have to be out of one's mind to actually live there. I did, however agree to come for three weeks. It would be interesting to see a new type of country. Also, with luck there was a chance that it would give me time to see how my marriage was going and enable me to save some money. Together with Audrey and Ann I drove all the way from Sydney, across the Great Dividing Range, through the fertile fields of wheat and com then onto the never-ending plains of the far northwest. We collided with a kangaroo not far from Collarenebri. Darkness had overtaken us and the miles seemed to roll on and on. Just before midnight we arrived. The little I could see of the 'town', if one could call it such, was not at all impressive. I remember how the mangy-looking dogs barked and the dirt streets

57

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY showered dust over everything. By then I was too tired to think of anything but a good night's sleep. The future was just a big question mark. My aim was to try to rebuild my marriage although the prospects for this did not appear to be bright.

58

COLLARENEBRI CHAPTER 8 COLLARENEBRI It was the spring of 1957 when I first set foot in Collarenebri. This tiny country town can be found on only a few maps, apparently because it is not considered to be of much importance. There was a 'road' of sorts that could take you five hundred miles southeast to Sydney. There was also a railhead that stopped ten miles short of the town in a place glamorised by the name of 'Pokataroo'. The size of the population was difficult to determine because the town boundary was indistinct. If one included the Aboriginal 'reserve' that spread slightly to the east the figure could be set at about 700. Once again, depending how the boundary was drawn, the district population could be estimated to between 1,500 to 2,000. Fifty miles to the northwest was the famous opal mining settlement of Lightning Ridge. At that time it was almost 'dead'. Only a few old-timers and the odd younger misfit chose to stay in its inhospitable environment. Passing through Collarenebri (although it often stopped running) was the reason for the town's existence - the B�won River. Surrounding the town were the famous black soil plains mixed with low ridges of sand and red dirt. It was Mitchell grass country - highly prized because it was good for sheep. Wool prices had reached record levels. Graziers were rich. There was an atmosphere of confidence and satisfaction that was so strong that few could imagine anything else. In fact, two disasters were about to hit together. The first was a terrible drought. The second was a dramatic fall in the price of wool. I was the only doctor in a huge area. Walgett, forty-five miles to the west was the nearest other town. It supported one doctor who soon made it clear that I would have to manage by myself. It was over eighty miles south to the next nearest town and one hundred

59

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY miles east to the next. All roads into and out of the town became impassable after a little rain. They were clad in just plain dirt or gravel that tore a car to pieces within one year. Ironically, occasionally, there were floods. And what floods they were! Mostly they came from rain many miles away. Slowly, sometimes smelling awful, the water spread through the watercourses then overflowed in the plains. For three months almost nothing moved. Then mud, mosquitoes and sandflies pestered every living thing including the dogs, pigs, horses and cattle. I wondered why anyone would choose to live in such a place. I was to discover the reason for this some years after I arrived. Settling down to work was pleasant enough. The hospital staff were cooperative, the town people and those in the district were easy to care for. Many of them soon became firm friends. My marriage was still in doubt but I was earning 'good money'. At the end of three weeks I decided to stay. Collarenebri had a permanent doctor. For a few months everything went smoothly. Then one Saturday afternoon I did the right thing and attended the Church of England Garden Pete. The vicar, Bob Marshall, happened to be the chairman of the hospital board. While we were sipping tea together he informed me that a serious complaint had been lodged about me. According to Bob, I had neglected a premature baby and allowed it to die. There was to be a special board meeting to discuss the issue. Now it is important here to realise that Collarenebri was a very small town. To exaggerate slightly, every time someone coughed the whole town knew. Certainly, a death of any sort would become instant public knowledge. Nothing could be hidden. Yet, to that time no baby, and certainly no premature baby, had died. But here was the vicar telling me about a premature baby that did not exist and a death that

60

COLLARENEBRI did not happen. I was, to say the least, somewhat shocked. I did not know much about Bob and could only conclude that he was a little strange and that the story would soon sort itself out. It did, some days later. A married girl whose husband was living and working on a property forty miles from town had miscarried when she was six weeks pregnant. The property owner's wife, who was a registered nurse, rang me to say that the miscarriage was complete and there was no haemorrhaging or special problems. In other words, the foetus and afterbirth had come away entirely. I did suggest, being on the safe side, that the girl should come into the hospital. I also asked that the foetus and afterbirth accompany her. These would need to be checked to ensure that they were, in fact, complete. Eventually the girl arrived. Wrapped up in a towel were the foetus, that was about one inch long, and the afterbirth that was about one inch in diameter. I inspected them, wrapped them up again, and deposited the collection in the sink. An examination of the girl soon determined that all was well. I kept her in hospital overnight and discharged her in the morning. Before that day I had never seen that girl. I never saw her husband at any time, either on that day, before it of after it. For some unexplained reason the husband took a pathological dislike to me. He claimed in the official letter of complaint that I had neglected his 'premature' baby and after it was born simply wrapped it up in a towel and threw it into the sink. Of course, there was an element of truth in the accusation. The foetus was certainly premature. I certainly did not attempt to resuscitate it. I certainly wrapped it up and threw it into the sink. What was I supposed to do with it?

61

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

This episode demonstrates how small town 'gossip' can get out of control. Many individuals will believe what they wish to believe and an element of truth mixed with a mountain of untruth can take over and distort even a simple episode. Another event sometime later illustrated the same problem. A married woman suffered a miscarriage when she was six weeks pregnant. Some of the afterbirth had not been expelled resulting in a not fully contracted uterus and considerable bleeding. The treatment was simple enough. I took the patient into the operating theatre to scrape ('curette') the offending afterbirth out. This was a procedure that I had performed hundreds of times in England and I encountered no problems. While I was carrying out this operation one of the registered nurses in the hospital was making a patient's bed. She told the patient something to the effect that she would not go into the theatre because Dr Kalokerinos was in there performing an abortion. Of course, at the time I did not know anything about this. What I did notice during the months that followed was the enormous number of pregnant women coming to Collarenebri from as far away as three hundred miles and requesting me to perform an abortion. At the time I could offer no explanation for this and it was some years later when I was told how it had come to be. An element of truth had been grasped, falsely enlarged and distorted beyond recognition. Needless to say, I never became an abortionist. Medical services during those times in isolated and remote communities were generally behind the times and disorganised. There was an obvious necessity for change and in good faith I attempted to do this. First, I listed problem areas. The first of these concerned communications. A doctor could be out of touch during critical periods. A partial solution was to install a communication radio in

62

COLI.ARENEBRI

my car. I was, I believe, the first private practitioner in Australia to do this. The hopeless situation with the roads was something I could not solve so I placed that in the too hard basket. Next were the archaic standards of anaesthetics. Many doctors were performing major operations with another doctor or a registered nurse administering an 'open ether' anaesthetic. This was a procedure that went out with the ark. A rag wound on a frame was placed over the patient's face and ether dripped onto it from a bottle. By modem standards it was highly dangerous. My suggested solution was to import a specialist anaesthetist, base him in a central area where he could administer routine anaesthetics and travel to other areas where he could act as an instructor. This never came to be because of three reasons. First, many doctors sincerely but wrongly thought that open ether anaesthetics were satisfactory. Next, some doctors were practicing very poor and sometimes unethical forms of surgery. They did not want someone else poking his nose into such a situation. Finally, and I was to hear of this years later, the suggestion was actually considered by the authorities in Sydney but rejected because it was thought that there was already an unacceptable standard of surgery performed in some country areas and to employ a specialist anaesthetist would encourage more of this. The problem of standards bothered me considerably. After some thought I realised that professional isolation was not ideal. That is why I commenced a visiting specialist service. I was able to have a physician and a surgeon in Collarenebri once each month. They would fly in and fly out, weather conditions permitting. I am glad to record that this type of service is now very extensive throughout rural Australia.

63

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Obtaining sufficient supplies of blood for emergencies was a difficult problem. I was able to blood group a series of individuals who were willing to donate blood. Support facilities, however, were lacking and several times I was forced to run risks in order to save lives. The first is one that I will never forget. A married lass came into labour, apparently normally. Then she started to bleed vaginally - and I mean bleed! Blood was overflowing on the bed and running onto the floor. The placenta was blocking the birth canal - a condition known as 'placenta praevia'. Today this is usually picked up at an early stage by ultrasound examination but in those times this means of investigation was not available. It was usually recognised when bleeding commenced. I phoned two blood donors and asked their families to phone some more. I bled one, transfused the patient and used the transfusion line to inject the anaesthetic agent. From the time I had been informed that the patient was bleeding to the time I had the baby delivered by caesarean section only thirty minutes had passed. The mother survived. The baby was dead. Later, because I was curious, I phoned the medical defence union, told them that I had administered Rh-negative, 'universal donor' blood, not cross matched (because there was no time to do otherwise) and asked what would have happened if a transfusion reaction killed the patient. The answer was interesting. I was told that, while from a moral aspect I had done the right thing, from a legal point of view I should have taken the time to match the blood and let the patient run the increased risk of dying. On another occasion an Aboriginal girl commenced labour and began to bleed moderately. She obviously needed to have a caesarean section reasonably quickly but not quickly enough for me to run

64

COLLARENEBRI enormous risks and perform the operation alone. I rang a doctor in a neighbouring town and asked him to come and administer the anaesthetic. He asked who was to guarantee his fee. I told him that nobody would do that so he refused to come. I collected blood, called an ambulance and had to pass through the town where that doctor lived in order to reach a town fa1ther on where the three doctors were cooperative. The mother lived. The baby was dead. Almost certainly if the operation had been carried out earlier the baby would have lived. In this case I had to weigh the relative risks. I considered that to operate and administer the anaesthetic alone would have risked the mother's life. I made the decision that involved the smallest risk. One day a young man in town was crushed under a trailer. One leg was hopelessly mangled. An urgent amputation was the only choice. I cut through the tissues, ligated the arteries and veins, then asked for the bone saw. The nurse looked at me and quietly said, 'What bone saw?' Apparently we did not have one. There was only one thing to do. I lived next door to the hospital. In my personal tool kit was a tenon saw used for sawing wood. I excused myself, said, 'Excuse me I will be back in one minute.' I fetched the saw, dipped it in a solution of antiseptic and completed the operation. During my years of practice I met some pretty tough men. The best of these, by far, was Ted Green. When he first came to me he was an aging man more than three parts already dead with T.B. disease in both kidneys, but still doing a full day's work as if he was as fit as he was when young. One Saturday afternoon he ruptured a stomach ulcer. It burst into his abdomen releasing acid gastric juice and food into his abdominal cavity. The pain must have been extremely severe. Most men would have collapsed in a heap and be unable to

65

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY move. But not Ted. He showered, dressed in his best clothes, drove twenty miles to town and apologised profusely for disturbing me after hours. I could not see how he could survive an anaesthetic. Dr Peter Harden was in the neighbouring town of Walgett at the time. I rang him and asked him to come over to administer the anaesthetic. At the same time I told him about Ted's kidneys and my fears concerning the anaesthetic. Peter was able to give me some unbelievable news. A doctor friend of his was a specialist anaesthetist. At that moment he was playing football with a visiting team on the Walgett oval. It was easy for Peter to collect his friend and bring him to Collarenebri. Ted did everything wrong during the anaesthetic. He vomited, inhaled the vomitus, his heart stopped beating and just about every complication that could occur did occur. The anaesthetist was able to handle everything that Ted threw at him. The actual operation itself was very simple. Ted recovered quickly and was sitting up in bed a few days later to say 'Hello' to the state governor who was visiting Collarenebri as part of his official duties. By far the most difficult surgery that I was forced to perform came my way because a sixteen year old boy, living forty miles away, was accidentally shot at close range by a .22 rifle. W hen informed of the accident I rang the doctor in Walgett, requested his immediate assistance and drove in the ambulance to the scene. Richard, as his name was, was certainly critical. I did the usual things and brought him back with me to the Collarenebri Hospital. His condition was so poor that I did not dare to even lift him from the ambulance stretcher. We carried him into the operating theatre and deposited him on the stretcher on the floor. At that stage Dr Dan Bricknell and his wife, who was also a doctor, arrived from Walgett.

66

COLLARENEBRI As far as they were concerned we were all wasting our time. But something had to be done. I slashed the abdomen open and surveyed the damage. One could hardly believe that one bullet could cause so much damage. It had gone through the aorta, (the main artery in the body), through the main vein, through the big vein from the liver, through the liver and lodged behind a kidney somewhere near the spine. And Richard was still alive! In a few minutes, with Dan and his wife telling me to hurry and finish, I repaired what I could. Needless to say my surgery was crude. It was a case of, 'do very little and hope for the best.' Richard's parents were waiting for me when I emerged from the theatre. For a want of something better to say I simply told them that Richard was extremely ill and only a miracle could save him. When his mother said, 'Well, we will pray for that miracle,' I felt sorry for her. She had not seen what I had just seen. The situation seemed hopeless. Richard did recover. A few months later I sent him to Sydney because I knew that my repair of the arteries and veins was poor and there was a chance that the repair would break down. I wanted what were called angiograms and venograms, where dye is injected into the arteries and veins, and X-Ray pictures taken. This was not done, probably because nobody believed that anyone could survive such an injury. The doctors did not believe that the injury was as severe as I claimed. In fact, it was almost the same injury as the one that killed Lee Harvey Oswald - who was the man who killed President Kennedy. A few years later my surgical repair did break down. Richard was, fortunately, in Sydney when it happened. I believe for the first time in Australian history surgeons perfused the blood vessels of the gut with iced saline to keep the gut alive while they

67

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY operated. It would never have been necessary if the problem was investigated when I first requested this. Many years later Richard walked into the office where my brother, Leo, practiced in Sydney. He was in good health and expressed his thanks for what I had done. The neighbouring town of Walgett, much larger than Collarenebri, often suffered from doctor problems. Sometimes it was without a doctor, and my workload would increase dramatically. W hen the doctor was available, it was, for me, a blessing of considerable magnitude. In such mixed times it was fortunate that I was both young and healthy. Otherwise I doubt that I could have withstood the stress forced upon me. One day a toddler got his right hand stuck in a mincing machine. Attempts to remove it did not succeed and the little boy was taken, complete with the mincer, to the Walgett Hospital. Unfortunately, the town's doctor was not available. So I had to drive all the way from Collarenebri. By the time I arrived one of the boy's fingers was so badly damaged that I was forced to partially amputate it. That little fellow eventually grew into a fine man and became a horse rider known internationally for his ability. On another occasion a lady from Collarenebri was attending a meeting in another town when she developed abdominal pain. She was taken to the local hospital where a doctor (who later became infamous) saw her. He was unable to make a diagnosis but thought it prudent to insert intravenous drips. Satisfied with this he left the town to attend a ball seventy miles away. The patient's family was concerned and contacted me on the phone. Apparently it was the patient's wish that I see her. This was a touchy ethical and legal situation that was overcome when the patient insisted that I see her.

68

COLIARENEBRI It was a long drive to that hospital over roads that could only be described as "horrible' and when I eventually walked into the ward I was faced with an abviously ill patient. My examination revealed a ruptured gall bladder. Worse still, the patient's general condition was extremely poor. To operate alone in Walgett would be a most unwise procedure. So I rang Mr. Watt, the closest specialist surgeon in Tamworth, 300 miles away. Together we discussed the options and decided that the least risky decision would be to fly her to Tamworth. Fortunately, (and this was a major factor in the decision), there was a small aircraft on the Walgett airstrip. The pilot agreed to remove the seats so we could fit a stretcher inside. I knew that the patient's chances of survival were poor. W hen all was ready we lifted the patient onto a trolley and wheeled her into the passageway leading to where the ambulance was parked. At that moment the town's doctor arrived. Someone had told him what was going on and he had flown his plane at night back to deal with the matter as he thought he should. So there I was - at the head of the trolley -the doctor on the right side and the ambulance driver on the left. The doctor said something to the effect that what I was doing was not in the best interests of the patient. The ambulance driver, for reasons that I never discovered, was also hostile and voiced his opinion loudly. I felt like grabbing the heads of these two 'gentlemen' and bashing them together but I was afraid that if I did that I would possibly kill one or both, so I resisted. W hen we got to the airstrip the ambulance driver refused to assist us lift the patient (and she was very heavy) into the aircraft. The story, fortunately, has a happy ending. The patient survived the plane journey to Tamworth and the skill of the surgeon, Dr Watt, assured that she would live for many more years.

69

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY While Peter Harden was in the neighbouring town of Walgett he cooperated with me in a different and more professional manner. At times I would administer anaesthetics for him and this uncovered another scandal. Peter operated on a young woman who had unexplained abdominal pain. During the operation he found that her tubes had been cut and tied. He recalled that the girl had also complained that she could not become pregnant and wondered why. A few years before a doctor had operated on her and performed a tubal ligation. She had no recollection of requesting or permitting such a procedure. Our best endeavours to locate detailed records were unsuccessful. A much better side of human nature was demonstrated when I drove one day over fifty miles through mud in a new car to attend George Marshall's little boy. The little fellow suffered from some congenital disorders and his life span was going to be limited. When I saw him it became obvious that he required facilities that were only available in Sydney. It was the time before aerial ambulances and retrieval teams and in the interests of safety I decided to accompany him in the ambulance to Sydney. A few weeks later when I had to calculate a suitable fee for my services I was faced with a dilemma. The calculated fee seemed to be too high so I decided to charge very little. A few days later I received a cheque from George. It was for a very large sum. Accompanying it was a note that simply said, 'Don't be bloody stupid son.' It was certainly not unusual for some residents of Collarenebri to over-indulge in alcohol. After all this was a hot, dry, dusty outback Australian town. Naturally being the town doctor, I was expected to counsel and assist in the control of this problem. Occassionally patients were sent to 'Alcoholics Anonymous'

70

COLLARENEBRI and the organisation soon demonstrated to me that they could make quite dramatic changes. Character changes were dramatic. Men and women who I previously regarded with disdain suddenly became responsible and caring citizens. I could hardly ignore all this, so when I was requested to attend meetings to add support to the welfare of the patients, I was pleased to do so. Years later my professional association with Alcoholics Anonymous was thrown back at me in circumstances that were, indeed, surprising. During a radio session in the USA, I was 'debating' (it was more like an argument) with a doctor from the Department Of Health. In order to strengthen a case against my reputation, my professional association with Alcoholics Anonymous was produced as evidence that proved that I had an alcohol problem. The doctor for the Department of Health was, of course, scraping the bottom of the barrel and attempting to denigrate my professional standing and reliability by association. To this day I feel sorry for her. In the midst of all the hard work at Collarenebri my marriage became irretrievable. In November 1959 I was granted an uncontested divorce with sole and permanent custody of my daughter, Ann. In many ways I prefer to forget the details involved. Twenty years later Audrey died, apparently from asthma, while visiting New Zealand. Ann, when she reached the age of 15, went her own way and we parted.

71

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 9

THE ABORIGINES Before white settlement, between 300,000 and 500,000 Aborigines, divided into about 500 'tribes', populated Australia. One could debate these statistics but for practical purposes they suffice. In the far north of the country there was some contact with island groups, but for the most part Aborigines were totally isolated from the outside world. Life varied according to the nature of the country that varied from tropical and lush to harsh, almost impossible-to­ live-in, deserts. Most tribes survived only because they had an intense association with and knowledge of everything that nature provided. Around this was woven an intricate system of traditions, folklore and legends. Discipline was strict. When boys became men they were 'initiated'. This was part of an age-old system of responsibility and duty. Furthermore, with increasing responsibility there was increased punishment if a law was broken. A very young man who broke a particular law might, for example, just suffer the indignity of a spear wound in the thigh. A more highly initiated elder might be killed for the same crime. Before white settlement we do not really know what Aboriginal health was like. We do know that most younger individuals were relatively lean and physically fit. Only good fresh food was eaten. There was no pollution. Unfortunately, there was no contact with European diseases such as smallpox, influenza, T.B., sexually transmitted diseases and measles. This meant that immune responses had not been developed to fight these diseases. Furthermore, historically, alcohol was unknown to most Aboriginal groups. It is thought that, because of this, the detoxification enzyme systems in the livers of Aborigines had not developed and normal detoxification

72

THE ABORIGINES of alcohol was impossible. This may or may not have been true. It probably was true. So, when alcohol was supplied to the aborigines they were unable to detoxify it efficiently and beame rapidly intoxicated and aggressive. European type infectious diseases hit the Aborigines within weeks of the arrival of the first fleet in Sydney Cove. Thousands died from 'simple' diseases such as measles and influenza. T.B. hit more slowly. By the time the entire list of European diseases had swept through Australia, Aboriginal tribes had been decimated. Worse was to come. With the destruction of tribal lands came the breakdown of tribal traditions and discipline. Alcohol made everything just so much worse. Then Aboriginal communities were herded onto 'reservations'. It was no longer possible for them to eat natural food. They were fed on white flour and very little of anything else. I call this 'white man's poison' because it poisoned body biochemistry, created cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, led to early deaths and it poisoned the mind in such a way that motivation was destroyed. Under these conditions the brain could not function normally. If any group or individual objected to all these changes harsh penalties were inflicted. Massacres were the order of the day. Every district settled by whites could tell some horrible tales. On the island of Tasmania almost an entire race was exterminated. Some of the more cunning whites learned the trick of turning one Aboriginal group against another. A 'good place to live' was defined as one where no Aborigines existed. Strangely, many white men, including some of the so-called 'elite·. did not hesitate when the urge was uncontrollable, to have exual relationships with Aboriginal women, who they laughingly referred to as 'gins'. There were several serious consequences of

73

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY this. To have 'children on both sides of the river', that is - white children to their wives and half-black children to an Aboriginal woman - was mostly unacceptable. So, many 'half-caste' children were taken away during early childhood and never allowed to return to their mothers. Those who were allowed to remain with their mothers could not be fitted into the complex tribal system. Their fathers did not have a position in the tribal 'family tree'. It was difficult for Aboriginal communities to overcome these problems. While all this was in progress something of exquisite beauty was being lost. Europeans could not imagine that there was something about Aboriginal culture that was beautiful, valuable and worth preserving. With the destruction of Aboriginal society went the destruction of knowledge and understanding of nature that was supreme, irreplaceable and of value to all mankind. Future historians, if the world survives long enough, will realise this and regret its passmg. Life on most reservations, by the time I arrived in Collarenebri, was rather difficult. The pride that was once so magnificent amongst Aborigines had been destroyed. Health was about as bad as it could get. An illegal supply of alcohol created utter havoc. It was a scene of social disaster so deeply entrenched that nobody seemed to care. There was no doubt that the authorities were convinced that the Aboriginal race would soon die out and Australia would become a better place in which to live. I was unaware of most of this when I saw my first Aboriginal patient in the 'outpatients department' of the Collarenebri Hospital. Black and white did not mix. Whites were seen, for the most part, in a private consulting room attached to the house in which I lived next to the hospital. In the open-air picture theatre there was a section

74

THE ABORIGINES kept exclusively tor Aborigines. Aborigines were not legally permitted to enter the hotel or consume alcoholic beverages. There were, of course, many white 'suppliers' who sold alcoholic beverages to Aborigines for a 'small' profit. It was because of this that I first crossed swords with the local police. Nights in Collarenebri were sometimes quiet and sometimes disturbed by the sounds of drunken fighting on the reserve. There would be screaming men, women and children and the barking of dogs. Then I would be called to patch up wounds, some of which were quite serious. The local lockup was always full of Aborigines charged with offences related to alcohol. Yet, rarely was a white man charged with the crime of 'supplying'. I objected to this on principle. When I complained about it the sergeant of police told me that the problem was that no witnesses would come forward. One day I saw a white man supplying alcohol to an Aborigine in full view of a group of small Aboriginal children. I was furious. I promptly reported what I had witnessed. Unfortunately I could not convince the responsible authorities to take action. The local police were also the lockup keepers. That is, they were paid a bonus the size of which depended on the number of prisoners in the cells. So the reserve would be raided often and men, drunk or sober, would be arrested. One night the police awoke a particular sleeping Aboriginal man and, after charging him with an alcohol related offence, threw him into a cell. In the district he was known as a man who didn't drink. Shortly afterwards he was found dead. I was called to examine him and later I performed an autopsy. I could find no obvious sign of alcoholic beverages in his stomach. That man had suffered a massive heart attack. The report I wrote

75

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY and issued to the authorities was straightforward. That night, at 2am, I was called to my office door by a loud knocking. Responsible for this was an inspector of police who had driven a long distance to inquire about the death. 'Now, Dr Kalokerinos,' he said. 'Don't you think that there was alcohol in the stomach?' I answered with a definite 'No!' 'I am asking you,' he said 'to reconsider the possibility that there may have been alcohol in the stomach.' This made me extremely angry as I had clearly ascertained that there was no obvious sign of alcohol in the stomach. The inquest that followed did little to unravel what happened. Unfortunately, this incident did not improve my relationship with the local authorities. Ultimately it is going to be necessary for federal governments, state governments, local councils, police, and the general population of Australia to be understanding and sensitive to the problems and plights of the aborigines in order for long lasting changes to be made to their welfare. At this stage I saw myself as being a vital communicaton between the aborigines and government officials. Therefore any souring in my communication was clearly going to make life more difficult for me and probably also for the aborigines.

