Synopsis

In the early decades of European settlement, Australia was free of some infectious diseases such as measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria which could not survive the long voyage to Australia. When these infections did arrive, as shipping times reduced, resistance was low and severe epidemics occurred, especially among children in the crowded slums of the cities, and among indigenous populations who were previously free of these infections. The high death rate among children was one of the main reasons for the foundation of the Melbourne Free Hospital for Sick Children in 1870, and frequent epidemics, especially of diphtheria and typhoid, were among the major challenges the hospital faced in its early years.

In the first twenty years of the 20th century, the hospital was confronted with major epidemics of polio, meningitis and Spanish influenza. The meningitis epidemics of 1901 and 1915 and the influenza pandemic of 1919 were serious, but short-lived. However, the polio epidemic of 1908 was the first of many that continued regularly until the discovery of a vaccine in the 1950s. During the 1920s and 1930s the RCH devoted enormous resources to the care and treatment of children with polio.

From the 1960s there have been regular relatively mild epidemics of some of the ‘old’ infectious diseases such as measles and whooping cough. Elimination of some of these diseases appeared to be in sight until the last decade or so, when growing opposition to vaccination fuelled worsening outbreaks. And then came coronavirus.

Speaker

Dr Peter Yule is a Research Fellow of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. He has published more than 20 books, including The Royal Children’s Hospital: a history of faith, science and love (1999) and books on Australian military and economic history. His latest book, The Long Shadow: Australia’s Vietnam Veterans since the War, will be published in October.