76

INFANT DEATHS CHAPTER 10

INFANT DEATHS Several months after I arrived in Collarenebri I experienced the horror of having an infant under my care die suddenly and unexpectedly. I performed an autopsy that did not reveal a satisfactory reason for the death. It was, according to the books, a sudden infant death. Also, according to the books, the condition was rare. From a statistical point of view I had 'had my share'. When the town's birth rate was considered there should not have been another death for a similar reason for many, many years. But the statistics were wrong as far as Collarenebri was concerned. During the months and years that followed there were many such deaths - too many! I was horrified. So I 'did the right thing'. I examined my own system of diagnosis and treatment. Then I contacted fellow practitioners, specialists, academics and state and commonwealth departments of health. What I was told was not encouraging. Fellow practitioners told me that they did not have a similar problem. Later I was to discover that they either lied or in some strange manner closed their minds to what was going on around them. Specialists also denied that the problem existed elsewhere. Apparently they were unaware of what was going on. Academics reacted in a similar manner. State and commonwealth health departments also denied that the problem existed elsewhere. They deliberately lied. To this day I can only wonder why. My response to this was one of concern and wonder. I had been told that I was a 'Robinson Crusoe' - that I was alone in a world where I was the only one wrong and everyone else was right. A senior paediatrician (probably the senior paediatrician at the time) looked at me when I

77

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY was almost overcome with concern and suggested that I was overworked, needed a holiday, should not be practicing medicine in the way I was, then went on to suggest that I should, for my own sake, consult a psychiatrist! One thing was certain. I was a Robinson Crusoe. Yet, despite the efforts of my colleagues who tried to persuade me that the problem did not exist elsewhere and was of my own making I knew that something very strange was going on and a solution had to be found. On sick and healthy infants and children, white and Aboriginal, I performed whatever tests I could. Blood samples were sent to Sydney for analysis. Aboriginal kids demonstrated a mild degree of what was called 'an iron deficiency anaemia'. I contacted the expert and was told to supplement them with iron mixtures by mouth. This did not work and the anaemia persisted. I contacted the expert again. He advised me to give the iron by injection. I tried this and had some fearful responses that forced me to stop this treatment. I sent samples of bowel motions to Sydney expecting to find abnormal bacteria and parasites ('worms'). The reports that came back were 'normal'. I was mystified and felt that I was facing a solid brick wall. Vitamin deficiencies were also considered. Since there were no clinical signs of obvious vitamin deficiencies and, at the time, no special means of analysis were available, I simply supplemented infants with at least (mostly three times) the recommended daily allowances of the various vitamins orally. This changed nothing. As time passed infant deaths grew alarmingly in numbers. Eventually I was able to observe of a pattern of sorts. Some infants were either apparently well or were suffering from a 'trivial' infection such as a 'cold', mild diarrhoea, or were excessively irritable. They

78

INFANT DEATHS \ ere either found dead in their cots, suddenly went into a strange , tate of evere shock from which they could not be resuscitated and died. or "uddenly became unconscious and died. In all cases autopsies failed to adequately explain why death had occurred. There was one peculiar feature noted in some of the autopsies and that was the ccurrence of vague yellow patches in the livers. This matched a finding of liver tenderness noted before death. Samples of various tissues were forwarded to laboratories in Sydney but no abnormality of note was reported. I felt that the liver changes observed by myself were significant despite normal pathology reports. I recalled the strange deaths of the two children from one family in Lismore many years before. There had to be a connection. I persisted with questions to authorities. At that stage I was told that the liver changes were artifacts - that is, they occurred after death, and not before. Now that did not match the clinical findings by myself of liver tenderness before death but I had to sort this out. One day a little Aboriginal boy died in my arms. Without a moment's delay I carried him across to the autopsy room, sliced through his abdominal wall and examined the liver. Never, even if I live to be 120, will I forget that day. Nor will I forgive those who placed me in a situation where I had to do such a thing. I half expected to find the heart still beating. The body was, of course, warm. Just a few minutes before that boy had been looking at me. I tried to close my mind to it all and concentrated on the liver. The yellow patches were there. Whatever the cause was, one thing was certain - they were produced before death. It was, I'm sorry to say, a waste of time as far as producing convincing evidence for the authorities was concerned. They ignored my findings. Robinson Crusoe was as isolated as ever.

79

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY In that small town of Collarenebri three white infants died in one twenty-four hour period. One does not need to be an Einstein to calculate the horror of that. The first infant died suddenly at home. I had never seen him before death. The second was also unknown to me until his mother carried him across the doorstep of the hospital. He died as this was done. The third was in hospital under my care for mild diarrhoea. She was certainly not dehydrated or seriously ill in the accepted sense. She suddenly collapsed and died quickly. All three autopsies were negative. Because most of the infants who died were Aboriginal and the death rates were high it was easy to observe what was happening. The problem did exist in the white community but it was so diluted that a clear picture did not exist. In this way I was fortunate - if I could describe such a series of tragic events in that manner. Without the startlingly obvious problem amongst the Aborigines I may never have been alerted to what was going on. Most infants who died exhibited one feature in common. They suffered from a series of apparently minor illnesses, then died suddenly and unexpectedly in one of the manners described. This observation coincided with the arrival in Tamworth, 250 miles away, of a bright new physician named Douglas Harbison. I decided to send one of the Aboriginal infants - a boy who was going through the multiple minor illness stage - to him for an opinion. This happened nearly forty years ago. Because, at the time, there was not, apparently, anything startling about the case I forgot the boy's name and many of the details. However, Douglas Harbison's registrar (a then very young Dr Peter Wakeford) remembered two facts - but not the boy's name. According to Dr Wakeford's memory there were some extremely minute haemorrhagic spots visible at

80

INFANT DEATHS the roots of some of the hair follicles. On this basis a diagnosis of scurvy was made and Vitamin C was administered by injection. W hat neither Peter Wakeford or Douglas Harbison knew was that I had been supplementing the little patient with more than the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, orally, for months! And why should I tell them that? After all, it was just part of the boy's diet. Everyone knew that a few milligrams of Vitamin C, administered orally, was all that that was necessary to prevent scurvy! Some days later, when the boy was sent back to Collarenebri I was surprised by the obvious clinical improvement displayed. However, I could not attribute this to the injection of Vitamin C, because, according to what I had been taught, it was only necessary to administer this by the oral route. So, although the clinical improvement was obvious, the injection of Vitamin C was not considered by myself to be a significant factor. That is why, for many more years, infants died unnecessarily. During Janurary, 2000, a civic reception was held by the Tamworth City Council and the Greek Community of Tamworth, to celebrate an honour that had been awarded to me. Douglas Harbison and Peter Wakeford were guests. I was surprised when Douglas presented me with an envelope containing a copy of a letter sent to me by him in 1962. Even more surprising was the inclusion of a photograph of a little Aboriginal boy. It was the boy! How did Douglas find it? He must have searched for months and months. I felt the tears of emotion swell within me and struggled to control myself since I was in the presence of so many people. The last link in the chain that held my life, and the lives of many more together, had been forged and strengthened. Later, a newspaper, reporting on that day, recorded how 'Dr Harbison had tears in his eyes when he

81

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY remembered a phone call from Dr Kalokerinos in 1969 to say that not one child had died in the previous year'. Some of the information in that famous letter from Douglas Harbison was revealing. The boy was 'dehydrated', had an ulcerated mouth and skin bruises. Now it is possible that I was careless and did not observe the presence of these signs but I think it is more likely that the 'dehydration' developed during the five to six hour drive from Collarenebri to Tamworth in the ambulance. I state this, not just to preserve my own reputation. The sudden and dramatic onset of 'shock' (and apparent dehydration) is a feature of acute scurvy - later identified by myself. This is an important medico-legal issue and featured prominently in many cases that I was associated with over the years.

82

OPAL FEVER CHAPTER 11

OPAL FEVER Before I left Sydney to travel to Collarenebri my mother said, 'You will be happy there because that is where your father's countryman is.' That 'countryman' happened to be Emmanuel Petrohelos. He was born next door to my father's house in Alexandrades in Kythera. Like my father, Emmanuel came to Australia simply to avoid a life of poverty. After a few years in other towns he settled in Collarenebri. Emmanuel was married to Constantina. She was the most gentle person I ever knew. In Collarenebri she gave birth to three daughters - Stella, Helen and Maria, and two sons, Bill (Vasilios) and George. Bill was eleven years younger than I was. George, in 1957, was sixteen years old. Maria, the youngest, was only eight. They all lived above the 'shop' that was a combination of a milkbar, newsagent and general store. Bill had not done well at school. He left at an early age and worked with his father on a small property just across the river from the town and cared for and milked a number of cows. George was not at school because he was ill. From an early age he was obviously unwell but various doctors who examined him failed to determine why. Eventually, only a few years before I arrived in Collarenebri, a specialist in Sydney diagnosed a bladder and kidney complaint. By then the condition was advanced and it was known that George had a very limited amount of time left to enjoy living. It was, sadly, only a few years before the advent of kidney machines, kidney transplants and the technology that today would have given him a normal lifespan. That boy had talent. He could make a piano 'sing'. He could tum his hands to anything. He died a year after my arrival in

83

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Collarenebri and his mother never really recovered from her loss. One of my patients with whom I developed a personal relationship was a man named Jack Dominick. He owned a sheep and cattle station on the other side of the river. His father was one of the pioneers on the opal field at Lightning Ridge, less than fifty miles away. One day Jack asked if I would like to go with him to Lightning Ridge. He offered to show me around and suggested that we might shoot a few kangaroos on the way. Did I say 'shoot'? There were so many kangaroos that when we disturbed them it was as if the ground was moving. I used more than 500 bullets - and I had to open 32 gates through which the road wound its way, which is probably why Jack took me with him. Eventually we arrived in what appeared to be a god-forsaken collection of shanties; white opal-dirt dumps and hundreds of abandoned mine shafts. A few shafts were still being worked and a handful of miners struggled to earn a living between frequent visits to the one real building in the entire place - the Diggers Rest - that was, obviously, the pub. This was our first port of call and as we fought our way to the crowded bar I remembered what Jack had told me about Lightning Ridge, 'Whatever happens, do not let anyone sell you an opal in the pub. They will rob you.' The inevitable, of course, happened. Before I had finished my first drink a miner opened up a not too clean tobacco tin in front of my eyes and displayed a pair of opals. They were the first such stones I had ever seen. Certainly they looked attractive. 'Five pounds each for you,' I was told. I could see Jack flashing warning looks across the bar. Then I thought of my sister in Sydney. She would like these little pieces of beauty. Jack's temper could be faced later. Ten pounds (Australian currency, at that time) were produced and

84

OPAL FEVER the stones were mine. I did not know it but I had in my possession gems of unbelievable quality and value. At the time few individuals understood opal. Its rarity, it uniqueness, its incredible beauty and magnificence had been overlooked and neglected. As far as opal was concerned the world was asleep. But there was one man who did have a vision, and that man was Emmanuel Petrohelos. One day he told me that Bill was not progressing towards any worthwhile goal and he intended sending him to Lightning Ridge where he could try his luck as a miner. Armed with a pick and shovel Bill did try his luck. It amounted to nothing but something of importance did happen. One day, In Lightning Ridge, he met a very young Greek who introduced himself as 'Peter Christianos' and said, 'My old man found three million pounds worth of opal in Coober Pedy.' When I was told this story I was, to say the least, sceptical. As far as I was concerned Peter had to be some sort of 'con' man. But what Peter said was true. Some years later, in return for a favour, Peter's father, George, showed me some of his opal and allowed me to take photographs of it. I found myself face to face with one of the most amazing chapters in the history of Australia and the role played by Greek migrants. George Christianos arrived in Australia as a migrant with a wife, four very young sons and very little of anything else. Someone told him about Coober Pedy and he decided that was where he should go. With incredible luck he unearthed a substantial amount of opal soon after arriving. Then something happened that changed his life and the lives of many men who were to follow him. One day an Aboriginal woman kicked over a stone on a hill eight miles north of Coober Pedy, six hundred miles south of Alice

85

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Springs. Under that stone was some opal. A rush to peg claims resulted. In the melee pegs were placed in an irregular fashion and it was difficult to know where one claim began and another ended. At the time claims were limited in size to 150 feet by 150 feet but they could be smaller and nobody bothered to argue if a claim was not a geometric square. There happened to be a small area that was in the middle of the mess at the Eight Mile (which means 'eight miles from town') that everyone thought was included in someone's claim. That is, everyone thought so except George Christianos. With considerable astuteness he observed that the area was not pegged, so he pegged it for himself. It extended right under the Alice Springs road. Now George was not an experienced miner. He did not understand the nature of the local rock. He knew nothing about opal formation. And he knew very little about the English language. With the help of his sons, Emmanuel, Ross, Peter and Elle, he began to sink a shaft. It went down through a type of rock known as 'hard blue'. This never carries opal. Some Australian miners on the field knew this and tried to explain it to George but he either did not understand or he did not believe them. So he kept on going. All the other miners on the field thought that this was a bit of a joke. Eventually, when George thought that his shaft was deep enough he began to make a horizontal drive - through hard blue! After progressing quite some distance George turned and made a second drive in the opposite direction - still nothing. Finally he made a third drive at right angles to the first two. After progressing only a few feet he struck a fault (known as a 'slide') in the rock and this contained, just in the narrow confines of the drive, 2,000 pounds (Australian money at the time) worth of opal. Elated to an extent

86

OPAL FEVER George continued the drive into sandstone that is potentially opal bearing - but there was nothing. Near George Christianos's mine, alongside the Alice Springs road, was a garage owned by George Wilson, father of the first white man born in Coober Pedy. He was an experienced miner and, when he offered advice, George Christianos accepted. George Wilson noted the fault that had been cut and concluded that this had lifted the opal level into the 'roof' - which is a word used by miners to describe the layer of rock above one's head. So he advised George Christianos to dig into this. And so it came to be, on that famous day that George Christianos dug into the roof. Within the space of a few hours he filled a twelve­ gallon bucket with opal. There was not even ten ounces of dirt in that bucket. The opal came out of the level clean, covered only by a thin orange skin. There were pieces the size of an adult human forearm, pieces the size of house bricks. The quality was supreme. George Christianos had struck it rich! The impact of this on the Greek community in Australia was enormous. In Greek coffee shops, cafes, milk bars and fish shops, men talked about Coober Pedy. There was an exodus of Greeks from the cities to Coober Pedy. Adjacent to the Greek shops were the Italian fruit shops. The excited migration of the Greeks was noticed so there was an exodus of Italians, following the Greeks, to Coober Pedy. In a remarkably short space of time Coober Pedy became a second Greece and a second Italy. How these new miners fared is, in itself, a fascinating tale that must, I'm sorry to say, remain for someone else to tell. After his father struck it rich Peter Christianos became a 'play­ boy'. This did not suit his father who more or less disinherited him.

87

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY This did not bother Peter. He declared that he would find his own opal and in order to get away from the influence of his family decided to try his luck in Lightning Ridge. That is how he came to meet Bill Petrohelos and, later, myself. However, Lightning Ridge at the time, before the introduction of big machinery, was not a 'get rich' sort of a place. After some consideration Peter joined up with Bill and they decided that, together with Peter's brother, Ross, and a few other relatives and friends they would go to Coober Pedy. In Coober Pedy it soon became apparent that none of the team had money to spare. They worked like coolies, lived like paupers and for three months found nothing but dirt. Bill became disillusioned and returned home. His father and I hammered him without mercy until he agreed to give it another go. To make sure that he did, Emmanuel drove with him, in the family car, all those thousands of miles to Coober Pedy. When they eventually arrived Peter, who was working at the Ten-Mile, recognised the car from a distance. He came running towards them waving his arms wildly and shouting, 'We have found it. We have found it!' There were six levels of opal and it was of outstanding quality. An absolute freak of nature had produced two slides facing each other. Such a thing had never been seen before. Each day a plastic water bucket full of opal was removed for sorting and classification. The buyers loved it. With pieces as big a packet of cigarettes they could hardly do otherwise. Then the money began to flow. Bill ended up with a minor share of all these riches but the stories he told in the letters he wrote were so amazing that I decided to fly to Coober Pedy and sample the atmosphere for myself. It was quite an experience. I met many young Greek men

88

OPAL FEVER including Eric Mavropoulos, one of Bill's friends and Luke Lucas, an eighteen-year-old from Adelaide who never washed or shaved and therefore looked like nothing on earth. He spoke with fierce determination about his desire to strike it rich. Never in my wanderings had I met anyone like him. He was alive and brimming with energy. His eyes seemed to flash when he talked. The girls, despite Luke's obvious untidy appearance, seemed to love him. The clothes he wore were dirty rags. Someone told me that he picked them up from a rubbish dump and they certainly looked as if they originated from such a source. I asked him if he went home to Adelaide in such a state. 'I do,' he answered. 'My mother cries when she sees me. But I shower, shave and dress properly after I get home. During the summer break I live like a gentleman and a king. It's all psychology. Eventually, when I find a big (opal) run I will behave like everyone else.' There was only one other Kytherian on the field apart from Bill Petrohelos. He had three names. Kytherians in most parts of Australia called him 'Lord John', apparently because as a young man he used to dress and act like a man with a title. The Coober Pedy Greeks called him 'Father John' because he was sixty odd years old and acted as a father figure for any young Greek who needed some advice. I knew him as 'Jack Cassimatis'. His brother had married a distant cousin of mine. His life in Coober Pedy had been a lesson in hardship, bitter disappointment, perseverance and a little good luck. When Peter Christianos struck it rich at the Ten-Mile opal field Jack was one of the many who rushed to scene in the hope that the field would be a good one. For seven months he laboured, finding traces that drove him mad and refused to lead to any worthwhile opal. He moved a mountain of dirt, worked until his muscles ached

89

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY and he cursed the ground that refused to reward him. Finally, it beat him. A Greek by the name of Tachmagis happened to be on the field looking for a claim. 'You can have this one.' Jack told him. 'I cannot work here anymore.' With those few words he packed his gear and went to the Six Mile field. There, sometime later, he did find some opal. Tachmagis, however, had it handed to him on a plate. He and his partners 'brought the roof down'. That is, they simply dug into the roof in the long drives. They found a level thick with beautiful opal! Jack was philosophical. 'Good luck to you boys. I wish you the best.' Those 'boys' did not even give Jack a single stone as a memento. I sometimes wonder about the complexities of human nature. It did not take me long to find out what was happening in Coober Pedy. An incredible number of miners had struck it rich. I counted them and then counted the total number working on the field. It seemed that opal mining was a damn good investment. To become a miner appeared to be a desirable thing to do. I wondered how someone like myself could enter into such an occupation and discussed the problem with Bill. He considered the options then said that he would try to form a team that included myself to commence work when the summer was over and lower daily temperatures would make mining a little more tolerable. I flew back to Collarenebri with visions of mine shafts, opal and money racing through my brain. Bill stayed in Coober Pedy to complete his work with Peter Christianos. About once each week he would write to his father and mother in Collarenebri. Then one week there were no letters. Obviously, something had happened. One day I was having lunch with Bill's family when the dogs outside began to bark. Bill's mother looked up at me and said, 'That's Bill.' I thought she was crazy but

90

OPAL FEVER it was Bill. He had driven all the way in an old truck that leaked oil and emitted black smoke. The brakes only just worked. The shock absorbers did not function. But he was home. After greeting his parents Bill shook my hand and said, 'It's all fixed, Doc. You and me, Eric and Luke.'

91

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 12

THE OPAL MINER There were many reasons why I decided to give up the practice of medicine and become an opal miner. No doubt the possibility of making a lot of money came near the top of the list, but other factors influenced me as well. It was apparent that I was not having a real impact on the health of most individuals entrusted to my care. I was, in reality, just providing a 'band-aid' service. It was also apparent that as I was getting older my own health needed to be considered. When I looked at my colleagues I saw much physical unfitness and psychological misery. With some outstanding exceptions most of the doctors who graduated with me were unhappy, disillusioned and far from satisfied with what they had achieved. Then, obviously, there was a sense of adventure. I was about to do what no other doctor in Australia had ever done. I felt that I had suddenly been given a chance to live in the real world away from constant responsibility and it all tasted good. Four months were to pass between the time Bill returned to Collarenebri and the time when we would start work in Coober Pedy. One day, while riding a motor-cycle I suffered a spill, broke one shoulder, several ribs, and lost a considerable amount of skin. I did all the 'right' things - a tetanus shot, some antibiotics and used some rather nasty language. Healing was rapid and within three weeks I was able to swim over-arm in the river. Then something hit me. One morning when I tried to get out of bed I collapsed, hit a portable radio lying on the floor, refractured my ribs and was able to arise and walk only with difficulty. The pain was severe - much more so than I could adequately explain. By lunchtime it was obvious that I was really ill. But with what?

92

THE OPAL MINER The matron in the hospital laid down the law. 'I'm sick oflooking aflc1 you. You must go and see a doctor.' So I went, by ambulance, to a town 120 miles away where three doctors, Dr Saunder. , Dr Farnc >mhc and Dr Broome, practiced in a partnership. Over the ycnrs I had experienced the professional ability of this team and I was happy to place myself in their care. omc blood was taken, some X-Rays were looked, at and I was certainly given a thorough examination, but a diagnosis was lusive. That night I found myself in a hospital bed with a nurse 'itting constantly on a chair by the side. About midnight I woke up and reconsidered my position. Then the awful truth dawned. I had tetanus. But how? The tetanus shots were supposed to prevent tetanus. At least, that was what I had been taught. Later I was to learn that the road where my accident had occurred had been walked over by a mob of sheep shortly after their tails had been cut off. Many of those sheep died from tetanus. Their droppings were obviously loaded with tetanus spores and I collected an enormous dose - too much for the tetanus shot to overcome. The nurse was rather surprised when I told her to ring Dr Saunders and tell him that I had tetanus. The panic button was certainly pressed that night. The Air Force was asked to fly me to Sydney. I appeared on television as I was carried unconscious from the plane. That was the first bit of news my mother had and it shook her severely. A doctor with tetanus! That was certainly news. Two other patients suffering from tetanus were in Sydney at the same time. They both died. The nurses caring for me, not realising that I was now conscious and could hear, spoke about these two patients and I heard one say, 'This one hasn't much chance either.' As it turned out I was lucky. The progress of the disease stopped before

93

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY a critical stage was reached. Three months later I was heading for Adelaide with Bill. We were to pick up Luke and meet, not Eric but his brother, John, who was a last minute replacement. Heading north from Adelaid Bill, Luke and I held a council of war. Luke took the part of the general. 'No washing or shaving until we strike it rich,' he decreed. 'We will scrape the dirt off with sandstone and we will show everyone how to work. The only thing that matters is to get those shafts down. Remember those bastards from the Seven-Mile. They found it in their first shaft. We might too. Who knows?' I sank low in my seat and wondered what was going to happen to me. It was March 1965. I was now 37 years old. The young men who were my partners were physically fit and very strong. Besides them I must have looked insignificant and puny. I had never dug a hole deeper than one foot in my entire life. I was an amateur amongst professionals and could not help feel concerned about my ability to pull my weight and not have to 'bludge', which for the uninitiated, means 'depend on others excessively'. Night overtook us before we reached Coober Pedy. Luke drove straight through, which did not take very long. At the time the town only consisted of a handful of buildings. Six miles north we turned off the road and wound through some opal dumps to an isolated area where, somehow, Luke found his abode. It was just a rusty erection of old iron. The floor was dirt. Mice and insects of all sorts had taken over and grown fat on bags of flour, sugar and other foodstuffs that had been left when Luke hurried away to Adelaide the previous year. Comfortably nesting in this mess was a deadly brown snake. We removed it and left everything else as it was. Tiredness had overcome us and the need for sleep was all that mattered.

94

THE OPAL MINER Coober Pegardcd as bad luck. The Italians lived in a ci iliscd manner. Many of them had their families with them. They worked hard hut in an intelligent way that wasn't destructive and pcnnitted omething tbal they valued above all - family life. There wa a sprinkling of Yugoslavs, apparently of various ethnic origins because they fought with each other bitterly. Anglo-Saxon Au tralians were in the minority. The atmosphere was not as optimistic as it was when I had visited the area during the previous year and it was not long before I found out why. My first visit to Coober Pedy coincided with the discovery of a rich (very rich) new field at The Seven-Mile. A high proportion of shafts bottomed on opal so the chances of finding opal were high and I based my calculations on those statistics. However, by the time I anived in Coober Pedy the Seven-Mile field had been worked out and no new field had been discovered. In other words, the chances of finding opal had diminished from about one in ten to less than one in a thousand! The Greeks have an expression that describes what a man does when he is in such a situation but it is rude in the extreme and I cannot print it here. It is sufficient to say that we worked and hoped but could no longer see the rainbow. Life, fortunately, did have its lighter moments. One night, after a very hard day working in our mine, we had just gone to sleep.

95

l DIC L PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY ... udd "nly th "r was a tremendous sedes of explosions and the eastern sk .. \ a, lit hy tla, hes that resembled something I saw in newsreels luring th war. Luke was the first to offer an explanation. 'Macris is bacl. · Apparently this was Nick Macris's 'calling card'. Whenever he retun1 d to Coober Pedy after a spell away he would let the h le field know that he was home by exploding cases and cases of geli 0nite. Al o. this was an invitation to all and sundry to a party that \J ·as s n to follow. I had heard about these 'parties'. There would be drinking, probably fighting, and inevitably someone would play a version of Ru ian Roulette that involved placing a detonator attached to a h rt fu e in tick of gelignite, lighting it and throwing it to someone who had to throw it to someone else. If anyone threw it away more than a few seconds before it exploded he was made the subject of con iderable mockery. We were in a difficult situation. For obvious safety reasons the be t decision would have been to stay in bed. Diplomatically, however, this would look bad. We were Greeks and Greeks were supposed to tick together. After a long discussion we decided that we should at least make an appearance at the party. If anyone started to throw gelignite around we would leave. The setting for the party could only be described as ·extraordinary'. Nick's shed was one of those temporary structures that necessity had made permanent. It had been destroyed during parties and rebuilt so often that Nick called it his 'meccano-set'. Numerous bullet holes ventilated the roof. Daring pin-ups decorated the walls and the floor had been well and truly preserved with spilt olive oil and red wine. On one wall was a solitary shelf holding huge chunks of potch - colourless and valueless opal, the symbols of

96

THE OPAL MINER hope and failure. Everything else (and there seemed to be so much of it) was left to stand on the floor. Beer, wine, whisky bottles, tins, cartons, barrels and half-empty glasses made a fitting addition to the noise that almost deafened me. I looked around at the tangled beards and rough, wild faces. Was it real or was I dreaming? Most of the guests had arrived before us. A few were already drunk while most of the remainder were well on their way to this happy state. Someone pressed a glass of wine into my hand. I knew what affect the alcohol would have on me but I also knew that I had to drink it. Within minutes I was exchanging slurred confidences with a similarly affected neighbour. Amongst the collection of wild colonial boys in that shed were two 'ugly ducklings'. They were neat and clean and wore decent clothes. One was Peter Christianos, who was now an opal buyer. The other was a small Japanese man - the first foreign opal buyer to visit Coober Pedy. This man had visited our team several times and, apparently, could not speak or understand English. I had been very suspicious about this. There were reasons for me to believe that he not only understood English but also understood Greek and Italian. Several times I had endeavoured to 'catch him out' but had failed. Now he was sitting next to me. We conversed by using signs. As time past we got drunker. Men were shouting, singing and dancing to the tune of a Greek melody played on a protesting portable gramophone. Then, quite suddenly, someone decided to liven things up with gelignite. It blew me and the little Japanese visitor onto the floor and at the same time extinguished the lantern. I heard a stalwart miner swear fluently in Greek. A match was lit but quickly dropped as a second stick exploded even closer. Rocks hammered on the

97

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY thin tin walls, the door blew in on its hinges and the sound of breaking glass added to the confusion. My ears, almost mercifully, must have been deafened by the second explosion because I did not hear the third. I only saw the flash. That was the last. A match was produced, the lamp lit and, by some miracle, the gramophone was still playing. For a few minutes the party continued. Then someone made the mistake of talking about politics. Memories of the Greek civil war during the I 940's were still vivid. Greece had been a divided nation. There were royalists and there were 'communists' . Both parties had committed atrocities. Many of the Coober Pedy Greeks had seen family members or friends killed in cold blood. Political discussions were, therefore, dangerous. First, I saw a few men arguing in a comer. Then, like the gelignite, they exploded. I heard Eric Mavropoulos roar like an angry bull. He leapt across the table at an opponent but was stopped by six powerful men. Luke held onto one man with a grip that made me, even as a witness, wince. Soon the room was divided with two armies of angry men facing each other. Fists were clenched. Insults were hurled and threats made with reckless abandon. It was then that I was inspired. John was sitting on my left side. The Japanese buyer was on my right. I turned to John and in clear, loud, English said, 'Listen John, when the fight starts you go for the light and I'll drop the Jap.' The response was dramatic. The little man turned to Peter and in quite good English said, 'Very sorry. Very late. Must go.' I often wonder what he told his countrymen about those wild Greeks in Coober Pedy. Nick Macris and Bill Petrohelos, with a masterly show of strength were eventually able to stop the fighting. With threats and mean looks we were all forced to sit down. More wine was produced

98

THE OPAL MINER and politics forgotten. At this stage I became aware of the presence of two girls. They were tourists invited by some well-meaning soul to the party. As if by magic politics was forgotten and it became the desire of everyone to seduce them. With thirty men and only two girls the competition was obviously serious. I heard one of the girls arguing with a new arrival by the name ofMichael Demertzis, better known as 'Mad Mick'. This was purely an affectionate nickname and in no way adequately described his powers of astuteness and observation. 'I am going to find a big run,'Mick said to the girl. 'That is why I am so happy.' 'Shouldn't you wait until you actually find it?' the girl advised 'No!' declaredMick. 'I know that I will find it - and soon too.' I could not help feel that he was really mad. He had arrived a few days before filled with tales of riches and easy glory. Nobody had bothered to tell him about the difficulties and hardships. He knew nothing about mining and even less about work. Yet, there was an atmosphere about him that made me think. I should have recorded his rambling's more carefully because everything he said was, like a dream in a fairy tale, to come true. His company became known as 'Morellya Number Two'. 'Morellya' was the nickname for Greeks from the island ofMitilini. The number was used to distinguish them from two other companies originating from the same island.Numbers two and three companies were to be the lucky ones.Number one experienced nothing but bad luck and misfortune. That's the way that the cookie crumbles. The girls retired early - chased by some of the more adventurous boys. The rest of us stayed to finish the wine. I found myself talking

99

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY to ·Syd'. This gentleman had come to Coober Pedy during his long service leave and despite his age proved to be a good worker. He and his two partners were known as 'The Three Stooges' . There may have been a superficial resemblance to that famous team of comedians but that was all. They were a fine group of men. Syd's great love was his family. Everything he did was for their benefit. He never swore, never talked about women, never raised his voice, always behaved impeccably and never drank - except on this occasion. Luke suddenly recalled that his father had originated from the same town as Syd. For some reason or other this stirred Luke and Syd. They began to praise each other and we were all told, quite loudly, that 'Two Shutis's are as good as a thousand other Greeks.' As evidence of this Luke proceeded to demolish Nick's shed. One fist disposed of an iron partition. A boot disposed of one wall. Syd, not to be outdone threw a barrel of wine through the roof. I thought that this was extremely funny and rolled on the floor laughing uncontrollably. When Syd decided to blow everything up with gelignite Nick decided to end the party. Luke and Syd were escorted to Jack's shed where some strong coffee was poured into them. 'What's wrong, Syd,' Jack remarked. 'You don't look too good.' 'You should see Nick's caliva,' (shed) I said. 'It doesn't look too good either.' 'Happy Christmas,' declared Syd. It was August. Our work routine was always the same. I would rise before first light and have a hot breakfast ready for my partners. Then we would head off to wherever we were mining. The 'boys' did all the hard work. My job was to look after them, attend to the machinery and check the supplies. A typical order for the store would include

100

THE OPAL MINER

boxes of gelignite, fuses, detonators and heaps of food. We worked well together without any arguments simply because our conversations were limited to the few things that really mattered opal and girls. Political discussions were banned. Our shafts were sunk with picks, shovels, jackhammers and gelignite - straight down to about ninety feet. The dirt was removed in twelve-gallon buckets by a hand windlass because, at the time, mechanical winches were rather dangerous. When we 'bottomed', if the indications were reasonably promising, we commenced horizontal drives and continued these as far as we thought necessary. Once those drives were commenced it was safe to use a mechanical hoist to lift the buckets because the men working below could shelter in a drive away from accidental falls of rocks, buckets or tools. In this way we averaged one shaft each week. It was not a very productive exercise. All we seemed to do was to move dirt from one part of Australia to another. We were not alone in our suffering. Coober Pedy was 'dead'. One day, after working for three months, we were driving from the bottom of a shaft on a low hill at the Nine-Mile. Around us there was nothing. The boys were down below while I operated the winch from above. Then far in the distance I could see the figure of a man walking. W hen he came closer I recognised the shirtless, sun­ blackened figure of Jack Cassimatis. He was carrying a shotgun and had a bandolier slung across one shoulder. We greeted each other in the usual way and talked about this and that until the boys came up. It was then that Jack suggested that we should choose one of two propositions he was about to unfold. The first proposition will be detailed later. It was the second that immediately concerned us. Jack had been working at the Six-

101

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Mile with a team of young Greeks. During the previous year they had found a considerable amount of opal in a level about eighty feet down. During the current year they completed working that level and decided to see what was in the level ten feet above. They drove horizontally for some distance and found nothing. One day they drilled a series of holes in one side of the drive, inserted sticks of gelignite and blasted the rock in a manner that would permit easy expansion of that side. When the gas cleared they went down to see what was there. It was a dangerous situation because the explosion had also loosened the roof and huge blocks of rock threatened to fall into the drive. With the use of a few feeble carbide lamps a quick inspection failed to reveal anything promising. The miners beat a hasty retreat to the surface and told Jack that the mine was a dud, that it was dangerous, and they were leaving. Jack tried to talk them into staying. He said, 'There has to be opal there.' But he was ignored and left to decide what he was going to do by himself. That was why Jack came to talk to our partnership. He offered us an equal share each if we joined forces with him. This seemed reasonable and we accepted the proposition because for three months we had worked and found nothing but dirt. At least we knew that Jack's mine had the right sort of rock, the right sort of levels and everything that can, sometimes, produce opal. We packed our gear and moved to the Six Mile. First, we extended a drive towards the opposite end of the claim to the one last worked by the previous team. We found nothing, but decided to keep on going. Then one day we ran out of gelignite. I stayed in the camp while the others went to town to buy some more. When they returned they were without the gelignite. The truck carrying supplies from Adelaide had broken down and there was no

102

THE OPAL MINER

gelignite available. I remember how quiet it was because other miners had run out of gelignite also and the usual sounds of explosions were absent. My diary on that day said, 'All quiet On the Western Front.' I told Jack that it looked as if we would have to have a holiday. He was firm in his reply. 'While you work with me there will be no holidays. We will go up to the other end where the boys finished work before they left and have a look there.' At least we had the luxury of an electric light powered by a portable generator on the surface. Carefully and fearfully, because of the loose roof, the wall was inspected. There appeared to be nothing. Then Luke said, 'Let's look here.' He wildly swung the pick and instantly the wall came alive. There was opal everywhere laughing and dancing as if it had been freed from years of imprisonment. The previous miners had missed it as it sat there quietly covered by a thin layer of dust. In less than a few minutes our lives had changed dramatically. There were happy days to follow. Now we could wash and shave. As one stone after another was carefully removed from the sandstone we would admire it and try to guess its value. For quite a while I wandered around in a daze. This happy state of affairs went on for sometime and it seemed that it would never end. I had been checking the progress of the slide that produced the opal. At one point, where the opal was particularly thick and beautiful the slide seemed to change direction. To me that meant that what we had found was not one but two slides that met each other and produced the opal at the intersection. However, the other members of our team were confident that the run continued. By then it was time to pack up for the summer.

103

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

CHAPTER 13 STRANGE HAPPENINGS When Jack Cassimatis came to see us as we worked at the Nine-Mile he asked us to consider two propositions. We accepted the second and as I have just recorded we became partners with Jack at the Six-Mile. The first proposition, however, turned out to be the one of real interest. One year previously a Greek prospector had wandered into an unexplored area near Coober Pedy and commenced a shaft. At the 25-foot mark he ran out of money and was forced to return to his home in Port Pirie and get a job. One night he had a dream during which he saw great masses of opal under that partly finished shaft. That same night his wife had a similar dream. In the morning the couple compared notes. To them the coincidence was too great to permit anything but one conclusion - the place was 'full' of opal. With considerable excitement a letter was written, in Greek, to Jack Cassimatis. In essence it said, 'For God's sake go and finish that shaft. There is more opal there than anyone has ever seen.' But it was just a dream - or two dreams. Superstitious miners often dreamt about treasures unlimited. One German, after such an experience, was convinced that he was going to be rich. Unwilling to share it he cleaned out an entire claim by himself - an effort that kept him busy for three years. He was rewarded with nothing but blistered hands and a sore head. I thought about that as Jack took us out to the area and showed us the shaft. He suggested that if we decided not to join him we might consider finishing it. We all thought that it was some sort of a joke. I, in particular, had little time for superstition. After all I was educated and possessed two university degrees, and, anyway, the flies were bad. We walked away. We

104

STRANGE HAPPENINGS walked away from riches unlimited. Beneath our feet there was a run of opal the likes of which had never been seen! Some time later Mad Mick arrived in Coober Pedy. By then the story about the dream shaft had spread around and Mad Mick decided to try his luck. With his team of amateurs the shaft was eventually completed. At the bottom there was a beautiful pocket of opal. They were, as they discovered much later, a little distance away from the main run but the opal they found was in big pieces and of good quality. With a satisfied expression Mad Mick came to me and said, 'Who's "mad" now doctor?' I have in my possession a magnificent photograph that Bill took for me on that occasion. I can be seen holding a huge piece of opal and congratulating Mad Mick. I have a grin from ear to ear because the situation was almost a comedy. There was I with all my education, and Mick, who could hardly, if I may exaggerate a little, read and write, and who got the opal? Even more important, in that photograph is another figure. It is one of Mick's partners, Tony. He is holding a coffee cup and in true superstititious style, is about to read it and decide what should be done next. Complicating the story further is the importance, as events later showed, of the particular brand of coffee that had just been consumed. I did not know it but life in Coober Pedy was about to liven up.

105

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 14 OPAL FORMATION To understand the train of events that is to follow it is necessary

to know a little about opal and opal formation. Opal consists of silicon dioxide (silica) and water. Water dissolved silica in the rock to form a gel that ran into, or was forced into, spaces in the rock and solidified in a most peculiar manner. The silica formed extremely minute sphere-like units between which there is water. If the units are stacked in a regular fashion the structure acts, so the experts tell me, like a diffraction grating that splits incident white light in a manner that produces a play of colour. In other words, a particular portion of a particular opal may from one angle of view or lighting exhibit a particular colour. W hen the angle of view is changed that colour may change. If the stacking arrangement is not regular, incident light cannot be split and no play of colour can be seen. This type of material is called 'patch'. From a mining point of view what really matters is how the spaces that the silica gel ran into, or was forced into, were formed in the ground. In most of the fields around Coober Pedy this was ground movement. I suppose these could be regarded as 'earthquakes'. There were some other methods of space formation, such as fossil replacement, but from a practical point of view it was ground movements that produced most of the useable space. The entire area was, eons ago, an inland sea or a complex system of rivers. Over a period of time various layers of sand and mud were deposited. Mostly, the deposited material ended up as a type of muddy, slightly damp 'sandstone' (probably not true sandstone from a geological point of view) off-white in colour. This was deposited in layers varying from a few feet to a hundred feet thick

106

OPAL FORMATION

and varied in nature from place to place sometimes changing dramatically in just a few feet. Coober Pedy opal miners know that unless they find ' good sandstone' they will not find opal. Another type of rock, which is not endowed with the power to form opal, became known to the miners as 'hard blue'. There are several other types of rock but it is not necessary to understand them to follow this narrative of events. At times the deposited material was different in a fashion that allowed it to crumble more readily and left it stained reddish-brown. This layer is only a foot or so in thickness and is known as a 'level'. Because of its crumbling tendency when the ground moved it was the level that tended to split open. Therefore, it is in a level that opal may be found - and I stress the word 'may'. When the ground moved, huge slabs were lifted upwards for a foot or more. The junction between where a slab of rock slid upwards against the adjacent immobile rock can be seen as a sloping line, usually about fifteen degrees from the vertical. For obvious reasons it is called a 'slide'. The upward movement of the rock was like the movement of a hinge. The degree of movement, up to several feet, is greatest against the slide. This resulted in levels that rise as the slide is approached and taper to nothing, up to thirty feet from the slide.

Slides can be very short in length when viewed from a

horizontal position or just a few feet long. They are usually more or less straight. In many areas there are no slides, an indication of no ground movement and therefore no rock spaces and no opal. If, in a particular area, there were two or more upheavals two or more slides could either cross or face each other resulting in increased splitting of the levels and therefore thicker opal. Facing slides are extremely rare and I have already noted that it was such a freak of

107

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

nature that produced the opal found by young Peter Christianos. With the hinge-like upward movement of the slabs a secondary form of rock splitting tends to occur. Starting from where the levels commence to rise and becoming increasingly wide as the slide is approached more or less 'vertical' cracks are formed running parallel to the slide. These tend to be wider at the levels and taper to nothing a foot or so above the levels. Once again, for obvious reasons, they are known as 'verticals'. Armed with all this geological knowledge, provided that one is fortunate enough to find some of the indications (and it takes a lot of good fortune to achieve even this), it is possible to 'read' the ground, follow the indications and, with even more luck, find opal. Of course, some very lucky individuals 'bottom' on opal and do not need to chase geological guides. First, one must find 'sandstone'. Next, one or more 'levels' must be found. Then one needs 'rising levels' and/or a slide. Rising levels can be followed to a slide. 'Verticals' can indicate a rising level and a slide. If levels are found they can be followed in the hope that somewhere they may rise. If a slide is found it also can be followed in the hope that, somewhere, it may produce opal. Many slides and many rising levels, in fact most of them, do not produce opal. If two slides are found near each other it can be deduced that the angle where they meet is where the ground moved most and that will be where the opal is thickest. If verticals are found to be angled in two directions and levels in the same spot rise in two directions it means that somewhere near there is a second slide and one can look forward to thick opal. In any one situation there may be one or several levels separated by six feet or more. The opal in one level may be of better quality than the opal in other levels.

108

OPAL FORMATION

Sometimes, in fact often, the opal fonned does not have a play of colour and is worthless potch. Because of its method of formation opal is laid down parallel to a slide and it 'runs' parallel to the slide for a distance that varies from a few feet to 300 feet or more. The talk in Coober Pedy, therefore, concerns 'runs' of opal - big 'runs', small 'runs' and potch 'runs'. With the rare exception of circumstances when two slides cross each other the runs are straight. Thus, when miners peg claims (the limit is one claim per partner in a team and a claim may be up to 150 feet square), and what is under the ground is unknown, it is necessary to guess, trust to intuition, superstition, or just plain hope for the best. If after sinking a shaft and, maybe, making some horizontal drives, indications of formation are found, attempts will be made to peg claims, if they are not already pegged by someone else, in the direction of where the run may be - that is, in a straight line. This act is a 'give away' to other miners who may peg the bordering claims in a straight line in the hope that the run may extend. Sometimes, in fact often, the opal is best at, or even limited to, one end of the run. This is the knowledge that helps to reduce the element of chance when one is looking for opal in most areas around Coober Pedy. Strangely, it was not recognised by academic geologists. I once asked a university professor of geology for assistance in writing a paper on this subject. He told me to enrol in his university, graduate in geology, and only then would he help. I did not follow his instructions. Instead I wrote about opal formation in my first book,

'In Search of Opal'. A German migrant happened to see this in a bookshop when he returned from a trip back home. Out of curiosity he purchased and read it. The text appeared to be logical and seemed

109

ME DICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY to suggest how the element of chance could be minimised. So he armed himself with the book, a pick and a shovel and went to Coober Pedy. He found sandstone, he found levels, he found rising levels, he found verticals and he found opal. My reward was nothing but a 'thank you'.

110

THE MULTIMILUON DOLi.AR GAME OF CHESS COOBER PEDY STYLE

CHAPTER 15 THE MULTIMILLLION DOLLAR GAME OF CHESS COOBER PEDY STYLE I Mad Mick had pegged three claims around the dream shaft before he started to dig. His find generated a mini rush with the usual messy appearance of 'pegs everywhere'. One of the early miners joining the rush was a newcomer named John Panaratos. He hailed from Potamos, my mother's birthplace, and came to Coober Pedy because he happened to live in the same street in Sydney as a man who had struck it rich a few years earlier. John looked over the field and not understanding the system thought that some claims next to Mad Mick's three claims were occupied. One was on the eastern side of Mad Mick and the other, to the south. John, therefore, pegged his claim about one hundred and fifty feet away. This was his second error because he should have pegged four - one for each member of his partnership. Shortly afterwards another Greek by the name of Big Jim came into the scene. He realised that there were two vacant claims next to Mad Mick so he pegged one for himself and one for his partner. While he was doing this Mad Mick found traces of opal running towards one of the claims just pegged by Big Jim. This led him to believe that there was opal in that claim. His problem was to devise a method of getting that claim for himself. In full view of Big Jim, Mad Mick pulled his pegs out of one claim and placed them in a claim that was in a straight line to his other two claims. That made Big Jim think that Mad Mick had found a run in that direction so he quickly pulled his pegs out of the claim secretly wanted by Mad Mick, placed them in a claim in line with the three now pegged by Mad Mick. Obviously he was hoping to get

111

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

the tail end of the run he thought Mad Mick had found. Immediately the coveted claim became vacant Mad Mick pegged it. At this stage Mad Mick changed the brand of coffee he was drinking. Jack Cassimatis was a great friend of the Andronicus brothers - the famous coffee dealers in Sydney. These brothers sent a huge shipment of coffee to Coober Pedy and this was distributed by Jack to the Greeks. When Tony read the coffee cups that had contained Andronicus coffee he got an entirely different reading to that obtained from Bushells coffee. Mad Mick therefore decided that his original claim was the best and he gave the claim he had so cleverly obtained to a friend by the name of Paspalaris. This gentleman pegged the claim in the name of his wife, Connie, but did not bother to work it. This was the time when I was about to leave Coober Pedy for a few days. As one would expect in a small community, the news of my proposed trip got around and that is how I came to meet Johnny Andrea. Johnny's life, if recorded in a book, would fascinate the 'unfascinatable'.

Some years previously he was a taxi driver in

Adelaide. One evening his cab was hailed by a woman who requested to be taken to her home. Johnny obliged but was surprised when he stopped at the home to be not paid but invited inside for a cup of coffee. When the coffee was finished the woman offered to read John's cup. She stared at it for a few minutes, went pale, crossed herself several times and began to say 'Holy Marys'. Eventually she composed herself sufficiently to proceed with her forecast. According to the cup Johnny would find a great treasure. He would become very rich but would spend it all. Later he would find an even bigger treasure, so great that people would point him out in the street.

112

THE MULTIMILLION DOLIAR GAME OF CHESS COOBER PEDY S1YLE

Probably because of contact with Greek opal miner in Adelaide Johnny deduced that Coober Pedy was where his fate would be decided. Together with his brother, Nick, and brother-in-law, Gregory. he moved there and commenced a shaft. It was at the Seven Mile where they struck it rich. Money flowed everywhere. In an incredible exhibition of wild living this soon ran out. Now Johnny simply at and waited. To work was pointless. His fortune-teller had told him that more riches would come. There was no point in dirtying hi hand while he waited for it. I could not see much logic in Johnny's attitude to life but when he suggested that I should go to Adelaide with him and attend the wedding of his niece it seemed a reasonable thing to do. Furthermore, Johnny was going to introduce me to a very nice Cypriot girl who had lots of money, and if I liked her he would arrange a marriage. I agreed to do this. I went to Adelaide but there changed my mind because I was eager to go to Sydney. I caught the first plane available. At the wedding Paspalaris was looking for me. 'Where is the Doctor? I have a claim that I want to give him.' As things turned out that was the claim that contained the main body of opal, but, obviously. nobody knew that then. Many times over the years I have thought about that. If I had gone to the wedding I could have had the girl . her money and the opal. And the rest of my life would have been different. What I value so much today, the work that I have done, my family and what I have achieved would never have come to be. It seems that I was destined for something different. While all this was going on John Panaratos and his team sunk a shaft to a depth of about sixty-five feet. They found thin traces of opal but were unable to interpret the significance of this and the other signs displayed by the rock formation. So John came to Bill

113

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

and me with a request for help. We said, 'Sure. We will come out tomorrow and have a look.' Tomorrow never came - at least in the way John had requested. A busload of tourists arrived instead and on that bus were some pretty girls. Bill and I, being true gentlemen, felt obliged to entertain the girls. John would have to wait for another day. But John could not wait. Impatient to proceed further he asked a very experienced and astute opal miner by the name of Bill Antoniadis for help. This man had worked with Peter Christianos and Bill Petrohelos at the Ten Mile and knew just about everything there was to know about opal formation. He climbed down John's shaft, took one look at the rock face and saw the signs of enormous riches not too far away. Excited beyond measure he tried to translate the language of the rocks for the benefit of John Panaratos. In front of Bill's eyes there were not just traces of opal. There were levels rising in not one but two directions. There were thin verticals angled in two directions. These were the signs that miners dreamed about, fantasised about, talked about, but hardly dared to believe that they would ever see. Shaking with excitement Bill began to conspire his way into a share of all this wealth. His advice to John was a brilliant piece of opal mining strategy: 'The opal is not in your claim. It is in the claims between yours and Mad Mick's, the one alongside it, and it may run into Mad Mick's. Unfortunately, one of the claims with the opal has been pegged by Big Jim. The other belongs to Paspalaris. The run is very close to the boundary between these two claims and if it extends it is right under the boundary of Mad Mick's claim. The chances are that Big

Jim, Paspalaris and Mad Mick will not find the run. Miners tend not to sink shafts near the boundary of their claims because it is too

114

THE MULTIMILlJON DOLLAR GAME OF CHESS COOBER PEDY STYLE

difficult to get rid of the dirt from the mine without spilling it into the next claim. We will pretend that this shaft is a dud and commence a shaft down the other end of your claim. Everyone will say that because I am uch an experienced miner this place is no good. Eventually Big Jim, Paspalaris and Mad Mick will abandon their claims. We will grab the claims and have the opal to ourselves.' Unfortunately, John thought that Bill thought that the opal was in hi (John's) claim and the whole story was a trick in order to get Bill a position in John's company and a share of the opal. So John did not accept Bill's proposition This nearly sent Bill crazy. He could almost hear the opal screaming at him from under the ground. What could he do? He could not go to Big Jim or Paspalaris because these men would almost certainly no cooperate. But Mad Mick was the right man in the right place at the right time. Bill approached him with a proposition - 'Make me a partner and I will show you where the opal is.' Mad Mick agreed. Together, one night, they came to me and I typed a 'contract' giving Bill's team a 60% share. Six men were involved. Michael Ligias, Bill Antoniades, Peter Panagiotides, Mick Demertzi, Con Spachos and Tony Savas. There were two claims in the contract - numbers 12590 and 12594. Meanwhile, John Panaratos had talked to other miners. Big Jim got the message. He sank a shaft with a cold chisel and hammer (almost on the boundary) because he could not afford to buy diesel for his compressor. He bottomed on a fortune! A few weeks before Big Jim had come to me suffering from a foreign body embedded in one eye. After I removed it Big Jim apologised because he did not have money to pay for my services. I never charged a fee when providing emergency medical attention to

115

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

a Greek but to make Jim feel comfortable I said, 'When you strike it rich give me a stone.' He did just that. My wife sometimes wears that stone around her neck and I value it because of what it signifies to me. While Big Jim was digging out his opal he made it quite clear that, although it was thick and rich, he was only on the 'traces'. The 'guts' was in the claim next door and that belonged to Paspaliaris. If the traces were worth a million dollars then what was the 'guts' worth? Meanwhile, Bill Antoniades had begun working with Mad Mick. He sank a shaft as close to the boundary as he could and bottomed on nothing! There was a second slide facing into Paspalaris's claim that prevented the run continuing into Mad Mick's claim. But it did mean that the opal in Paspalaris's claim was certainly thick and rich beyond anything that one could hope for. Now there was absolutely no doubt that there were two slides crossing each other and facing into an angle. This had been deduced by Bill Antonitis when he examined John Panaretos's shaft. It was then that Bill Antoniadis realised that Paspalaris was not working his claim and according to mining regulations this claim could be forfeited. In other words, all he had to do to collect an enormous fortune was to peg the claim for himself. With tremendous excitement he did just that. But in his haste he misread the numbers on the pegs and, although he did not realise this at the time, his claim was invalid.

Soon afterwards Johnny

Andrea turned up. Everyone thought that the claim now belonged to Bill Antoniadis (first in, first served) so nobody had bothered to try pegging it for himself. But Johnny did and his application was correct. Ownership was, however, disputed. It seemed certain that the court

116

THE MULTIMILLION DOL.lAR GAME OF CHESS COOBER PEDY STYLE

would grant the claim to Johnny. So there was a claim, rich beyond imagination, lying idle while a court decided who owned it. In a place like Coober Pedy it was asking for trouble. It was like leaving a saucer of cream in a room full of cats and expecting to come back later and find it still there. What eventually happened was a fascination in itself. It certainly changed my life.

117

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 16 THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

If a claim is under court control it is reasonable to expect that the long arm of the law will prevent anyone, or any group, working that claim. I was, therefore, surprised to find that Bill Antoniadis was allowed to sink a shaft on the disputed claim. This process took about five days. The local Mines Department resident foreman, Eric Watkins, should have known that the claim was under court control. Why he did not, or was unable to, interfere is a question that I cannot reasonably answer. Why did the Andrea family permit the sinking? I do believe that they sought legal ways to prevent it but were frustrated. Why did the other miners in Coober Pedy not prevent it? As far as I could determine I was the only person who objected to the illegal drilling. Everyone else took the attitude, 'Let them sort it out for themselves.' Fate, however, at this stage, play ed its hand against Bill Antoniadis. The shaft he sank was not over the run. He had guessed that the second slide facing Mad Mick's claim was the main one. It wasn't. The opal was about fifty feet away. One would normally expect that this would end the matter but it didn't. According to my diary, on September 27, 1965, a big drill, owned and operated by Ivan (known as 'Johnny') Kenda was taken onto the disputed claim, and a shaft drilled, over a period of two days, right onto the 'guts'. At the time big drills were rare in Coober Pedy. It appears that one was hired because the court was about to decide ownership of the claim and there was not sufficient time to sink a shaft by ordinary means. On September 30, 1965. according to my diary, the court ruled .in favour of Andrea. On October 3, 1965, the Andrea family arrived

118

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY in Coober Pedy with the official court papers. Together with Eric Watkins they drove out to the disputed claim and caught the miners in the act of pulling a bucket out of the shaft. This contained a mixture of opal and dirt. It was 'confiscated' and a receipt was issued. The value of the opal in that bucket is something that I was never able to accurately estimate. According to my notes Johnny Andrea told me that it was $120,000. In court, later, Ivan Kenda said $4,000. A mining regulation at the time stated that a claim must be worked at least eight hours a day, five days a week. Provisions were made for holidays, sickness and other factors. Miners could apply for what was known as a 'suspension of working conditions'. If this was granted, and it usually was, a notice stating that this applied was placed on the pegs defining the claim's boundaries together with the claim numbers and registration details. If a miner was reasonably certain, in his own mind, that a claim registered under his name was a 'dud' - that is, did not contain opal, he probably would not bother to apply for a suspension and, legally, anyone could peg the claim and register it in his own name. Knowledge of these details is necessary for the understanding of what transpired in a court hearing held in an attempt to decide who legally owned the disputed claim. In THE WARDENS COURT under the MINING ACT 1930-1962 Evidence taken before Warden Thoroughgood on 3 rd December, 1965 at Adelaide. Ivan Kenda I hold a miner's right number 281 I have mined at Coober Pedy for four years. I know claim 1472, the subject

119

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY of these proceedings. In August of this year, as a result of a discussion with Mr. Antoniadis, we sunk a shaft, seventy-two feet deep on the claim. This was approximately - no, it was not in August, it was 27 lh September, when we commenced to sink the shaft. The claim was then 1304. There was another shaft on the claim sunk by Antoniadis. There were other claims all around this particular claim. The claims around it were not being worked - I think one had suspension on it; no notice of suspension on the claims not being worked. There was a suspension notice on one claim - not on the others. When I had sunk a shaft, we went down to make a drive. Three days later Mr. Andrea came along with Mr. Watkins, the Mining Foreman - and the Mining Foreman, in Andrea's presence told me to come up and cease work on the claim. At this time, I did not know - the day before this - that Andrea had any interest in the claim. A later affidavit signed by Ivan Kenda and presented to the High Court on May26th, 1966, is partially as follows

3. 4.

I know at least 75% of miners at Coober Pedy personally ... In September 1965 I went on and inspected claim no. 1472 the subject

of these proceedings. I went with one Antoniadis. Already one shaft had been sunk to a depth of over sixty feet at a cost of two pounds ten shillings per foot. Antoniadis and I decided to sink another shaft to link up with the one already sunk. I had seen opal produced from a continuous claim and was of the opinion that Claim No. 14 72 would yield large quantities of good opal. I worked the claim with Antoniadis for one week and found traces of opal which varied in value from 10 pounds to 150 pounds per ounce. Following these traces we had taken out opal worth 2,000 pounds in this one week. Portion of it was sold for 1,200 pounds; the balance namely valued at 800 pounds was retained by the Mining Foreman on the field when we were ordered to cease work.

In case the numbers mentioned - 1304 and 1472 - are confusing

120

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

it must be explained Lhat they refer to the same claim. The difference is du to different registrations. From October 3, 1965, for several days, the Andrea family worked on the claim and recovered a quantity of opal. They were handicapped by the lack of air pumps and were compelled to wait long hours between gelignite shots before going down to recommence work. On one occasion they went down too soon. Several of them were badly affected by gelignite fumes and I was later asked to attend them. It appeared that they were afraid that an injunction would be obtained from a magistrate and work would have to stop. On 4th October 1965, an injunction was served on behalf of Connie Paspalaris. The judge concerned was Judge Roma Mitchell - later to become Governor of South Australia. The top of the shaft was sealed and the Andrea family forbidden to recommence work. The ruling was in favour of the Andrea family but before they could start work another injunction was served - this time by Ivan Kenda. This injunction included some very strange items. For example, ' That the said P.S. Claim No. 1472 is not a square'. Now there was a mining regulation that stipulated that a claim must be square but it did not define a square or define how one could have a true geometric square on a rough piece of ground. The entire process of the law had become ludicrous. Counter injunctions were issued. The claim remained, legally, forbidden territory. Christmas came and went. With the new-year Luke contacted Bill Petrohelos and myself and informed us that he was pulling out. His younger brother, Lee would replace him. We were naturally upset by this arrangement but there appeared to be little we could do apart from accepting it. In March we recommenced work by sinking a new shaft where we imagined the run continued.

121

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

At twenty feet there were huge chunks of 'potch and colour' that is potch with traces of a play of colour. This caused great excitement because it usually meant that deeper down there was real opal - and plenty of it. The whole of Coober Pedy turned out to see us bottom that shaft. I got my cameras and tape recorders ready to record the great event. Other miners were obviously envious. Don Mazonie said, 'Certain that you will get a million, Good luck to you Doc.' Jack was philosophical. He puffed away at a hand rolled cigarette and said, 'Cigars from now on boys.' I was asked for my prediction. My answer was, perhaps, a little strange, 'Never have I been so excited. I know that something tremendous is about to happen. I cannot tell if it is money or what it is. I only know that I have never felt this way before.' Somehow, I felt that whatever was about to happen did not directly involve our mine. I could not explain this to myself and found it impossible to explain it to anyone else. I simply recorded my feelings in my diary. Next day we hit the first or 'squibby ' level. Much to everyone's surprise it was sterile. We went deeper - still sterile. We sank another shaft. Finally we had to face reality. Our run was finished. I cursed inwardly because I was ideally prepared with equipment to record events of interest and importance and I felt cheated. However, we did have something to think about and talk about and that was the disputed claim. We all followed the court hearing involving its ownership. Justice Mitchell's ruling was, to say the least, strange. Because the claim was not a 'square' it belonged to nobody. Luke Lucas, who was now working with another team, described every miner's feelings. 'O.K. Where is a claim with opal? Let us apply for a forfeit.' By chance I secretly tape-recorded this statement

122

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

- in the same way as I often did. My aim was to collect background material for a book I hoped to write. Unfortunately, our language during those times was not the best and most of the recordings are not fit for general hearing. Furthermore, it is impossible to reproduce on paper exact transcripts. We mixed English and Greek with a few Aboriginal and some choice Italian words. Sometimes the background noise was too disturbing, Sometimes the batteries went flat or the tape ran out. However, I did manage to collect a valuable series of recordings. Once, when Johnny Andrea came to visit us I encouraged him to talk about his life. We also talked about the decision handed down by Justice Mitchell. Johnny spoke quite plainly 'Do you remember the last decision she gave? I later went to a woman to tell me my (coffee) cup. She asked me if I had got a big court case? Was I in trouble?' I just sat and listened. 'Well', she said. 'Somebody is going to give a decision about this in the court. It's a woman.' Now how in the hell did she know that it was a woman judge and this woman did not know me from a bar of soap. A few days later when Luke came to visit us again I made another recording. We were talking about the disputed claim. As accurately as I can, the conversation went like this Bill: Laughter Self: No, we won't talk about that- we'll talk about the opal in the disputed claim. Luke: All right, this is it. If a company got in there, Jack, and no one saw the opal coming out. If you could get the opal away which you can't because

chips are going to come and the blacks are going to come and they have

123

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY got you. Jack: To do that you have to be invisible. Can you be invisible? Luke: Jack. Say you went in there. What could they do to you. Jack: You know those chaps. Antoniadis number one they won't let you

go in. They have all got spies there. Luke: Jack, what I mean to say is, what is the penalty? How many years

gaol?' Lee: Three years isn't it? Jack: The law is elastic. Luke: I mean in mining. What is it Doc? Two years isn't it? Self. I don't know. Jack: They must catch you. Luke: What is it Doc? Self. You could come under ordinary civil law for theft as well. You might

get ten or fifteen years Bill: Don't go in, (laughs).

Later, when Jack retired Luke got down to real business. He informed us that he had teamed up with Don Mazonie and Mad Mick. He considered that it was possible to drive a long tunnel underground, into the disputed claim and take the opal out. At the time I did not take all this seriously. Luke was always presenting some new fantastic 'get rich quick' scheme. A few days later, I partially altered my mind and I noted in my diary that there were some unusual working hours in the vicinity of the disputed claim. I wondered what was going on! On April 10, Mazoni came to see me with his wife. At this stage it was alleged by many of the local miners that Don was driving into the disputed claim. He talked about it freely, said that he wasn't

124

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

and explained the hurried manner of working by saying that Mad Mick might throw him out if they found opal in his claim. He also said that Mad Mick had no idea how to mine and that was why he allowed Luke and Don to become partners. However, I could not understand this attempt at logic because Mad Mick was also working as hard as he could. I also knew that Big Jim and his partner (who had the claim next door) had been called to Melbourne for personal reasons. This left the site relatively unsupervised. Monday April 11, was Easter Monday - a day of celebration for those of the Greek Orthodox faith. That evening Luke had planned a party. This was one that I did not intend to miss. During the afternoon I went to town with some of Macris's partners. They persuaded me to celebrate 'Greek style' by drinking the national Greek drink- ouzo. It didn't take much to make me drunk - very drunk. I turned up at the party in that happy state - a fine detective. I found nothing! I missed everything! I had begun to think of myself as a second Sherlock Holmes. Instead I turned out to be a bungling Dr Watson. On Thursday night, April 15, Luke, his brother, Anthony, Mad Mick and another of Mad Mick's partners came to visit me. They were brimming with happiness. When a miner is on opal something happens to him. His eyes shine, his face lights up. Digging out opal is like nothing else. It has to be experienced to be known. And the result shows. The entry in my diary said, 'I bet more than even money that those boys are on opal.' In the midst of all this Johnny Andrea came to visit me. He told me that the court would soon hand down its verdict and he could not lose. I told him that he would be lucky if any opal was left. 'Why,' he said. 'Do you think that Big Jim has taken it?' I replied that this

125

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

could not be. It was now obvious that there maybe violence about the disputed claim. I did not know what facilities for a blood transfusion were available at the local Bush Nursing Hospital so, together with Bill Petrohelos, I visited the two very young nurses in charge. They must have thought that we were a strange pair, particularly when I told them that someone would probably be shot soon and I needed to see what facilities they could provide if I needed to give a blood transfusion. The girls were very polite. They even brewed us a cup of tea. I surveyed their equipment and decided that I could, if necessary, take some of my own Group O positive blood and transfuse it. There would be, of course, a risk of what is known as 'Rh incompatibility' (a transfusion reaction), but this risk was small. Immediately after Bill and I left the nurses contacted the local constabulary. 'There is a man here who says that he is a doctor and that someone is going to get shot.' I never found out what they were told but it probably was something not complimentary. On Sunday April 17, Don came to see me. I saw him coming, switched on the tape recorder and hid it under the bed. 'Doc, I want your advice.' He went on to say that he and the others had driven into the disputed claim, dug out a lot of opal, took it to his hut and later found that two thirds of it was missing. He said that Luke had accused him of taking it. They put 200 sticks of gelignite in the drive and blew 'everything' up. As Don spoke he drew a diagram. I still have that. Everything he said went down on tape. I was afraid that Don would hear the tape recorder grinding away so the moment he stopped talking I began to talk loudly. There is little doubt that, in his troubled state of mind, if he spotted the recorder he may have reacted violently.

126

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY Don said that he came to see me because he thought that I might be able to throw some light on who stole the stolen opal. He continued with, ·They decided something different. Mad Mick lives here and I live there. They want whoever took the opal to bring it to a point between. If they get it back they will sell it. I said, "No." If they don't get the opal I say go straight to the Mines Department. If they get the opal I say put it in the bank and whoever wins the claim tell them that we will give it back if there is no court action taken. I want nothing to do with it. I have nothing to gain. We never even put one shot in the run. The stuff we got we got off the wall. When we got to the boundary - that was when we made business with Antoniadis. I wanted to pull out and they said that anyone who pulled out did not get a share. I said that we were doing the wrong thing. I was hoping that the court would finish quickly but Bill and them shot down town. I told him that I reckon that we are in trouble. We still had about fourteen or fifteen feet to go to get in. When we got in I said that we were going in the wrong direction. We had a big argument for about two hours. That was when Mad Mick got the compass.' (This was my compass. They also used my tape measure. Author's note). 'As far as drives go there is no drive in the run. Then Friday we had big arguments. I pulled everyone out of bed and went down and closed the place up. That was when we put the shots in. Yesterday they came to my place to clean the opal. They were going to sell it and use the money for the court. When we cleaned it I said that half of it was gone (the best half author's note). We had more arguments. I threw them all out- opal and all. This morning they decided to wait until tomorrow and if there is no opal to go to the bush and talk about it. I reckon, tomorrow, trouble for sure. The trouble is, if I send my wife away, straight away they think that I took the

127

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY opal. If he stay - maybe they will come with gelignite. Maybe, I think Luke took the opal. Whoever wins that claim will do a day's work and clean it out and then laugh at us because we went in there and didn't even touch the opal. But on top of that they will do their nut and take everyone to court. I reckon that we have done this job and should be punished. We had the argument.' I asked Don how much opal was in the claim. 'That claim is full Doc. I nearly died when I saw it. Anthony came and called me down. I reckon Big Jim got a lot. They called Bill Antoniatis. He went down and said to drive this way. I said that if they worked all-night they would have the Mines Department here next day. So they decided not to work. Next day we cleaned the dirt out. We got some more opal in the afternoon. Bill came over too. Bill and his partners are in it too. Actually there are nine altogether. I told him I might be tempted for 10,000 pounds. That means 90,000 pounds. If we only get 30,000 pounds how much will we get. It isn't worth it. I told them that they were all stupid.'

I expressed concern because some of the men involved might become violent. Don agreed. 'That's what I reckon. If they come to shoot me I might shoot them too. These people are stupid enough to throw a box of gelignite. I don't know who took it. I think that, maybe, Mick took it. If he didn't he might think that I took it because the opal was in my place all the time.'

My advice to Don was that he should go to the police. I was now, it seemed, in a difficult situation. With knowledge of a crime I could be charged as an 'accessory'. After some consideration I decided to wait for twenty-four hours. The events over that period would probably make it easier for me to arrive at a reasonable decision.

128

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

My diary on Monday, April 18, is headed, 'The Rats Squeal'. Early in the morning while Jack Cassimatis and myself were 'pulling dirt' from the mine Bill Antoniadis's two partners came to see me. They were so shocked that they resembled patients who had just suffered heart attacks. In fact, Jack, who knew them well, did not recognise them - they were 'grey'. I advised them to go straight to the police. After a long argument they left only to return one hour later with Bill Antoniadis and Don. They agreed to go to the police provided I went with them for moral support. On the way to town we met Eric Watkins. We pulled him up by the side of the road and it was Don who spilled the beans. 'Eric I want to tell you that we went into that claim.' Don decided to continue on to town and report to the policeman. I got a lift back to the Six Mile with Eric. I waited all day for some news about the recovery of some of the stolen opal. It never came. No one had been arrested. W hat was going on? Tuesday, April 19, saw me boiling mad. During the previous night Johnny Andrea had come to visit me. 'What,' he said, 'is this rumour I hear about my claim?' I replied that it was no rumour and wondered why nobody had been arrested. I told Johnny that I would go with him to the police to ask what was going on. In Coober Pedy the Mines Department and police shared the same building. We found Doug Snodgrass, the policeman from Kingooyna, David, the local policeman and Eric Watkins at home. I was not happy with my discussions with Eric and the two policemen. I threatened to drive the long distance to the nearest phone and report directly to Adelaide. It was then that I was assured that

129

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY something would be done. Johnny was satisfied. He said that he was going to see Luke and Mazonie. It was too good an opportunity to miss. I hid the tape recorder under the seat of Johnny's car and switched it on. In great detail I was able to record two separate conversations. The picture was now almost complete. On Wednesday, April 20, Detective Dudley Beath arrived from Woomera. He was in charge of an enormous stretch of country extending as far north as the border of the Northern Territory. Before we met on that day I had not the faintest idea that he existed. The course of events that was to follow was to tie our lives very closely. I gave him my tape recordings. My diaries had been sent to Sydney but I promised that copies would be made and given to him within a few days. I had sent the diaries to a journalist friend who worked for The Sydney Morning Herald. I wrote a note with them explaining the unique nature of the opal robbery and requested that he fly to Coober Pedy, with a photographer, to record what was about to happen. My journalist friend never did this. Later he told me that he was away when the diaries and letter arrived and these were placed in a drawer in his office to await his return. By the time he read them the entire episode was history. I never accepted this version of events. Dudley did tell me on that day that he was going to make Luke clean out the mine so measurements could be taken. As the dirt was lifted out it would be carefully examined for opal. One policeman would be underground and another would be on top while this was being done. Thursday, April 21, came and went quietly. I was told that that

130

--�--�---�-�--M

-· •

-

- -.------_ .... -,_.,.....

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

night the disputed claim was 'full' of police and Mines Department fficial . There was no sign of dirt being pulled to the surface. Friday the 22nd was more encouraging. Johnny Andrea and I went to the police station where we found Dudley Beath playing my tapes. Luke's father arrived that day. Apparently Dudley had cross­ e anlined the ratters until 2am in the morning. Not one of them would 'squeal'. Finally, according to Dudley, he played part of one of my tapes to Don. Even this, according to Dudley, did not break Don's resistance. The only result was that I was pulled out of bed at 2.30am by Dudley who informed me that the ratters were now aware of what I had done and I would have to look after myself. At the time I was not very concerned. I don't really know why. My partners, however, were very concerned. They expected a stick or two of gelignite at any minute. I was the only one who slept during the remainder of the night. On Saturday 23 rd Don came to see me again. He was, very obviously, upset, I thought because of the tapes, but he hardly mentioned them. Instead he told me that the police had been down the mine and had been able to measure the drives without any difficulty. It was not all blown up as Don had thought. Apparently this was a bigger shock to Don than my tapes. That night Luke and Mad Mick and others were arrested and locked in the minute building that was the Coober Pedy jail. It was not much bigger than a country outhouse with 'standing room only'. The nine men spent the night shivering with cold. Their discomfort was increased considerably when they were told that because of the evidence that I had supplied they would not just be charged with the trivial crime of 'illegal mining'. They would also be charged with

131

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

conspiracy - one of the most serious charges in the book. In the morning they were officially charged and allowed out of jail. Don was the first to come to me. Furthermore, he appeared at this stage to be firmly behind all his fellow ratters. It appeared that something had united them all in their hour of tribulation. I wondered what it was. Relationships between my partners and myself were now beginning to show signs of strain. Lee kept on saying, like a broken record, 'My brothers are smart.' Bill Petrohelos and Jack Cassimatis wanted to stay out of everything. John Mavropoulos was more inclined to take my side. I felt that I should wind up my side of the partnership and get to hell out of it all. Monday April 25, began normally enough. We pulled dirt until I was interrupted by Harold, a miner and a refugee from gang warfare in Melbourne. He once showed me his abdomen that was terribly scarred after being blasted at close range with a shotgun. One of his hands was missing a few fingers - apparently from the same shotgun blast. We all knew and loved Harold's dog - an attractive creature that took our minds away from the hardships of mining. On that day, unfortunately, she had been run over by a car. One leg had been badly fractured and the bones were protruding through a very dirty wound. I used Luke's truck as an operating table, administered an anaesthetic and operated.

By chance I judged the dose of the

anaesthetic agent perfectly. Just as I was completing the plaster cast the dog awoke. Within a minute she was hobbling around apparently quite content. I did not know it at the time but this 'miracle' had been observed by some of the local Aborigines. A few days previously, disturbed

132

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

by the foul fly and maggot infested pus pouring from a little Aborigi­ nal boy's nose and ears I had tried to offer treatment but my rather clumsy attempts to communicate my wishes were met with extreme hostility. When I attempted to examine the boy I was hit violently by an iron bar roughly wielded by his mother. Inwardly cursing my clumsiness I was forced to retreat and attempt an apology. This was obviously not understood and I could do nothing but watch as the mother and her son were led away. However, my success with the dog performed wonders. Apparently the Aborigines had watched the procedure from a short distance away. The magic of it all must have impressed them because shortly after the operation was completed I saw the boy and his mother standing besides me. There was no doubt that my assistance was being requested. With considerable difficulty I cleaned out the maggots and pus. The smell almost made me vomit but, fortunately, the sight of the little fellow's suffering overcame everything. I'm glad to be able to say that after a few days the boy was much better. The maggots had vanished, the ears were dry and it was no longer necessary for the little fellow to lick away pus that previously had run down to his mouth. This episode affected me deeply. I sensed something particularly touching about the little fellow and the way his mother asked for help. It made me feel good after the troubles that I had just experienced. It was as if the blood of Hippocrates was running in my veins. I was, for a while, in a different, and in many ways, a better world. After I operated on the dog there was more dirt to pull. Lee and I were on the top. Bill and John were working below. Jack was away somewhere. Lee and I spoke together, apparently in a friendly

133

1\1 DI

L PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

f.. shion for a p riod until Anth ny arrived in a Land Rover with one of Mad Mil: k. ·s partners. Instead of alighting they beckoned to Lee who walked o er t them and for some minutes there was a c nver 'ati n inaudible to me because of the distance that separated us. Then. apparently 'atisfied with what was said Anthony and his mate drove off. Lee wa ted no time in getting down to business. 'Do you intend to go to court against my brothers?' he asked. I replied that I did. Lee re ponded with, 'They will kill you for this.' I told Lee that I was not worried about that. He continued to threaten me whilst I stood firm and maintained my stance that I would give evidence in court against them. A fight followed and I received several broken ribs and a ruptured kidney. Eventually we were separated by other miners who rushed to the scene when they heard the noise and screannng. Kris and Theo calmed me with a powerful brew of coffee. Harold said that I should have had more sense. I looked at his abdomen and missing fingers and felt like answering but prudently said nothing. Dudley Beath said very little when I reported the episode to him a few hours later. He did promise to talk to Luke. On Wednesday, April 27, I flew to Adelaide. Two planes left Coober Pedy at the same time. I was in one. The other carried Alec Whitman a well-known opal buyer, Anthony Lucas and one of Mad Mick's partners. Both planes stopped at Andamooka and I could not resist the opportunity for a bit of gossip. I walked over to the second plane and said hello. Anthony acted quite normally and spoke to me in a friendly fashion. I asked Alec if he had been able to buy some opal. He replied that he had a good parcel from the New Ten-Mile. I asked if it was Big Jim's. 'No,' he said. 'It came from

134

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

someone else.' Now that could not be. I understood only two claims at the New Ten-Mile were productive. One was Big Jim's. The other was the disputed claim. The conversation and setting astonished me. But I could say nothing and prove nothing. In Adelaide I decided to stay at a new motel way across from the Akaba where I usually stayed. I felt that I would be more secure there. I booked in, had a shower for the first time in months, settled in front of the television and watched the news. When the phone rang I was very surprised. It was Nick Macris from Coober Pedy. According to him he just happened to see me arrive and he wanted to see me. I agreed and soon found that he wanted me not to go to court against Luke and Co. I was confused and full of curiosity how he had found me but he insisted that it was just by chance. During the next few days I visited the haunts of the Greek miners in Hindley St., Adelaide. It was there, on April 23, that I met Nick Andrea. He asked me to go with him and talk to Pam Cleland, his family's solicitor. This proved to be quite an experience. When we arrived at Pam's office she was speaking on the phone to Dudley Beath. From where I was sitting I could read the notes she was jotting on a pad. Fourteen men were to be charged with illegal mining, damage to a mine, and conspiracy. If found guilty the men involved would face long prison sentences. That evening I was taken to see the Attorney General, Don Dunstan. Australians are very familiar with this flamboyant politician who later became Premier of South Australia, a position equivalent to a United States state governor. 'It will be a big case', he told me. 'Probably the biggest ever in the history of South Australia.' The more we investigate it, the more

135

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

dirt we dig up (this was Don's own unintended pun - author's note). I take the threats against you and your mother and daughter seriously and will contact the New South Wales police to arrange protection.' Next day I flew to Sydney where I discovered that my mother had received threatening phone calls in Greek. She was also told that I would be dealt with in a suitable manner. That anyone could do this to a frail old woman was difficult to understand and my anger did little to relieve me of considerable sadness. The boarding school where my daughter was staying provided me with even more 'bad news'. It immediately became obvious that the headmistress did not understand and did not intend to learn to understand why the school was under police surveillance. The situation was quite ludicrous and I was in trouble because any attempt to laugh resulted in considerable pain originating from my rib fractures. I could only talk in a gasping sort of fashion and that did not help. I decided to take my daughter away for a while to a place of relative safety. In mid June Dudley Beath rang me. The court hearing was due to begin soon and he wanted me to come to Adelaide and spend a few days going through the evidence. At Sydney Airport I was surprised to meet Dr Richard Mulhearn. He originated from Grafton where his father was a well-known surgeon. Richard and I went through medical school together and I had followed his rise through the profession with interest. He was going to Adelaide on the same flight as myself. By coincidence my first cousin, Jim Conomos, was also on that plane. He was intending to visit his sister in Adelaide. We spent a pleasant hour talking together about old times and family affairs. I cannot recall mentioning the opal robbery but it must have been obvious to Richard and Jim that something strange was going on because when the plane taxied to a stop in Adelaide the

136

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

passengers were requested to remain seated while a detective, who introduced himself as 'Doc', boarded and escorted me away to a waiting police car. I never did find out what Richard thought. It looked as if I had been arrested. I was able to explain the situation to Cousin Jim at a later date. Dudley Beath took me out to dinner. This was followed by a visit to a health studio where we enjoyed the luxury of a sauna followed by a few minutes in a sunroom. It was while we were there that Dudley asked me if I knew which way the stolen opal was disposed of. I replied that I did. Then Dudley summarised the pathway of its distribution and sale. What he knew and what I knew matched exactly. The next afternoon was spent at Police Headquarters. Slowly, in detail, we began to sift through the mass of evidence including transcripts of my tape recordings. I was told that a preliminary court hearing would be held either in Adelaide or Coober Pedy. If it was in Coober Pedy a seat would be reserved for me on the police plane and adequate protection for me arranged. That evening was also spent studying the evidence. Doc took me to my motel and arranged to collect me in the morning. I went to sleep contented with the knowledge that, at long last, the whole dirty bag of tricks would be revealed. Doc was surprisingly late picking me up in the morning. He took me to police headquarters where he and Dudley assisted me in the sorting out of more evidence. Then Dudley was called away. Later Doc was also called away leaving me alone for over one hour wondering what was going on. Eventually I got my answer. Doc came back by himself. What he said shook me considerably, 'Dudley is sick and has been sent away. We will not need you now.'

137

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

I was astonished. It was as if someone had exploded a case of gelignite right where I was sitting! I declared, 'I will see Dunstan immediately!' Then I walked out of the building and caught a cab to his office. 'Mr. Dunstan is out,' I was told. 'Then can I make an appointment to see him?' 'No,' I was told very firmly. 'This is important,' I said. 'Sorry,' was the only answer. There are many ways to skin a cat. Outside the office there was a phone. I tried to ring Don Dunstan. I rang many times during the next few days, wrote letters and sent telegrams. It was a waste of time. Furious, almost beyond measure, I caught a plane to Coober Pedy. There I discovered that a preliminary hearing had already been completed. I was told my evidence had been presented but not accepted because I wasn't there. Some miners thought I was either too scared to come or were in league with the robbers. One man told me that he sat in the court room for a while, then walked out in disgust. In Bepie's store I met Big Steve. 'So they paid you too,' he sneered. What could I say? Johnny Andrea was understanding but furious. 'The magistrate was taken down the mine to inspect it for himself. I, amongst others, went with him. In front of everybody I dug out a thick piece of opal - about one-inch thick it was - and good stuff. The magistrate turned to his clerk and said, "Make a note that we saw traces." That is not bloody traces, I told him. It is opal. " Now I ask you. Is that bloody right? Eventually they decided to hold another court, probably in Adelaide.' Sick at heart I drove out to the Six Mile. Jack was there. The

138

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

neighbours were surprised to see me. 'You are game to come back alone,' they told me. 'You are not exactly popular.' I stayed for one month writing my diary and wandering through the desert. I had to admit that I was in love with this country. There was something about it that can grip a man, make him immune to its harshness and permit him to listen to its silence with reverence. It is called by some 'The Spell of the Inland'. To experience it is something that cannot be adequately described. At the same time, despite my experiences in Coober Pedy, I felt that my real life was about to begin. However, for Johnny Andrea and his team troubles had not ended. A court had eventually awarded them ownership of the claim but soon after they commenced work they were hit by another injunction. This time it was based on a mining law that stated something to the effect that a mine must be worked eight hours a day, five days a week unless a suspension of working has been granted. To complicate matters it was the responsibility of the owner of the claim to prove that he was working at any particular time. Of course, this is a ludicrous stipulation but the law is the law. It so happened that those who sought to grab the claim from Johnny and Co. selected a particular day that, according to them, the claim was not being worked. That was the day, unknown to them, that I was invited by Johnny to come down into the drive and record events with my diary, my trusty tape recorder and my camera. So it was a simple matter for me to attend the court hearing in Adelaide and present this material as evidence. This was, I realise, an enormous coincidence but it did happen. Obviously, my evidence was not expected and the court was virtually in a state of shock. Furthermore, strange though it may

139

MEDICAL PIO EER OF THE 20TH

NTURY

eem, the judge v. a on the side of the opp ition. I wa que lion d in great detail. about my movement during the day under con ideration. My anger wa ri ing and I felt that it wa necc ary to expo e the ham that wa upp ed to be a court hearing. The opportunity to do thi v. a eventually pre ented. The judge had been que tioning me about the early hours of the day. When 11 am came under consideration she snapped at me and a ked, 'What did you do then?' I replied, 'If you must know I went to the toilet and if you like I can tell you how many sheets of paper I used.' I wa hoping to be arrested. There would be publicity and the shameful tate of the administration of the law in South Australia would be exposed. 'I will charge you with contempt of court.' The judge declared. My answer was swift; 'Nothing can describe my contempt for this court.' I waited for the handcuffs. They didn't come. Instead the judge turned to the court clerk and ordered, 'Delete from... etc.' I had been checkmated! I left the court sick at heart. At a later date, in a High Court hearing, a more sympathetic judge said that he 'doubted the validity of the injunctions'. That had to be the understatement of the century. Before Johnny Andrea could finish cleaning out his claim there was one more robbery of its contents. This time the persons concerned were caught red handed after a brilliant piece of detective work by one of Johnny's relatives. It was well into 1967 when the claim and its story finally entered the pages of history. I felt that it should have been retained as a memorial to injustice and the greed of men. It was necessary for me to turn to my journalist friend for information concerning the result of the illegal mining and conspiracy

140

THE GREAT OPAL ROBBERY

charges. Eventually he was able to supply me with only a tit-bit. Three of the men received fines. Two were released on bonds and the others convicted without penalty. No other information was available. When I attempted to regain possession of my evidence I was told that it was all in the police station at Woomera. For the benefit of those who are unaware of the significance of Woomera, it was, at the time, a top-secret rocket base. To enter it one needed to have a security pass and there was no way that I could imagine how I could get one. But! One day I was reading the Australian Medical Journal. There was an advertisement in it that stated, 'Wanted urgently. Locum Medical Officer for Woomera'. In other words, a relieving medical officer was required. This was too good an opportunity to miss. I replied and was accepted. Dr O'Grady the medical superintendent rang me to say that my services would be welcome and I would commence work on a certain day. 'By the way,' he added, 'You will need to go through a security check.' Now I had never been a member of the Communist Party or been convicted of any crime. I thought that a security check would be routine. But it wasn't. Just as I was getting ready to fly to Woomera I received, from Dr O'Grady a telegram that simply stated, 'Regret. Position filled.' I was later to discover that the position was not filled. I had been failed on the security check, probably because of my role in the opal robbery. So I approached a powerful friend. He owed me a favour and thought for quite a few minutes before agreeing to help me obtain my evidence. His terms were strict. While he was alive I must not tell anyone how I got possession of it.

141

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY A few weeks later there was a knock on the front door of my mother's place in Rose Bay, Sydney, where I was staying. A gentleman introduced himself as a detective from a suburban police station and announced that he had a parcel for me. I accepted it, knowing that it contained my dairies, photographs, and tape recordings. To my surprise the detective began to walk away. 'Wait a minute,' I called. 'Don't you want a receipt?' He answered, 'No.' And that was that!

142

THE FASCINATION OF OPAL

CHAPTER 17 THE FASCINATION OF OPAL Before I proceed �ith �is chapter I must explain that the study of opal took place over many years and was intertwined with events involving my work as a doctor. It is impossible to accurately and clearly join everything together - the story would become a complicated mess and totally destroy the significance and meaning of it all. There are three points that should clarify why I want to include this study as an important part of my life. First, Australian opal is an exceptionally beautiful gemstone. In my eyes it is the most beautiful gemstone on earth. But, because it is poorly understood, much of its beauty passes unnoticed. In many ways only the 'initiated' are permitted to view, and at the same time, to appreciate its beauty. Second, to unlock its secrets, to understand it, to know it, and therefore to love it, became a passion. For a while I thought that nobody would ever be allowed to trespass into the true world of opal. There seemed to be a barrier, stubbornly defended by nature, that withstood penetration. Then I began to recall what some of the last survivors of the pioneers had, at different times - very often as they lay dying - told me. The terminology they created was, as I later came to realise, almost a divine inspiration. For some time, as I prodded and poked at the barrier, I failed to make any progress. Then, just when I needed inspiration it came in sudden and explosive bursts. There were four of these that will be detailed later. ( 1) The realisation that there are two 'types' of colour in opal- 'potch' and spectrum colours. (2) There are two types of blue - 'potch' blue and spectrum blue and this is the only colour in opal that can exist in these two forms. (3) Colours are arranged in three dimensions.

143

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY (4) To devise a basic classification all one had to do was to begin

with potch that is like clear glass, and gradually add a play of colours . . 1n vanous ways. The third point concerns the fact that opal is now Australia's national gemstone. If we are to value what this means and explain it to the outside world we should, at least, know what it is all about. We have something that no other country will ever possess. We should be, and will, I hope one day be, the envy of the whole world. We have every reason to feel particularly privileged and honoured. But first let us know what we have inherited. Living in Sydney after experiencing the turmoil in Coober Pedy was like returning home from a field of battle. There were wounds (both real and psychological) to be licked and I needed to be 'rehabilitated'. Occupational therapy was what I recommended for myself. I would write a book and tell the world about Coober Pedy. My diary, tape recordings and photographs would provide the material. Already prepared was a rough draft. All I needed was a publisher. This problem was solved by one of my ex-teachers - an obstetrician and gynaecologist of considerable note and ability named Stanley Devenish-Meares. He invited me to his home for dinner one evening. One other guest was present - Sam Ure-Smith - a well­ known publisher. Before the dinner was finished Sam had agreed to publish for me. There was one addition to be made to the manuscript. This would be a chapter describing the features of Australian opal and then, almost as an afterthought, Sam said. 'Would you include some photographs of different types of opal?' That seemed to be a reasonably easy task to accomplish. I had never dabbled in the field of macrophotography but could envisage

144

THE FASCINATION OF OPAL

few difficulties. In a truly scientific manner I approached the 'experts'. The Sydney agents for Nikon cameras referred me to a medical photographer based in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. The nature of his work demanded considerable skill and what I was shown was a revelation. Medical specimens could be photographed in a manner that almost brought them back to life. However, when I produced some opals and explained what I wanted to do I was told, 'I don't think you realise what a difficult task you are about to undertake.' I began my assignment with only one macro-lens, one light and a single flashgun. A relatively plain piece of opal was placed on the stage and I looked through the lens. Suddenly, I was in a different world. Instantly, I knew that I was 'on to something' - that I had been granted the privilege of being a pioneer - an explorer. I was looking at something utterly amazing and unique. But how could I describe what I saw? I couldn't. I couldn't even explain what I saw. Obviously, I had begun a long and difficult journey. Also, obviously, it would be a labour of love. Five years were to pass before I was able to sort the problems out. During that time I became deeply involved in Aboriginal infant health and the opal studies served as medication for my troubled mind. I took tens of thousands of photographs. I travelled widely, spoke to many individuals and thought back to some of the conversations I had in the past with the few remaining 'old-timers' at Lightning Ridge. Eventually everything came together and, as often happens when something is explored, I found that I had discovered very little. I had simply 'rediscovered' what had been known by the old-timers but had been lost with the passing of the years. Only a few fine details could be claimed by me as original discoveries.

145

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

There was, when I began my work, no clear-cut classification of opal. There was no simple method that enabled one to accurately describe an opal and arrive at a valuation. This was a serious handicap to the opal industry. It encouraged a degree of 'fraud'. Worse still, opals were in many ways like pretty girls. The superficial beauty could be dazzling and the desire to own one could make one fall in love with a particular stone and be quite oblivious to obvious faults. I had seen very experienced opal buyers fall into this trap. After purchasing big and expensive 'parcels' they realised that there were faults and the parcels had been overvalued. As I have already stated, opal consists of extremely minute sphere-like units of silicon dioxide stacked on each other. If the spheres are regular in size and the stacking arrangement is regular with each sphere directly above the one underneath a diffraction grating is produced. This allows incident white light to be split into the colours of the rainbow and a 'play of colours' - that is, areas where colours change with movements of the opal or incident light result. There are several complications to this simplified explanation. First, there is water between the spheres. This must play an important role in the production of the colour play but has not, to the best of my knowledge, been considered. If opal is dehydrated it becomes a grey­ white mess. Then one needs to explain the three dimensional arrangement of colours in the colour play and the role of background non-rainbow types of colours. While struggling to explain the nature of the colours I would look through the camera at various specimens and later go to sleep with questions racing through my brain. Good fortune was with me because sometimes I would wake suddenly and realise that I had

146

THE FASCINATION OF OPAL

the answer. Each time this happened I felt as if I was walking on air. I had discovered something - a privilege rarely awarded to human beings. First ' I realised that there were two fundamental types of colour in opal. There were the 'rainbow' or spectrum colours originating from the diffraction grating. These were emerging light rays generated when the incident white light was split into one or more of the colours of the spectrum. In another way they could be considered as originating from coloured lights within the opal. The second group of colours are like pigments or paints. I called them 'potch' colours because they are the same as those seen in the forms of opal that do not display a play of colour. The spectrum colours are, of course, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The potch colours, from a practical point of view, because there are others, are, colourless transparent (like clear glass), white, grey, blue and black. These are produced by the same mechanism that produces the colours in pigments and paint. Unlike the spectrum colours they do not appear to originate from coloured lights within the opal. There is only one colour that can be a spectrum colour or a potch colour and that is blue. The recognition of this simple fact was one of the inspirations that came to me one night. It was, I consider, the most important realisation of all - and it still excites me. Without knowing this, one cannot even begin to understand the nature of opal. Potch blue tends to be 'dull' and remains in the background. Spectrum blue is like a bright light and appears to be near the surface. I will explain more about this feature later. A particular portion of an opal may, from a particular angle of

147

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

view exhibit a particular colour. This may be a potch colour or a spectrum colour. As the opal or the light is moved that particular portion may change colour. If it does not it is a potch colour and, under these conditions, remains that potch colour. If the colour changes it can change to one or more of the spectrum colours. In other words, a potch colour may change to a spectrum colour; it may remain as the same potch colour but cannot change to another potch colour. A spectrum colour can change to another spectrum colour or it may change to a potch colour but only one potch colour. Sometimes a particular area may exhibit a variety of spectrum colours with movement of the opal. Sometimes only one colour is displayed. The most prized sequence is seen when a particular area exhibits a broad band of red, and with movement this is 'covered' by a sea of 'royal blue'. It is called 'red covered by the blue'. Whenever I see it I feel as if I am seeing nature's most wonderful display. If the red changes to potch blue the blue appears to be in the background. It is dull and the sequence is far from prized. There is, in a way, another type of colour seen in some opals. If a stone is more-or-less transparent, as white light moves through it the blue rays at one end of the spectrum, being small, are blocked by the sphere-like units and only the red rays continue and eventually emerge. I call this the 'red light phenomenon'. It is important because, if an opal is partially transparent, the 'deepness' of the emerging red is a good indication of quality. That is, the deeper the red the better the quality - a test that rarely fails. It enables one to accurately differentiate stones that are more or less transparent in a parcel and grade them for valuation purposes. With all this knowledge I was finally able to devise a method of fundamental classification. It depends on the nature of the background

148

THE FASCINATION OF OPAL

forming the opal. To begin, one takes glass-clear potch and 'adds' a faint play of colour. I stress 'play of colour' - not a pigment. This is called 'jelly opal', for obvious reasons. If the intensity of the colours in the colour play becomes one step richer we have what is called 'crystal opal'. By definition one must be able to view such an opal in depth - like looking into a crystal ball. It is important, therefore, that the intensity of the colours does not go beyond a certain point that makes viewing in depth impossible. Furthermore, the fundamental nature of crystal opal means that for maximum appreciation one must have a big body of opal to look into. In other words, a large stone is needed. Also, if there is a degree of opaqueness or 'cloudiness' it is not possible to clearly view in depth and true crystal features are lost. Going one step further, if the intensity if the colours becomes greater we leave the crystal range and, because the more intense colours include a modicum of blue (giving the opal a semi-dark appearance) we have what is called 'semi-black' opal. Holding such an opal up to a light will reveal that it is more-or-less transparent. When the blue in the colour play becomes very intense, the opal, when held in a hand and viewed from the face, appears to be opaque and very dark. When held up to a light, however, it is just possible to see through it. Light is still transmitted, emerging as red. This is called 'crystal-black' opal. If there is a background of white potch we have 'white opal'. If the background is grey potch we have 'grey opal'. If the opal has a background of dark blue, black or very dark grey potch we have 'black opal'. That is, it need not be true black; it may also be dark blue or ve ry dark grey. It is important that the opal be not just

149

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

opaque when viewed from the face. When held up to a light it must not transmit light. It must be totally opaque when viewed from the face. There are two types of black opal. The first is 'black' in its own right. The second is 'black' because it has a more or less transparent face layer backed by a band of opaque black, dark blue potch, or very dark grey potch. There is no difference in the values of these three types of 'black' opals, provided that other features are similar. There are many 'cross breeds'. Mixtures of all sorts are found - particularly between crystal and white. A mixed variety is not necessarily of less value than a pure variety. Everything depends on the exhibition of other features. Having disposed of a 'basic classification' it is now necessary to delve into 'subgroups'. There are several of these. The first is based on the pattern exhibited and there is an endless list of these - Harlequin, pinfire, broad flash, straw, Chinese writing and many more. The next is based on the field of origin, the nature of the rock in which the opal is formed and the method of deposition of the opal. There is, for example, nobby opal from Lightning Ridge, seam opal from Coober Pedy, boulder opal and Queensland opal matrix from Queensland. Each of these types has special characteristics. As a single feature, the 'brilliance' of a particular stone is, more than anything else, responsible for its beauty and, therefore, value. This is a difficult feature to describe ( which means that it is poorly understood). It involves a lack of 'cloudiness' and the brightness of emerging rays of colour. A finished opal that has not been subjected to anything but

150

THE FASCINATION OF OPAL cutting and polishing is known as a 'solid opal'. Sometimes, thin slices of opal are cemented onto slices of dark coloured potch or plastic creating what are known as 'doublets'. If a domed piece of quartz or clear plastic is cemented onto the face of a doublet the finished product is called a 'triplet'. Some doublets and triplets are particularly beautiful. Quality and value vary according to appearance. Generally, solid opals are valued above the other types. On some opal fields (Andamooka in South Australia) a porous type of rock is permeated with precious opal. When mined , this material lacks 'fire'. It looks like a muddy-grey, colours are difficult to see, and for many years it was simply thrown away. Then someone discovered that carbon could be deposited in the pores in the rock by a process involving soaking in sugar solution or honey, adding various other materials and applying heat. The deposited carbon acted as a 'background' to the opal in the rock rendering the colours brilliant and, often, startling in quality. This material is known as 'treated Andamooka matrix'. Finally, there is in existence true 'synthetic opal'. Ways have been devised to enable chemists to reproduce the stacking arrangement of minute spheres of silicon dioxide. The technology involved is constantly changing but there are characteristics of synthetic opal that permit identification. The most obvious of these is a 'lizard skin' appearance of the borders of the patches of colour. There are many 'faults' in opal. The most serious is the tendency to crack or craze spontaneously. All opal will crack if treated badly enough. The tendency varies with different types of opal and depends more than anything else on the place of origin and the type of opal. If a stone has been out of the ground for a long period and has not cracked the chances are that it will never crack. To forecast the

151

MEDI AL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY prohahility of cracking in a newly found stone requires con iderable exp �ricn c � nd knowledge. To detail this would be illogical because n w fields produce different types of opal and each type has its own haractcri tics. Top quality. tones arc extremely rare. I was fortunate enough to cc and photograph some of the best and have good reasons to remember how I came to record the features of two. When John Molyneux struck it rich at the Nine Mile in Lightning Ridge during the late 1960's there was the usual rush to peg claims around him. Amongst those who looked the field over was a man named Neville Bell. He was, by nature, a 'loner'. The noise bothered him. The crowd disturbed him. He liked the quietness of the bush and hated noise. So he walked away. He wandered for several miles until he found his paradise - a tree covered hill where nothing but the sound of a solitary bird disturbed him. That bird was a red-robin. To Neville this was a good sign so he pegged a claim and called it the 'Red Robin Claim'. At about forty-feet he bottomed on a magnificent black opal - seventeen and a half carats - named by him, for obvious reasons, 'The Red Robin' Neville only had one real friend in Lightning Ridge - Rex Preston. A few years before I had delivered one of his children. Now it was his time to be lucky because Neville Bell whispered in his ear. He pegged the claim next door to Neville and bottomed on seventy-three carats of utter perfection - a crystal opal the likes of which had never been seen and probably will never be seen again. A few days later I was driving around the Ridge when I saw Neville and Rex yarning under a tree. I stopped to talk to them. 'How are you going,' I asked Neville. 'Not bad,' he answered. Into one pocket went a hand and out came the Red Robin. I had difficulty

152

THE FASCINATION OF OPAL speaking, so great was the shock. 'Not bad!' Then what was 'good' like.? I asked Rex the same question. 'Not bad,' he answered. Into one pocket went a hand and out came the 'Crystal Princess'. I could not believe that what I was seeing was real. I held the Red Robin in one hand and the Crystal Princess in the other. I knew that I was in the possession of gems the likes of which had never been seen in all the great treasures owned by kings and queens down through the ages. It was a moment to remember. I was, unfortunately, in a difficult situation. My cameras were in Collarenebri, fifty miles away. 'I must photograph these stones,' I said. 'But I don't have my cameras with me.' That's O.K.', they both said together. 'Take them home.' So into one pocket went the Red Robin and into the other went the Crystal Princess. Never was a doctor placed in charge of such riches. I took dozens of photographs then six hours later drove back to Lightning Ridge. I had great difficulty locating Neville and Rex. When eventually I did find them and returned their stones they appeared quite unconcerned. It was as if I had just borrowed a cup of sugar. Some cup! Some sugar! The Red Robin has since been regarded as the 'gold standard' of black opal. Just to mention it is sufficient to make opal men bow their heads in reverence. The Crystal Princess was not so easily elevated to the deity and that was because its unique features were not understood. It had all the features required for a 'perfect' crystal opal. It was large. The colours in the colour play went right to the point beyond which viewing in depth would no longer be possible (and it would no longer be classified as 'crystal opal'), it lacked cloudiness that, if present would have reduced its appeal, and it was the right shape. I have never seen another large stone that was so

153

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY perfect in its specifications. I unashamedly fell in love with it. It is the only opal that had affected me in such a fashion and I know exactly why. Eventually, it was purchased by a collector in the USA. He may own it physically but I feel that I own it spiritually. Two books about opal were written by myself during the next few years. 'In Search of Opal' - an elaborately coloured publication - describes my experiences as an opal miner. 'Australian Precious Opal' endeavours to explain the features of opal, and shows how opal can be classified, understood and valued. Both were a labour of love, but cannot impart to the uninitiated the excitement of looking at and feeling nature's ultimate beauty.

154

THE DREAMT/ME BECKONS CHAPTER 18

THE DREAMTIME BECKONS In Coober Pedy, for the first time in my life, I came in contact with 'tribal' Aborigines. They spoke their own language, lived in appalling conditions, ate a mixture of 'white man's poison' (white flour and sugar) and a little natural 'bush tucker' - when they could find what had been left after Europeans had destroyed the ecology and made it impossible for Aborigines to roam as they once did. A few had achieved fame. Billy Pepper, as a young man, acted in a few films. In those times he was lean, fit and an excellent horse rider. He gained respect in his community as he rose through the ranks by a process of tribal initiation. When I first met him he had taken to the bottle. I found it difficult to believe that he was the man I had seen so magnificently displayed on the silver screen. Whenever I tried to photograph him he would attack me fiercely. On one occasion he hit me with an iron bar. Billy's dependence on the bottle made him commit the ultimate crime. One day, desperate for a drink, he stole the sacred tribal initiation tokens, known as 'tcheringas' and sold them to Old Ma Brewster, a white woman who owned a store in Coober Pedy. These tokens were the most sacred of the sacred. They were not supposed to be viewed by any woman, especially a white woman. Billy's crime could not, therefore, go unpunished. He was executed in a manner regarded as suitable for what he had done. I was later able to connect this with a story that was told to me by an ex-chemist-come-opal miner named Keith Hamilton. I will quote Keith's account as accurately as I can: 'Early in 1961 I was looking after the Lutheran Mission in Coober Pedy. A heat wave struck with temperatures that soared to 127

155

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY degrees in the shade. I remember how the little waxbill birds came in perishing from the desert. Believe it or not, wherever a tiny drop of water was to be found, they were drinking together with the hawks and crows. Nobody of sound mind would even think of travelling on such a day, so you can imagine how surprised I was when five Aborigines came to tell me that they intended to drive across to William Creek. I tried to persuade them not to undertake such a perilous journey but when I realised how determined they were I decided to inspect their vehicle and help in whatever way I could. They had an old Vauxhall tourer that was minus a hood. The tyres were so bad that I advised them to get some better ones that I had seen on the scrap heap. While they were doing this, one of them, a man named Maynard, had a troublesome tick-bite dressed by my wife. A check on their water supply was more encouraging two four-gallon tins and several smaller ones seemed more than adequate. I advised them to send a telegram ahead before they left and another one back when they were safely through. After the usual farewells I retreated to the comfort of a can of cold beer and almost forgot the entire episode. Two days passed without a telegram coming through. Then a traveller reported seeing a body on a track and there was real cause for alarm. I went to George Marks, a storekeeper, with a request for assistance that was immediately granted. We picked up Harry Hammerscholl who was a fair sort of a mechanic, Roy Smith, a mighty good Aboriginal tracker, plenty of water, some food and a few picks and shovels for we feared the worst. Fifty miles out we found the Vauxhall broken down. Apparently the radiator had leaked badly and precious drinking water had been

156

THE DREAMTIME BECKONS poured in in an endeavour to proceed further. For some reason or other the battery lead had been disconnected. Lying beside the car was a swag (a blanket roll). These two apparently meaningless findings were believed to have had special significance, as I was to discover later. On looking around we saw some footprints going up and down a dried-up creek, but instead of following them we decided to proceed further along the track where the body had been reported. In this direction we found the tracks of two men. One of them had been very weak because we could see the marks where he had fallen and been picked up by his mate. Five miles further on we found an empty one-gallon tin and the body of Maynard. I recognised it by the still fresh-looking dressing that had been applied to the tick­ bite. Poor man, he must have died in agony because he had crawled round and round a dead-finish tree and tom the skin from his hands and face in his efforts to scratch through the bark. Maggots, already fully-grown, and little black beetles were eating into his flesh. The stench was almost unbearable but we had to tolerate it as best we could while we dug a shallow grave. Harry tried to make a wooden cross. Without binding material or nails he had to split one piece and push the other one through it. I said a prayer but with the heat and all that went with it could not help thinking that the cross looked more like a pitchfork. Now there was only one set of tracks to follow. We could see how they faltered, until, after only a few more miles, we found the body of another man known as Jack-a-Boy. He had crawled under a mulga tree to die peacefully. As quickly as we could we buried him then hurried back to the Vauxhall in the hope of finding one man still alive.

157

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY Our party broke up there. Roy Smith and I moved up the dry creek but after only a few hundred yards Roy announced that he had seen the trail of a dingo crossing from the south. According to him this meant that no man was up further. If there was, the dingo would have run along the tracks. I refused to accept this as evidence and insisted on walking further. Roy simply stayed where he was. When I eventually gave up and returned I found him looking into the distance at a mob of circling galahs. 'That must be the Baggadina Creek water hole,' he said. I realised that there must be water in it and I estimated its distance at less than two miles. Considerably heartened by this we raced forward expecting to find the other three men alive. About a quarter of a mile from the hole I stopped suddenly and felt a shock go right through me. Sitting under a Coolebah tree were three bodies. Life had indeed passed away for them. They had not realised that water was so close. One may wonder how these men failed to discover it. I can only suggest that they were strangers from another district and had no knowledge of the desert. At this point Dick Nunn, who had come across from Anna Creek, joined us with a party of trackers. He had instructions not to bury any bodies because the policeman, expected next day, wanted to inspect them first. In the growing darkness we took our trucks onto a sandy ridge where a camp had been prepared for the night. The Aborigines moved about fifty yards away and soon had a separate fire going. I bedded down in the truck while the others spread their blankets on the other side. While dozing off I thought about the events of the day. The 158

THE DREAMT/ME BECKONS dead men had been such a fine looking group. Three months ago I had met them at the Eight Mile when they stopped to ask how far it was to Coober Pedy. Their English was perfect, their manners polite and their presence amongst the Aborigines in the reserve became strangely respected. I was contemplating this when I dozed wearily to sleep. I must have slept for only a few minutes when one of the Aborigines shook me awake. 'Hey Keith,' he said. 'Don't sleep here. Big snakes live on this ridge.' 'Go to hell,' I snorted. 'There are bigger ones where you are.' 'Well, can we have some tea and sugar?' he asked 'Help yourself,' I replied rather briefly because it did occur to me that this request was rather strange because they had full tucker­ bags. When he came back a few minutes later and asked for some food I realised that something was wrong. We were camping too close to the bodies. The Aborigines think that the spirits of the departed (known as 'mummels') stay near the body for a few days. If an Aborigine comes close they will tap him on the shoulder and take him with them. The mummels are afraid of white men. While they are near the Aborigines are safe. So, I was prepared to be pestered all night. Next, they asked me if I would like a cup of tea. I replied that I would and asked them to boil the billy. It turned out that they had one boiling all the time. I rolled up my swag, moved over amongst them and thought that I would at last get some sleep. However, the Aborigines were still restless. They told me that they wanted to return to the Vauxhall. I said that they could, provided they told me why. At fust they were hesitant about doing so but

159

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY after I promised to keep their secret they explained that the five men who died had been carrying sacred tokens all around Australia and had to end up at Ergot Springs. They were afraid that the policeman, who was coming tomorrow, might find the tokens and confiscate them. Because they were so sacred they wanted to find them first and hide them in a safe place. The disconnected battery lead and the swag lying alongside the car were probably deliberately placed clues as to where the tokens could be found. Of course, I let them go. Later, they returned and told me that they had carried out their mission in a satisfactory manner. Next morning word came through on the transistor radio that the policeman had been delayed. He asked the search party to wait for a few days until he arrived. 'Look here.' I told Dick, 'The temperature is going up all the time. We are just about half-perished ourselves. If we wait two days they will have to bury us too.' Dick agreed to ignore the policeman and help dig the graves. It was useless asking the Aborigines because they would not come near the bodies. The burying was not easy because the decay had set in quickly. We rolled them onto branches and dragged them into shallow trenches dug in the sand. When it was all over the Aborigines walked a little distance away and lit a fire. When it was well ablaze they kept putting different kinds of branches onto it until the smoke rose thick and high. Then they urged me to take off my clothes, as they were doing, and walk naked through the smoke. I was too tired to argue. Coughing and spluttering and feeling rather stupid I did as they asked. Finally, they told me that I had had enough and would be safe from the mummels.

160

THE DREAMT/ME BECKONS 'What ahoul the others?' I asked. 'We don't plurry worry about them. They can pray for thcmsdvc.,' they replied'.' Keith's story ended there. During the years that fo11owed I thought about it and attempted to arrivc at some sort of a conclusion or explanation for the events dcscrihed, but for a long time was unable to produce a satisfactory answer. ..ventually I was provided with some information that linked some previously unconnected events together. Recently, in September 1996, Gay Rose, from the town of Bingara, came to see me with her uncle, Don Connolly. This man had been a sound-recordist with a film crew that in 1957 travelled to CentraJ Australia to record the search for the remains of Lasseter. AustraJians know all about Lasseter. Many years ago he claimed that he found an enormous reef of gold in Central Australia but had 'lost' it when he nearly perished and was forced to return to civilisation. His attempt to rediscover this reef ended in his death and has been made famous in Ian ldriess's classical book 'Lasseter' s Last Ride'. During my childhood every Australian schoolboy knew all about Lasseter. I would not be exaggerating if I said that every Australian schoolboy dreamed about riding out there, across the desert and finding the lost reef. Don's party found a skeleton. It was European. It probably was Lasseter. When the skull was unearthed a photograph was taken. All members of the party lined up while one man held the skull. Don pointed out one of the Aborigines in the photograph and said, 'That is Jack-a Boy.' I thought that I was dreaming. How did Don know Jack-a Boy? Then I was hit with the name of another Aborigine in the photograph. This was Nose Peg, a man who entered my life twenty years later

161

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY in quite dramatic circumstances. Reality is, indeed, stranger than fiction. There are many millions of people in the world. The chances of two meeting in the circumstances relating to Don and I must be extremely remote. Keith Hamilton's story about the Baggidina Creek tragedy was possibly related to the murder of an Aborigine named Big Chimney, in Coober Pedy. According to Doug Snodgrass, (the policeman) he had stolen some sacred opal stones and, the refore, had to be executed. It appeared, however, that there was a ritual associated with this. The execution had to be carried out by a certain group of men at a certain time. Big Chimney was aware that he was going to be killed and did not seem unduly concerned. He spoke about it freely. In 1967 an Aborigine named Billy Benn murdered another Aborigine named Harry Neale at the Harts Range picnic race north of Alice Springs. Then he shot and wounded two policemen who attempted to arrest him. For a week or so there was a desert manhunt until the killer gave himself up. One night there was an item on the national radio that stated that the murder had been committed over the custody of sacred tribal tokens known as 'tcheringas'. I happened to hear that report. There was some added information. The tcheringas were supposed to be hidden in a cave on Ambalimbum Station owned by A. W. Cavenagh. After hearing about this I waited for newspaper reports. They were slow coming. Eventually I read that Harry Neale had tried to steal Billy Benn's wife and that was the reason for the murder. Billy was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity. So there were two very different versions of the one murder. I was never able to discover which one was correct.

162

THE DREAMT/ME BECKONS One final series of events turned my thinking towards Aborigines and made me reconsider the dreadful health problems suffered by them all. It concerned an area to the north west of Coober Pedy called 'Pussy Cat Creek'. I can blame Keith Hamilton for initiating me into this obsession. He would talk about many things that were fascinating in the extreme. Then one day I said, 'Keith, why don't you write one of your stories for me to read.' Keith thought for a while then answered, 'O.K. I will write about Pussy Cat Creek.' Sometime later Keith handed it to me. I had to sit down and read it immediately. The setting was certainly fitting for an opal story. The heat of the summer had begun with a vengeance. We sat in Keith's dugout trying to keep cool. The cat with his opal-studded collar dozed on the floor. Around me, in a fairly tidy state, was the paraphernalia of opal mining, and my chair was an old bucket. Twenty years ago, according to Keith, two men were sinking a bore for water about thirty miles north of Coober Pedy. One was Murray Neil, a white man. The other was an Aborigine whose name had been forgotten. This bore is marked on the map as 'Honeymoon Bore'. One day they were surprised to see an old prospector drive up in a battered Ford. Their surprise increased considerably when they were shown two 'sugar-bags' - full of good opal. These bags are a little larger than the average pillowcase. The prospector explained that he had been following the 'Breakaway Country' in the hope of finding opal when he stumbled on a patch of surface opal. He dug two shallow shafts, each less than six feet deep, because, working alone, he could not go deeper. The opal in the bags had come out of these shafts. There was plenty more just waiting to be removed. His intention was to celebrate for a while then return with some decent equipment.

163

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY The area was somewhere near a place he called Pussy Cat Creek. He realised that it would be hard to find again so he marked the spot by driving two sticks into the ground on opposite hills. One stick was a pointer. W hen lined up with the second stick it pointed to where the opal had been found. At the base of one of the sticks he left a note with the necessary instructions for his partner who was supposed to be following him. Murray never saw the prospector again. His celebration was too vigorous. In a drunken stupor he fell from a hotel verandah and was killed. His partner never turned up and the exact location of the opal was never known. Fifteen years later Murray was mustering cattle in the same area. By chance he came across the sticks. Recalling what the prospector had told him made him look for the note. It was still there but quite illegible. Murray had a quick look around but found nothing that suggested where the opal had come from. He did find a shallow trench that the prospector had dug in order to service something under his car and there were opal chips in that trench; evidence that the prospector had sat on one edge while he cleaned his opal. Later, in Coober Pedy, Murray told Keith Hamilton about it and suggested that they should go out together and look for the spot. Keith was only too happy to agree. But once again fate took a hand. On the day they were to set out something delayed them along the way and they had to tum back and plan to try another day. That day never came. Murray was called urgently to Western Australia. He married there but wrote to Keith explaining that he would soon return. That didn't happen. He haemorrhaged from a

164

THE DREAMT/ME BECKONS ga.._ tric ulcer and died. Keith never attempted to find the spot by hin1 elf. At my request Keith produced a map and pointed out the area of land involved and instantly I recalled something that had happened b fore I left Collarenebri to go to Coober Pedy. I had driven over to Lightning Ridge to visit Harold Hodge - the man who was regarded as the unofficial mayor of Lightning Ridge. Living next door to him were two alcoholic brothers - Syd and George Graham. They informed me that forty years previously they had gone to Central Australia and ridden camels about 200 miles westwards from the railhead at William Creek. There, they claimed, they had found a large amount of top quality opal. One day they gave a lift on their camels to an old Aboriginal man and a young Aboriginal girl. When they arrived at the Aboriginal camp the Aborigines killed the girl quickly and proceeded to kill the old man slowly. Then they attacked Syd and George. The brothers used their camel packs as shields and, fortunately had their guns. They were able to escape and eventually arrived in Broken Hill with the opal. There they got drunk. The opal was stolen and they returned penniless to Lightning Ridge. They had not dared, at the time, to return to Central Australia because they knew this would mean certain death. But now! Many years had passed. They felt safe. "Take us with you, doctor,' they said. 'We will show you where the opal is.' I looked at these two old drunken men and thought. 'These men are only trying to hitch a free ride to all the alcohol they can drink. We will get out into the middle of the desert, they will be drunk and there will be no opal'. So I politely declined to accept their

165

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY propo ition. Later, in Coober Pedy, and looking at Keith's map, I was beginning to feel that, maybe, the Graham boys did know what they were talking about. I decided to go and look for that fabulous mine. 'By the way,' Keith said, as I was about to depart. 'I should tell you that that place is supposed to be sacred to the Aborigines and they will not like you going into it. They claim that it is the centre of all the opal in the world and it is somehow supposed to be the centre of Aboriginal life and culture. Only the most highly initiated are supposed to enter it.' I listened, but the temptation was too great. I had to go. I never found opal. Instead I found the most beautiful place on earth. The hills and plains; even the colour of the sky fascinated me. There was something very special about it all. I took many photographs. I revelled in it and loved it but finally was forced to leave. In reality, however, I did not leave empty handed. It's as if something had inspired me. I knew it. I could feel it but could not name it. One year later I was back in Lightning Ridge. I showed some of my photographs to the Graham boys. Without hesitation they pointed to various landmarks, detailed directions and distances. This was their land. This was where they had found the opal. By then I was involved in something of much greater importance than opal and I could not return to Central Australia. With all this background of 'Aboriginal affairs' I needed only one more push to accelerate me towards a reconsideration of the problem of Aboriginal infant deaths. After the opal robbery I was in a sorry state - particularly psychologically. The world seemed to be a terrible place and I could see no joy in it. I was certainly not suicidal

166

THE DREAMT/ME BECKONS - I was just disillusioned - and I hated everybody. I drove out alone, where there were no roads, into the desert one night and when I could go no further was forced to stop and go to sleep. When I awoke in the morning I found myself near a camp of Aborigines. Some of them I had met in Coober Pedy. They must have sensed my need because they more or less psychologically cared for me until my brain had cleared and I felt more like a normal man. Having such contact, for the first time, with semi-tribal Aborigines 1nade me realise that they were fundamentally intelligent, caring and thoughtful. The mothers, in particular, cared for their babies and children. They cared deeply. They were as mystified as I was about the way they got sick and died. So I began to think. Slowly I began to relive my experiences and considered the few tenuous clues that were there. I cannot easily explain how I arrived at the decision I made. I only know that it was made with enormous confidence. I sang to myself during the one and a half thousand-mile drive to Sydney. I sang songs I composed about Pussy Cat Creek. I sang about the little black children and their flashing white teeth. I was forty years old but felt that my real life was about to begin.

167

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY

PART2 The road to discovery is paved with suffering. And it has no end.

168

THE DRAMATIC SOLUTION CHAPTER 19

THE DRAMATIC SOLUTION What I intended to do was fundamentally simple. It was based on a erie of observations that I had made in the past and the pos ibility of the existence of two factors that I had been thinking about. The observations could be listed as follows 1. None of the infant deaths were expected. That is, the infants were either apparently well or were suffering from an apparently trivial illness. Then, suddenly, a variety of catastrophic events followed. None of these could be explained. 2. There was one exception to this. Some infants were excessively irritable before death. Sometimes the irritability was extreme, with a clinical picture resembling meningitis or encephalitis. 3. Some infants suddenly became unconscious before death. 4. Some infants suddenly went into a strange state of shock before death and could not be resuscitated. 5. In all cases autopsies failed to explain why the infants died. 6. Why was there such an obvious clinical improvement in the little boy who had been given an injection of Vitamin C by Dr Harbison? 7. I had supplemented most of the infants who died, with vitamin preparations. 8. Added to this were the strange liver changes that I sometimes observed during autopsies. They were insufficient to explain death and pathologists who examined sections from these livers were not impressed sufficiently to describe the changes as abnormal.

169

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY So, I thought, 'Maybe, when these kids are sick they cannot fully absorb the Vitamin C if it is given orally. Maybe, when they get sick they need more than the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C. Maybe, if I give a large dose by injection I will get the clinical response that I need'. There was, as I later found, another more likely explanation. Vitamin C, when administered by injection, results in a blood level much higher than can be achieved by oral administration. Under some circumstances only high levels, achieved by injection, will rectify some problems. I must stress that I had not read anything in the literature that suggested that this should be done. Nor had I talked to colleagues about the idea that I had developed. In one way it was just an idea. Why was I so confident that it would work? I was not just confident. I was certain it would work. The memory of the little patient I had sent to Dr Harbison was clearly imprinted in my brain. The improvement in his general condition after he was given an injection of Vitamin C may not have been obvious to most doctors, but to me it was. I had not seen anything like it in all my years of practice. In my mind I could visualise many infants who died. I had sat by their bedsides and watched every breath they made and every response. I saw the way their faces reflected subtle differences to the expressions displayed by 'normal' infants. It was as if they were pleading for help, pleading to me for a chance to live. All this had been reversed in one patient by one injection. Only one possibility existed. The combination of factors would allow no other explanation. It had to be the injection of Vitamin C. The only problem was for me to get into a situation where I had access to Aboriginal infants. This was soon solved. December, 1967. I was cooling my heels in Sydney wondering

170

THE DRAMATIC SOLUTION

how I could achieve my aim when the telephone rang. On the other end of the line was Tom Clark from Collarenebri. 'Our doctor is leaving, Will you come back?' It was like asking me to accept a million dollars. Collarenebri had not changed much during my absence of three years. There had been some more infant deaths, the roads appeared to be a little worse for wear and the summer heat had dried the country into a dust bowl. I carried my bags into the doctor's residence, next to the hospital, and as I dropped them onto the floor, heard the phone ring. 'I have little Mary ...an Aboriginal baby here. Seems to have meningitis. What will I do with her?' 'This is it,' I thought. 'It has to be.' One hour later Mary arrived. She was certainly irritable. Her head was arched back and even blind Freddie could see that she was seriously ill. The matron at the hospital was convinced that the diagnosis was meningitis so she prepared for a lumbar puncture for the removal of spinal fluid that would permit confirmation of the diagnosis and correct treatment. I had, however, seen this sort of problem before. Lumbar punctures performed by me had been negative and the infants died. Certainly, the diagnosis could have been meningitis, but if my thoughts were correct and Vitamin C deficiency was involved, the trauma of inserting a needle into the spinal canal might result in a haemorrhage that might cause spinal cord paralysis. So I decided to give an injection of Vitamin C, wait for twenty minute, and observe the response. If this was not satisfactory I would perform the lumbar puncture. The matron, who had not previously known me, did not agree

171

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY with this program of management. She was concerned hccausc, according to her teaching, even twenty minutes delay in commencing treatment for meningitis could result in unacceptable complicati< ns or death. Together we argued about this. There was no agreement so the Matron decided that I was some sort of lunatic and for little Mary's sake she should take her away to a 'proper' doctor in a neighbouring town. We actually fought physically for the possession of Mary. It was like a tug or war. Being a male, and stronger, r won. In went an injection of Vitamin C - 100 mg. J waited a few minutes and could not observe a response so Ifollowed a Greek law that states that if one ounce does some good then two ounces wiJI do twice as much good. In went another injection, then another and another. In the end I lost count. A photograph that I took later c1early shows multiple puncture wounds in Mary's bottom. I probably gave as many as six injections, each consisting of 100 mg. After half an hour Mary was virtually normal. It was hard to believe, but I had performed a miracle! I must stress at this stage that such a rapid and dramatic response is not always obtained. There are variables that influence the response. These involve the time between the onset of the symptoms and the commencement of treatment. The earlier that treatment is commenced the better and more rapid is the response. If an infant has been in a deep state of unconsciousness or shock for a long time the condition may not be reversible. A physician needs to be clinically astute and ensure that any treatable disease is recognised and treated correctly. For example, there may be a variety of tonsillitis or true meningitis precipitating the irritability etc. It is necessary to recognise this and administer the appropriate treatment and antibiotic. Mostly, in the Aboriginal

172

THE DRAMATIC SOLUTION patients I cared for, there was only an apparently 'simple' viral infection. Autopsies on those who died did not reveal a serious viral or bacterial infection. Then, depending on the nature of the precipitating factor, it may be necessary to administer huge doses of Vitamin C intravenously. More will be said about this later. For reasons that I do not fully understand, different viral and different bacterial infections tend to trigger different clinical responses. For example, one epidemic may trigger unconsciousness while another will trigger unexplained shock. It was not long before I was able to demonstrate a-dramatic reversal of unexplained unconsciousness. A little boy was brought to me because he was suffering from a viral infection. He appeared to be quite happy. He smiled at me, talked normally and in other circumstances one would have no reason for concern. However, when I examined him I thought that his gums were abnormal. It is not always easy to diagnose early 'scurvy gums' because gum infections and poor oral hygiene complicate the picture. However, the possibility of scurvy was there and I knew that this boy would be a candidate for sudden deterioration - either sudden shock or sudden unconsciousness. So I admitted him to hospital for observation, but did not order an injection of Vitamin C, because I wanted to collect a specimen of urine and estimate its Vitamin C content. The little fellow had difficulty passing a specimen when requested and several hours went by. Then, with dramatic suddenness, he became unconscious. I photographed him first and then administered the Vitamin C. He was slow responding, but in a few hours he was acting quite normally. Following this, I found that any viral infection, including measles 173

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY and hepatitis, could be dramatically 'cured' by administering Vitamin C intravenously in big doses - provided that treatment was commenced early. Now, obviously, I had a very powerful weapon. By using the Vitamin C by injection in addition to standard medical procedures I was able to reduce the infant mortality rate from one of the highest in the world to the lowest in the world - and I did this, in a manner of speaking, overnight. The excitement of this discovery effected me to such an extent that for a long while I thought about and talked about little else. It was such a simple answer to many extremely serious and difficult problems. Vitamin C was safe, free from toxic side effects, relatively cheap and freely available. There would be little need in the future for new infant coffins. No longer would the tears of mothers tear at my soul and the wailing in the Aboriginal camp would no longer haunt me.

174

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS" CHAPTER 20 THE SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME, 'SIDS'. 'SIDS' ..... Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as Cot Death and Crib Death. 'SUSS' ... .Sudden Unexpected Shock Syndrome. 'SUUS' .. . Sudden Unexpected Unconscious Syndrome In a simplified fashion these terms mean that death, or shock or unconsciousness followed by death, occurs in infants who were previously well, or were suffering from apparently trivial complaints - and autopsies failed to explain why. The subject, however, with modem knowledge, is too involved to permit adherence to such a strict definition. It would be more accurate to state that according to most accepted criteria autopsies failed to explain why the infants died. Furthermore, SIDS, SUSS and SUUS can occur in children and adults. Clinical experience suggests (it really 'proves') to me that there is an intimate relationship between SIDS, SUSS and SUUS - with the understanding that autopsies fail to offer any other explanation for death. Depending on variations in a multitude of factors, the end result in some infants will be SIDS. In others it will be SUSS or SUUS. The important issue is that SUSS and SUUS can, if treated early, be reversed by the administration of Vitamin C by injection in 'massive' amounts. SIDS is a 'garbage bin' diagnosis. That is, when everything else has been excluded (using accepted criteria) the diagnosis is made. Nowadays, with modern technology and knowledge, all sorts of 'abnormalities' have been found in SIDS cases and all sorts of 'causes' suggested by epidemiological studies. Scientists have a great time discovering new causes, biochemical disturbances, viruses.

175

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY bacteria, immune faults, problems with diets, immune factors, the environment, psychological disturbances and almost anything else one would care to name. There is a large element of truth in all of this because the factors leading up to a SIDS death are extremely complex and varied. However, everything leads to a final common

pathway. It is this final common pathway that can, in most cases, be terminated with injections of Vitamin C. In a typical SIDS death, breathing ceases. Something happens to the breathing centre in the brain and it stops functioning. Sometimes, probably often, the cessation of breathing is heralded by short periods of cessation of breathing - so called 'apnoea' periods. All infants suffer from apnoea periods. There is no real agreement as to where 'normal' episodes end and 'abnormal' episodes begin. Various monitors have been devised to record apnoea periods. Some of these sound an alarm when episodes are outside the 'normal' levels. Some monitors are 'invasive' - that is, leads of some sort must be attached to the infant's body. Others do not rely on such mechanisms. They use electronic marvels with sensors that sort various movements and record breathing only or whatever else is thought important. One monitor, named Cotwatch, designed by the late Leif Carlson, uses a flat pad which is inserted under a standard cot mattress and connected to one of the electronic marvels that can be set to record all sorts of movements, even heart beats, and, of course, respirations and episodes of apnoea. When desirable, an alarm can be included. A problem arises because in many infants apnoea episodes are frequent, and if alarms are included in monitors, parents are constantly being terrified. Many doctors, without understanding why, are

176

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS" therefore critical of monitors. However, frequent alarm mean frequent apnoea episodes, and the warnings are just what are needed to alert parents and physicians to the possibility of impending death. In other words, show me an infant who has frequent and/or long apnoea episodes and I will show you an infant at risk of sudden death. Assuming that a proper monitor, such as Cotwatch, has been used, alarms should be accepted for what they are, causes for apnoea episodes looked for, and remedies, including the administration of Vitamin C, probably by injection, applied. Too often I hear something like, 'The bloody thing alarms unnecessarily. Get rid of it.' I wonder about the science underlying such statements. I am not suggesting that all infants should be monitored all the time. There are special risk categories that include 'near miss cot death' (where an inf ant has been found not breathing and some form of resuscitation successfully applied) and premature infants receiving routine vaccinations. A paper printed in The Journal of Paediatrics, May 1997;130:746-51, highlights this last point 'Conclusion: The temporal association obser ved between immunisation of premature infants and a transient increase or recurrence of apnoea after vaccination merits further study. Cardiorespiratory monitoring of these infants after immunisation may be advisable. ' Immunisations for premature infants should be delayed. This statement will result in a scream from the medical establishment but I believe that, in the circumstances under consideration, delaying immunisations will result in a lower infant mortality rate and healthier children. The reason why the breathing centre in the brain ceases to function properly in some infants is not fully understood. However, I

177

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY do know that the administration of Vitamin C, if necessary by injection, in most cases (I am tempted to state 'all') will rectify the problem and save life. If this were not so I would never have achieved the dramatic drop in the infant mortality rate in Collarenebri. How does Vitamin C work? I cannot answer that question in a manner that is totally unquestionable. Its role as a 'detoxifier' of endotoxin is dominant. Many interesting lines of thought become apparent when I discuss the problem with immunologists and biochemists but nothing is solid enough to withstand criticism. Probably, what is needed for an understanding already exists in the scientific world. Scattered here and there in the brains of men and women, and the libraries of the world there could exist the information that is needed. If authorities would get off their high horses, forget about their prejudices, and sincerely consider the problem of SIDS they might find that an answer to understanding already exists. Claims by authorities such as, 'We have already reduced the incidence of SIDS by 50% by encouraging mothers to breast feed, not to smoke and not to lie their infants on their tummies' need to be considered. Proper breast-feeding obviously works. That practice alone reduces the incidence of SIDS substantially. So does the practice of not smoking. This reduces the need for Vitamin C. I have some doubts about the value of not lying an infant on its stomach, but hesitate, with the limited amount of knowledge available, to advise otherwise. Furthermore, much depends on how statistics are gathered. Until recently most autopsies on infants were carried out in a haphazard fashion. Often, no autopsies were performed. Now, in most parts of the western world, strict criteria are applied and autopsies performed by specialist teams. Many cases that previously

178

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS" would be considered as qualifying for the diagnosis of SIDS are now excluded. This artificially reduces the incidence compared to pre-autop y and specialised consideration times. To accurately follow r cent trends one needs to look at the overall infant mortality rate. This is the bottom line and cannot be easily manipulated. At this stage, in order to understand some more of the reasons why I link SUSS and SUUS to SIDS, it is necessary to consider how the e conditions develop and how I found they could be reversed. Obviously, knowledge is far from complete but sufficient is known to permit prevention, to a large extent. Mainly involved is a study of the immune system, much of which is in the gut. In an adult this portion of the immune system is equivalent in total volume to the volume of the brain. Like everything else in the body the immune system depends on genes for its development and function. Genes are inherited from mothers and fathers. They are not static arrangements. A host of factors can 'improve' them or 'degenerate' them. It is likely that throughout life some genes can be added to the gene pool, some deleted and some mutated. Good diets, good environments and good life-styles may influence gene expression and thus influence the function of the immune system. Thus, we are to a large extent dependent on our grandparents and parents for properly functioning immune systems not only for our genetic inheritance but also for the conditioning of our dietary habits. Problems are likely if, for example, a parent is a heavy smoker, because, amongst other problems, this increases the utilisation of VitaminC. In many parts of the world sperm counts in men are falling and the numbers of abnormal sperms increasing, together with larger

179

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY numbers of sperms with low motility. It is known that simply by supplementing men suffering from this problem with about 1,000 mg of Vitamin C daily, alone, that, in most cases, sperm counts rise to normal, abnormal forms become fewer and motility becomes normal, (Annals Of The New York Academy Of Sciences, Volume 498, July 7, 1987, The Third Conference On Vitamin C, Effects of Ascorbic Acid On Male Fertility, pages 312-323, Earl B. Dawson, William A Harris, Willliam E. Rankin, Leonard A. Carpentier, and William J. McGanity, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas 77550). Why, then, is this simple treatment not universally used? I do not know the answer to that. Several factors, during pregnancy, are known to affect unborn children. Smoking, once again, is an undisputed example. Diets play a role and environments have become of utmost importance. Some medications, including some antibiotics, antihistamines and iron supplements can introduce problems. I am not stating that such medications should never be used. I am saying that problems exist and should be considered. Antibiotics can alter the nature of organisms in the gut that are normally essential for life. Gastrointestinal immunity is then affected and a vicious cycle can commence. Antihistamines, sometimes used in cough mixtures and as anti-allergy medications, can result in respiratory disorders including respiratory arrest. Antihistamine-containing cough mixtures should never be given to infants or children. Iron, if uncontrolled, can result in what are known as 'free radical reactions'. Some of these reactions are essential for life. Many are a menace. Nature uses various substances to control the bad reactions. These are the 'free radical scavengers' or 'antioxidants'. Vitamin C

180

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS" heads the list. Then there arc Vitamin E, zinc and selenium-dependent enzyme' in the liver, some form of Vitamin A and some fatty acids found in eed , oils and fish. If iron cannot be controlled by an adequate upply of antioxidants a series of very adverse chemical reactions take place. Thu , iron should always be taken with Vitamin C and other antioxidants. Authorities now accept the role played by cigarette smoke. Rarely mentioned are the damaging effects of various 'chemicals', including ome u ed domestically, insecticides, farm chemicals and car exhaust emi sions. If an infant's genes are good, immune responses are good, nutrition is good and there is available a plentiful supply of antioxidants; the insults hurled by the chemicals will be minimised. Endotoxin, produced from 'gram negative' bacteria in the gut or in infected food, and harmful chemicals introduced from the environment almost certainly affect immune responses and body biochemistry in a similar manner. When the two sources are together the risks of sudden death or serious illness is increased enormously. There are, of course, inflammatory responses associated with endotoxin formation although these are not necessarily clinically obvious. One fascinating paper, published in The Medical Journal of Australia (Vol 153, July 2, 1990, page 59) highlights the presence in a highly significant number of SIDS cases, 'cross-linked fibrin degradation products.' The conclusion is that these products 'probably reflect a massive consumptive coagulopathy...may be related to bacterial toxaemia. ' That is, there is a bleeding disorder. The significance of this will be considered in a later chapter dealing with The Shaken Baby Syndrome and immediately suggests (to someone like myself) that there is a connection between this

181

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY syndrome and SIDS. I am a firm believer in the value of routine vitamin and mineral supplements. If our environments were not polluted, and if our food was grown under ideal conditions, supplements would not be necessary. To depend on so-called 'good food' for an optimum supply of Vitamin C is a risk to health and life.

The next stage to consider in the development of the immune system occurs during labour. Some painkillers, anaesthetics and other medications used during labour can affect the unborn infant. I am not saying that these medications should not be used. I am saying that they should be used with caution. Next, we have the stage immediately after birth. A mother should be prepared for the art of proper breastfeeding. As soon as a baby is born (there are some contraindications) it should be placed on the breast. The first flow of breast milk, known as colostrum, contains some vital immune factors. It also encourages the colonisation of the infant's gut with the 'correct' type of bacteria, known as 'lactic acid bacteria'. Where these bacteria come from is unknown. Under ideal conditions they colonise the upper end of the gut and extend most of the way down. The extreme lower end becomes colonised by a variety of organisms including 'E.coli'. If proper breast-feeding is not immediately commenced after birth, even if just one drink of water is given, the E.coli organisms tend to 'migrate' up the gut. Sometimes this is followed by changes in the nature of the E.coli organisms leading to the production of endotoxin and antibiotic resistance. This can be the start of a multitude of digestive and immune problems from which some infants never escape. In some ways it is like playing Russian Roulette. Many infants will survive the insult.

182

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS" ome , 'ill uffer mild to evere health problems for months or years. The chan e of urvival during infancy, childhood and, probably, adulthood, are reduced considerably. Breast-feeding and breast milk are never always ideal. If a mother· s diet is bad, there may be a shortage of Vitamin C and other important nutrients in the breast milk. I never cease to be amazed by the vast number of investigations routinely carried out by obstetricians on expectant mothers. Yet, they place a baby on a breast, the milk from which is never tested. It is always assumed that the breast milk is 'right . Some assumption! Glen Dettman (a microbiologist whose role in my work is detailed in a later chapter) demonstrated, clearly, that many samples of fresh breast milk contained little or no Vitamin C. Where, then, does the infant get its Vitamin C? Certainly it does not come from fresh air. Next, an infant's environment plays a critical role. Pollution, including cigarette smoke, can influence the developing immune system. Even excessive noise, unnecessary disturbances and a 'non­ loving' environment can result in adverse effects. Antibiotics, administered to an infant, can affect the organisms in the gut and gut immunology. Once again, I am not saying that antibiotics should never be used. I am simply highlighting problems. Some years ago I was waiting in the airport at Fiji when a mother carrying an infant girl approached me. She told me that she had taken her to a local doctor because she had a 'cold' with a cough. Two mixtures had been prescribed - an antibiotic and an antihistamine type cough syrup. I was asked if these medications were safe. My answer was to the effect that the antibiotic was probably necessary but under no circumstances must the cough mixture be administered. 183

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY A few hours later, half way to Sydney, in midair above the Pacific, I was asked by the cabin crew to see a little boy. I found, to my surprise, that his father worked in the Stafford General Infirmary, my old hospital in England. The boy had been taken to a doctor who had prescribed the same two mixtures given to the little girl. Standard doses were administered in the airport at Fiji. One hour later the little fellow was excessively drowsy. Soon afterwards he was partially unconscious. I had some Vitamin C powder in my bag. I managed to get some of this, dissolved in water, down his throat and by the time the plane landed in Sydney he had recovered. Excessive reactions to sedatives, paracetamol, and antihistamines can suddenly develop in infants who, at other times, do not react in such a manner. I am uncertain of the mechanism involved but feel that the Vitamin C status of the infant plays a critical role. Apart from the failure to breast-feed, or breast-feed correctly, various factors can alter the distribution of lactic acid type bacteria, E.coli and other gram negative organisms in an infant's gut. Exposure to heat or cold, stress of any sort, an infection, (bacterial or viral), some medications, especially antibiotics and iron mixtures, and the administration of vaccines, can result in an upward migration of E.coli organisms in the gut, gut immune problems, and a change in the distribution of the many different species of 'gram negative' (and 'gram positive') organisms in the gut. Endotoxin mainly resides in the cell wall of gram-negative organisms such as E.coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Proteus, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, Enterobacteria and Neisseria. Endotoxic shock (usually fatal) can result from the release of large amounts of endotoxin into the blood stream. Smaller levels of endotoxin cause

184

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS"

fever and a wide variety of circulatory disturbances. When endotoxin is liberated into the gut lumen it is absorbed into the blood and taken, first, to the liver. There, attempts are made to 'detoxify' it. If the liver detoxification enzyme systems are functioning properly and if the amount of endotoxin produced is not excessive, then the endotoxin will be detoxified and none will escape through the liver into the general circulation. Several factors can disturb liver detoxification enzymes. The building blocks necessary for their formation - zinc, selenium, Vitamin C and other compounds may not be present in sufficient amounts. Or the enzyme systems can be chronically disturbed by genetic disorders, the production of small amounts of endotoxin or some other toxic substances from the gut (and, indirectly, from the environment or food). In acute cases, when the liver systems are overwhelmed there may be liver pain, liver tenderness and liver changes, as noted by myself during autopsies. When too much endotoxin escapes into the general circulation what happens will depend on the sensitivity of the particular organ attacked and this in tum depends on nutritional status, including vitamin and mineral status, and the degree of activity of the particular organ. To complicate matters the production of endotoxin goes with immune problems, so serious viral or bacterial infections can be added to problems already in motion. Furthermore, for reasons not fully understood, sensitivity to endotoxin increases dramatically under the same circumstances that lead to its production. This is almost certainly an allergic type of response. Thus, in some circumstances there is not only an increase in the production of endotoxin but an increased sensitivity. If anything was designed for a disaster then this is it! Signs of what I call 'endotoxaemia' depend on which organ or

185

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY organs are most affected. There may be excessive irritability, shock, unconsciousness, cessation of breathing or the meningitis­ encephalitis-like condition previously described. Furthermore, endotoxaemia can exist when bacteria are not present in the blood. That is, septicaemia or bacteraemia need not coexist. Because of its tremendous dependence on a continual supply of oxygen and glucose the brain is particularly affected by endotoxin. Endotoxin disturbs the blood vessels in the brain in several ways. The blood vessel walls become damaged, the so-called 'blood-brain' barrier, is broken, endotoxin leaks through to the brain cells, brain reserves of Vitamin C are quickly used and a deficiency of Vitamin C in vital parts of the brain results in a cessation of function. Apnoea and, possibly, death can follow. Sometimes when vital parts of the brain are disturbed there may be some initial apnoea but Vitamin C is collected from various parts of the body, reaches the brain and the emergency is averted. This is the so-called 'near miss' cot death. Obviously, if this happens there is a risk of further, possibly fatal, episodes. This mechanism is poorly understood and what I have just written may need to be modified to some extent as knowledge improves. However, my intention, here, is to stimulate thought and, therefore, some progress. The role of vaccines, particularly the whole-cell pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine can be understood when it is realised that this vaccine contains a variable and uncontrollable amount of endotoxin that is injected and absorbed, unaltered, into the blood. It does not even go first to the liver where attempts to detoxify it could be made. If an infant happens to be particularly sensitive to endotoxin when the vaccine is injected, brain damage or death can result. It should be now apparent that any infant with gastrointestinal

186

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS" problems - abnormal organisms, intestinal parasites, loose bowel motions resulting from the use of antibiotics, and malabsorption of food (including lactose intolerance) - is liable, when further stressed, to produce endotoxin and this can end in a SIDS, SUSS or SUUS. Furthermore, the bowel motions of these infants will, in the worst cases, smell vile. The smell is due to a mixture of undigested food, abnormal bacteria, abnormal viruses, intestinal parasites and, sometimes, broken down blood cells. If the Vitamin C status of an infant is borderline, the administration of a vaccine, particularly (but not only) pertussis vaccine, can result in endotoxaemia. This results in a severe reaction to the vaccine, a tremendous increase in the need for Vitamin C, and the precipitation of some of the signs and/or symptoms of acute scurvy. The onset of this may be so rapid that the classical signs of scurvy may be absent. Sudden death, sudden unconsciousness, sudden shock or sudden spontaneous bruising and haemorrhage (including brain and retinal haemorrhages) may occur. Haemorrhage and bruising in such cases can be wrongly attributed to the 'battered baby syndrome'. Beyond any doubt, sections of the medical establishment will scream loud and long when they read what I have just written. There will be denials that sudden, unexpected shock and sudden unexpected unconsciousness exist in the forms described by me, or claim that such episodes are rare and have no bearing on sudden infant deaths. During my travels in various parts of the world I have spoken to physicians who deny seeing such problems. Yet, everywhere, parents tell me about it and occasionally I will actually be confronted by a case. Something happens to large sections of the brains of physicians that render them incapable of seeing what is there. Or they attribute

187

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY the cause of a problem or a death to anything but the real one. To be fair I must accept that many infants, during the final hours or minute before death exhibit a multitude of abnormalities - organ failures and infections. W hen things go really wrong and an infant's immune responses are virtually totally destroyed any one or more of a vast range of infections and disorders can become apparent. At the end any one or more disorders may appear to dominate. Sometimes during autopsies, it may be necessary to mentally toss the abnormalities found into the air, select the one that hits the ground first and record that as 'the cause of death'. As with all medical disorders attention must always be paid to what is clearly known. For example, if an infant has a specific food intolerance (this is usually a lactose intolerance), provision of a diet that does not contain that substance can not only rectify the complications of that condition but may be life-saving. Furthermore, some specific bowel infections require specific therapy and, often, this means, despite what I have previously written, that a specific antibiotic must be administered. One author, J.A. Walker-Smith, whose career I have followed with interest for many years, stated, ' .. . In one study of 30 Australian Aboriginal children admitted to hospital for investigation with chronic diarrhoea ... every child had small intestinal mucosa! damage ...If this persists this may lead to

immunoincompetence...' This is an accurate summary of what is now known about this aspect of the problem. Unfortunately, in an otherwise excellent symposium on 'Diarrhoeal Diseases' organised by the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, January 1993, there was no mention of endotoxin.

188

THE SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, "SIDS"

The condition known as 'haemorrhagic shock and encephalopathy' is almost certainly a related condition to SIDS, SUSS and SUUS. It occurs predominantly in infants 3 to 8 months old but has been reported in a person age 15. Considered as possible causes include a reaction to intestinal toxins (endotoxin), an environmental toxin, and unidentified viruses or bacteria. Autopsies show diffuse cerebral oedema (fluid swelling) of the brain, focal brain haemorrhages, other coagulation disorders, and patchy swelling and degeneration of the liver. Reye's syndrome, another strange acute liver disorder occurring in some infants appears to be different to SIDS, SUSS and SUUS, but I suspect that there is a strong relationship. The 'toxic shock syndrome' almost certainly includes mechanisms similar to those discussed above. Haemorrhagic viral fevers, including severe measles, are certainly curable, in most cases, with intraven ous Vitamin C, provided treatment is commenced early. It would appear that many different diseases

may be treated with the specific nutrient Vitamin C. So maybe a new mindset needs to be set in place where clinicians consider specific disease conditions such as inadequate Vitamin C levels rather than just specific diseases alone. Many so-called specific diseases are related, mechanisms are related and, to a large extent, prevention and treatments are related. There is a complex series of factors involved in all disease patterns. What happens eventually depends on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the individual factors. In the end one individual will tend to gravitate towards a particular disease pattern while another may gravitate elsewhere. The error made by most physicians is to categorise diseases specifically. This prohibits the recognition

189

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY of relationships with other diseases and, therefore, sometimes, what may be lifesaving treatment is not administered. I once attended, as a guest of the professor of paediatrics, a 'clinical pathology' session in one of Australia's leading children's hospitals. Such meetings are a routine in all major hospitals. A case that was not properly diagnosed before death is selected for discussion. The particular case that day concerned a very young baby who suddenly developed respiratory distress and died. One paediatrician after another expressed an opinion about the cause. Someone thought that the problem was an unrecognised congenital heart defect. Someone else thought it was asthma. The discussion went on for sometime. Then the pathologist told the meeting that the autopsy had revealed 'pneumonia'. That was the end. There was no more discussion. The room was soon emptied. I sat there astonished. Nobody had bothered to ask why an apparently healthy baby suddenly developed pneumonia and died. There was no discussion about risk factors, immune factors or anything else. As far as the professor and doctors were concerned the cause of death was 'pneumonia' and that was that! Because of clinical experience with Vitamin C, and the careful observation of sick infants, I believe that most of the 'theory' I have presented is correct. I also believe, because of the importance of the subject, and the result I achieved in Collarenenbri, that it is not up to me to 'prove' my 'theory'. It is up to others who have facilities superior to mine to honestly investigate, try using Vitamin C and explore the various mechanisms involved. Only good can come from that. To blindly deny the existence of it all will mean more unnecessary deaths and much unnecessary suffering. I am prepared to accept criticism and advice, provided that this

190

TIil� sunDEN /)/�'ATH SYNDROME, "SIDS"

is constructive ,md fits inlo what I have observed clinically. Opposition lo my work has blocked. to a large extent, access to individuals who hav • the knowledge and facilities that are needed to forward understanding of infant illnc s patterns and SIDS. I hope that this ho >k will help to overcome some of those problems.

191

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 21 THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG. Some months after I commenced the Vitamin C treatment my brother James, and one of our cousins, Peter Crethary, visited me. James was certainly impressed by what he saw, but one thing worried him. Some members of the public and some doctors were already beginning to talk about my work. Someone might attempt to claim credit by publishing before me, and I would be left standing high and dry - without evidence to prove that I was the first to make the observation. I tried to explain to James that I was not ready to publish. I had not yet accumulated a series large enough to be significant. So James suggested that I should write a letter. I saw the wisdom in this and immediately typed one to the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. The publication of that letter coincided with the arrest of an Aboriginal woman, Nancy Young, from the Queensland town of Cunnamulla. She had been charged with manslaughter because, it was alleged, her infant, Evelyn, died because she was neglected. In 1968, when this story began, there were about two hundred Aborigines on the reservation at Cunnamulla. This consisted of eighteen tin shanties situated next to the cemetery against the town's sewerage outlet. Conditions were made even worse by a block of unsewered earth closets that were used as lavatories. Stagnant water lay in several places. Flies and mosquitoes thrived while infants died. One tap - and the water it produced was 'bad' - provided the sole supply for the entire reserve. Little wonder that respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases were common and that the infant death rate was high. The council's Health Inspector admitted that 'conditions here are in many respects worse than the conditions that exist in refugee villages in Vietnam.' It is likely that the local whites raised

192

THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG

money for Vietnam's refugees. There is no record of money having been raised for the Cunnamulla reservation. Nancy came to Cunnamulla when she was five with her mother, a woman who was to die in jail while serving a life sentence for the murder of the man with whom she was living. Nancy never knew her father - 'an incorrigible if incompetent petty thief.' At school she struggled badly to reach a standard of education equivalent to that of a nine-year old. At the age of thirteen she left school and worked for two years as a 'nurse' for white children. Her first baby was born when she was fifteen. Nine more followed in twelve years. Most of these came from a defacto relationship with Walter Turnbull, an Aborigine who mostly squandered irregular paychecks and left Nancy to provide for herself and her children. Nancy's average income during the year was six dollars per week. This was the amount with which a court of law was later to insist she 'adequately' feed herself and the children. When Evelyn died, five children were in welfare institutions, one had died, and two were living with Nancy in 'Mary McArthy's'. This shanty measured ten feet by twenty. Four adults and ten children slept in its one room. Nancy was twenty­ nine, but looked forty - a statement that meant little to me at the time but later developed considerable significance. Evelyn was born on February 23, 1968. Superficially, like most Aboriginal infants, she was healthy. When discharged to the reserve she weighed just over eight pounds. Nobody bothered to check the environment to which Evelyn was going. Nobody bothered to find out if Nancy could afford to feed her. Nobody bothered about anything, but Evelyn was sent to suffer for a crime she had not committed being born into a world that would not care for her. But the fact is that this care could have been provided. The machinery was there

193

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY - health workers and officials; money was available for welfare. The crime was that this was not provided. Of course, it could b , argued that this was Nancy's responsibility but think of her situation - developed over the years. Think of the entire Aboriginal problem. Was Nancy responsible? In retrospect I know that Evelyn, at birth, even though 'he appeared to be healthy, was not. Because of her poor diet her Vitamin C status was almost certainly low. Her immune responses, like that of almost all Aboriginal infants, must have been incapable of dealing with the insults about to be hurled at them. Nancy looked older than her years for a number of reason . From birth she had been reared on a diet that was excessive in refined carbohydrates and deficient in essential vitamins and mineral . This diet will age anyone. It is the reason why, today, Aboriginal men and women die twenty to thirty years before white Australians. Mental health and mental ability is affected together with the deterioration in physical health. So motivation is poor. These facts were never revealed to the court. It was simply assumed that Nancy was a drunkard, a useless, lazy and depraved woman. From the time of discharge from hospital as a newborn Evelyn was fed on a brand of powdered milk known as 'Sunshine Milk'. This was never intended to be a food for infants and was not fortified with vitamins. However, it was a 'standard' food for infants in many parts of Australia. Problems only arose when vitamins were not added. Nancy had not been told to do this. She had raised other infants on unfortified Sunshine Milk and they appeared to manage well enough. At the age of six weeks Evelyn weighed ten pounds - very much under weight for age. She had 'gastroenteritis' for which she

194

THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG was admitted to hospital for several days. Nobody seemed concerned about her low weight gain. When she was discharged, her mother was advised to feed her with vegetables, potato and pumpkin. Questioned about this after her arrest, Nancy revealed the first serious faults in the system of health care for Aboriginal infants in Cunnamulla. A policeman said to her, 'It does not seem likely that anyone would prescribe or advise that sort of diet for a six week old child.' Nancy replied that 'Sister' (a trained nurse) had given her that advice. In actual fact, even though Evelyn was so young, such a diet, up to a point, may have suited her - but only if she was a healthy infant. Furthermore, Nancy did not have money to buy vegetables. At this stage nothing was done to assist Evelyn or advise Nancy how feedings should be prepared. No arrangements were made for a follow-up. Nothing was said about the low weight gain or the fact that even while in hospital weight gain had been almost zero. Thus, for two months, Evelyn ran the gauntlet of reserve conditions, poor diet and infections. It is a miracle that she survived as long as she did. On Wednesday, July 3, 1968, Evelyn was ill. Nancy thought that she had a cold. On Thursday morning she looked better. Nancy went out and left her with Mary McCarthy. She did not return until Friday afternoon. When questioned as to what she did for Evelyn, Nancy replied, 'I gave her custard, she had a bottle.' When further questioned she said, 'She didn't have custard, she had a bottle.' The night of Saturday, July 6 was bitterly cold. At midnight Nancy wrapped Evelyn in a blanket and commenced the long journey on foot to the hospital. The nurse admitted Evelyn but did not think her condition was serious enough to call the doctor. The only treatment given at this stage was a clean bed and glucose water by

195

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY mouth. Nine hours later, during routine rounds, the local doctor examined Evelyn. His evidence, given during the preliminary hearing, makes very sad reading. According to him, Evelyn was normal at birth. When he saw her on the morning of July 7. 'She was in an emaciated and dirty state. She was very thin and weak. The eyes were sunken, the skin inelastic and dry. There were bruises over the sacrum and lower back, bruises about the right side of her chest and shoulders and both ankles and hands. The buttocks were excoriated and scalded. There was marked head contraction. Her temperature was normal. She was difficult to feed. That was her condition on admission. During the period she was in hospital she could not tolerate much fluid by mouth; a stomach tube was inserted and she was given fluids through this. But these were not tolerated very well. It was decided to insert a subcutaneous drip in order to give her further fluids. She did not respond to this, and she died at 4am on July 9. She had been treated with antibiotics, both penicillin and chloromycetin. Her temperature was elevated for the 24 hours prior to her death. About 4.30pm, on July 9, I conducted a post-mortem examination on the deceased.' 'On external examination there was extensive bruising over the sacrum, the lower back, about the ankles, wrists, shoulders and on the right side of the chest. There was a puncture mark on the right side of the chest posteriorly where a subcutaneous drip was inserted. On incising the bruised areas bruising was evident in the subcutaneous tissues. Examination of the cranial cavity was normal. On macroscopic examination there was patchy bronchopneumonia on both lower lobes of the lungs. Subsequent microscopic examination showed an acute interstitial pneumonitis. This was an acute

196

THE TRIAL OF NAN T YOUNG pneumonia. The pericardiun1, hcurt and blood vessels were nonnal. The stomach was small and pale. It contained a mall amount of milky material. There was a marked absence of fat from the mesenteric and retroperitoneal tissue . They are ti sues fixed to the intestines and in front of the muscles of the back. The liver appeared enlarged and pale. The other organs were normal. The immediate cause of death was bronchopneumonia. Contributing to her death was her state of malnutrition.' When questioned, the doctor gave evidence concerning his experiences in caring for Aboriginal infants. 'I am of the opinion that they fear illness and that in most instances they come for medical attention early in the stage of their sickness.' He also gave comparisons between progress among Aboriginal infants and white infants. 'Under normal circumstances their development compares favourably with that of a white child. And in many instances Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal babies often look fatter and brighter than white children.' Then he provided specific information concerning Evelyn's weight. The expected weight at four and a half months (the time of death) would be sixteen pounds. Evelyn weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces. The doctor continued by saying, 'It was obviously poorly nourished. It was very dehydrated as well and from my previous experience with children and babies in particular I have not seen a baby lose so much weight over this period of time... In my opinion the clinical condition was that of insufficient food and water over a long period of time, especially since I could find no evidence of disease when I examined her. I estimate that this would have gone on over a period of weeks'. A highlight of the evidence at this stage was a question concerning the onset of bronchopneumonia. The local doctor, in

197

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY answer to a specific question, stated that when he first examined Evelyn during her last admission to hospital he did not find evidence of disease. The bronchopneumonia appeared on July 8. The head retraction displayed by Evelyn was also highlighted. The local doctor stated, 'Retraction of the head can be found in a number of conditions in infancy including those in which the infant is wasted. This appears to be caused by wasting in the muscles around the neck.' He later added, 'The appearance is more of the arching of the head backwards.' Following this, Evelyn's first admission to hospital was discussed. In answer to a question concerning this and expected weight gain afterwards, the doctor said that he would expect some weight gain during the following two months. Detective Gustafson gave evidence, which included statements made to him by Nancy Young. ' There are a lot of bruises on the body of the child,' the detective said to Nancy, 'which indicate that she may have been belted by some person.' Nancy replied, 'I didn't.' She then stated that she did not suspect that Evelyn was ill until Wednesday morning. The first sign was a running nose. By Friday Evelyn had sore eyes, a running nose and was coughing and vomiting. After Evelyn died the detective took Nancy to see her body. The bruises on the inert body were pointed out, 'Watch closely while I point out the bruises on the child's body ... would you agree that the marks look like finger marks as if she had been grabbed hard or jabbed with the fingers?' Nancy agreed. She was then asked, 'Can you tell me how they got there?' she answered, 'No.' There were more questions concerning the bruising. 'Can you offer any explanation at all for the bruising which was present on the body of the child when she was admitted to hospital?' Then,

198

THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG 'Are you denying that you mishandled the child in any way to cause the bruising on the body?' Nancy continued to say, 'I didn't.' The line of questioning and the answers received left no doubt that the detective believed that the bruises were due to maltreatment. Following this came the most remarkable event of all. Nancy was not charged. Four months elapsed and another of her children was admitted to the Cunnamulla Hospital, apparently in a dirty and neglected state. This stirred the authorities into action. A warrant was issued and at 2.30am on Wednesday November 13, 1968 Nancy heard the dreaded words, 'I am arresting you for the unlawful killing of your child, Evelyn Patricia Young, on July 9, 1968.' During the preliminary hearing, evidence was given by several of Nancy's associates. They said that Evelyn was not 'belted' (beaten). The bruising could not be explained. The deplorable financial state of Nancy was made clear. So was her tendency to escape from reality and seek comfort in alcoholic binges. Walter Turnbull, Evelyn's father, admitted that he contributed little if anything to her welfare. When Nancy asked him for money he would sometimes assault her. Nancy pleaded 'not guilty'. Bail was set at $1,000. Much criticism has been aimed at this high bail figure. Nancy could not find five dollars and certainly not one thousand. Her friends could not raise this amount. Nancy had to spend nine months in jail while awaiting trial. Her children were denied maternal care for this period and no arrangements were made for their welfare. On April 14, 1969 Nancy boarded a train, at her own expense (an incredible fact), for her trial 300 miles away in Roma. The Public Defender commissioned to defend her was a man of rare calibre. At this stage 'guilty' was written over everything. A more hopeless defence would be difficult to imagine. Nancy's

199

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY chances of regaining her freedom were very remote. But the Defender did his homework well. Sometimes I think that it was the hand of God that led him to check the literature on Aboriginal infant deaths. He found many references to malnutrition, neglect, ignorance, socioeconomic problems and so forth. He also found the letter that I had written in response to the advice received from my brother, James. The Defender could now see that Evelyn might have died from causes not associated with criminal neglect or maltreatment. It was possible that Evelyn had scurvy! And that is why I received that famous phone call. A few days later I was reading transcripts of the court hearings. I sat down to a session of horror, grief, disbelief and sorrow. I cried as I thought of other Aboriginal infant deaths and of infant deaths all over the world. As I read the reports I relived my experiences with Aborigines. I visualised the days when Europeans first came to Australia and destroyed a culture so beautiful they could not understand. I thought about the diseases we introduced, the terror of the massacres and the way we took and violated the sanctity of the land. I thought of the children who died in my arms and I thought of those who survived. I remembered Billy Pepper, the deserts, the legends. All this I thought about and I knew how Nancy must have been suffering. She was, undoubtedly, Aboriginal in her thinking. Her associates like 'Ten Cent Jackson' the rainmaker were the last of the traditional Aborigines in the area. Her desire to live in her 'tribal home' and not move to a more tolerable place was another demonstration of her Aboriginal sensitivity. This meant that Nancy was subjected to the inability to fit into the European society. She had a feeling of

200

THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG

hop le, ,'ness and the desire to escape to the comfort of alcoholic binges. All Australians, I felt, should weep for Nancy - not charge her with manslaughter. The medical reports were a litany of horror. To me, the facts were clear. Evelyn had been fed for months on a diet of unfortified unshine Milk. Her recurrent colds (demonstrated by a running nose) and bouts of diarrhoea would have used up what little reserve of Vitamin C she possessed. Even before birth Evelyn was deficient because her mother's diet was deficient. Failure to thrive was, therefore, inevitable. If Nancy had been given correct advice concerning feedings after Evelyn's first admission to hospital, and if suitable welfare had been arranged, Evelyn would not have died. During Evelyn's last days, if a diagnosis of scurvy had been made instead of a diagnosis of maltreatment, the outlook may have been different. Bruising is a classical sign of scurvy. I had colour slides of some of my little Aboriginal patients that demonstrated this clearly. Furthermore, the head retraction, noted by the doctor, was, I had found, a symptom of scurvy and I had colour slides demonstrating this. 'Everybody' knew that Sunshine Milk was not specifically prepared as an infant formula milk. There were reasonable grounds to believe that this evidence should be sufficient to acquit Nancy. However, experiences in England had demonstrated to me that evidence from general practitioners was not always favourably considered. So I travelled to Sydney and asked a professor of paediatrics for help. When I explained the nature of the problem he agreed with what I thought and agreed to give evidence. Next day he rang me. He had reconsidered his position and would not give

201

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY evidence. Nancy's case had become a political hot potato! It had been plastered across the newspapers and television screens and the thoughts of ordinary Australians had begun to stir. Without 'expert' help, unfortunately, I was left as the sole witness for the defence. But I did have one weapon. I contacted the ABC television program, 'This Day Tonight' and spoke to the current affairs reporter, Frank Bennett. He agreed to cover the trial. I knew that Roma was a town with a mixed reputation. I believed that a jury selected from its citizens would have difficulty in understanding or learning to understand, what I was about to present. My meeting with the Public Defender in Roma was not encouraging. I expected him to greet me with the usual 'How are you and thank you for coming'. Instead I was hit with, 'We do not have a chance. Everyone is prejudiced.' I stared at him in disbelief. Frank Bennet was waiting for me. In just a few days I was to learn a great deal about this man. He appeared to have a proper grasp on the problem he was reporting. My first sight of the jury was reassuring. They looked like ordinary men and women. They were, obviously, family men and women, with spouses and children. Surely, they would listen to reason. I saw Nancy for the first time. She looked very much alone. The doctor from Cunnamulla was also there. It was his evidence that almost certainly convinced the jury that Evelyn was a murderer. The judge seemed to be an ordinary sort of a man. No cameras were allowed in the court. Frank Bennett sat near the back. I did not know that this was to be his hour of greatness, that what he was about to do for the Aboriginal people of Australia would embed him forever in the pages of history.

202

THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG My evidence, case histories and colour slides, was presented. My opinion was asked for and recorded. But it was a waste of time. Nancy was found guilty. I watched as she was escorted away to jail. But it was not just to any jail. It was to Boggo Road Jail where her mother died while she was serving a sentence for the murder of the man with whom she was living. To incarcerate an Aboriginal person near the spirit of a dead relative is the ultimate hell. I tried to persuade the authorities to take Nancy to another jail. They did not listen. Nancy was psychologically destroyed. That evening Frank Bennett presented the case to the people of Australia. In a program lasting less than ten minutes he exposed the entire case and its implications. He moved the whole of Australia. He moved the whole world. It is something that I will never forget and I like to think that his children know and recognise this because, a few months later, Frank was dead. Legal authorities became concerned about the implications of the case. A large meeting at the University of Sydney Law School condemned legal aspects of the high bail figure issued during the early hearing. The judge's comments on Nancy's failure to speak at her own trial and the failure to obtain specialist medical opinion to resolve the conflict between the two medical witnesses was highlighted. An appeal was lodged. Various medical authorities were approached for assistance. Most refused to help but one of my old teachers in Sydney (Dr Hamilton) stood fast. He placed the case in the hands of Dr Felix Arden, senior physician and specialist in paediatrics at the Royal Brisbane Children's Hospital, who issued a report that stated, ' It is reasonably possible that Evelyn was born with an abnormality of body biochemistry that was responsible for

203

MEDICAL PIONEER OF THE 20TH CENTURY her failure to thrive. Her treatment on arrival at hospital on July 7 was unusual and incorrect. Had she been treated in accordance with normal procedures (intravenous feedings and antibiotics) there was a reasonable possibility that her life would have been saved.' This was, in my opinion, a thinly veiled admission that Evelyn had scurvy. However, I expected that Nancy would be freed. She was not. The court had the audacity to ignore Dr Arden's report. I could not believe it. By this time Aboriginal people in Australia had united in an endeavour to help Nancy. The Australian public rallied and raised money for a further appeal. It was decided to take the case away from 'racist' Queensland and appeal to the High Court in Sydney. There was, obviously, going to be one hell of a showdown. As I always did when I needed advice I turned to my brother, James. I wanted to know if an exhumation and X-rays of long bones would reveal signs of scurvy. James was uncertain. He contacted an old friend in the United Kingdom and eventually a reply was received by telegram, 'Do not think that you would obtain evidence of scurvy from exhumation.' In other words, the bones would be deteriorated to such a degree that X-ray examinations would not reveal worthwhile information. At the same time that an appeal was launched in the High Court a petition for a pardon was dispatched to the Governor. I was against this because I considered that Nancy had not committed a crime that required a pardon. The outcome was made even more certain by an ABC documentary 'Out of Sight. Out of Mind' that highlighted the failure of the local hospital to provide prompt treatment for Evelyn. It exposed the town's racism, depicted the squalor on the reserve and concluded with a table of Aboriginal infant mortality

204

THE TRIAL OF NANCY YOUNG rate over a close-up of Evelyn's grave. The impression that this gave was, indeed, ugly. The Australian public, already angry and now prepared for almost any action that would get Nancy out of jail, demanded justice. The Australian government reacted with fear and banned the sale and rescreening of documentaries concerning the trial. Before the High Court appeal could be heard the Governor referred the case back to the Queensland Supreme Court on the grounds of 'fresh evidence'. Just how fresh this evidence was, is open to question. It consisted of an affidavit supplied by Dr David Jose of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. The affidavit stated that Evelyn's dehydration occurred suddenly, within forty-eight hours before admission to hospital on July 7. Prior to this the child would not have appeared to be in urgent need of medical attention to a medical practitioner, let alone an uneducated Aborigine. Her failure to thrive was probably due to a disorder of body biochemistry or because her food did not contain sufficient VitaminC. The court decided that, 'Had this evidence been in the hands of the defence at the trial the course of the trial, including the line of cross-examination of the doctor called in the crown case, the address to the jury and the summing-up of the Judge would have been cast in a different vein.' On November 5, Nancy was released from gaol- just two days before parole was due.

205

l\,II\DICAL PIONERR OF THE 20TH CENTURY CHAPTER 22 THE RESPONSE Th publicity surrounding the trial of Nancy Young, and the puhlkation or my letter in the Medical Journal of Australia, lifted me ft'