Disease, medicine and settlement : the role of heath and medical services in the settlement of the Northern Terriotry, 1911 - 1939

Abstract

The principal aim of this history is to explore the relationship between public health, medical services and the development of the Northern Territory in the early period of Commonwealth control, 1911 to 1939. This period is significant because the acceptance of responsibility for the Northern Territory by the Commonwealth Government in 1911 was predicated upon the perceived need of the Australian people to exercise sovereignty over the entire Australian landmass and to protect that land from settlement by other than white races. It was, therefore, seen to be in the best interests of the nation that the Northern Territory be populated by Australians with a European, preferably British, background, that the land be used in such a way as to produce sound economic returns and that it be encompassed within the cultural boundaries of white Australia. In the political and economic expression of the times the Northern Territory was to be ‘developed' and development became the dominant concern and catchcry of those involved in the administration of the Territory. By 1911 two important developments had taken place which influenced the attitude and rhetoric of the government as it faced the task of populating the north. The first of these was a significant shift in relationship between the state and the people in the area of public health administration and the gates had been opened sufficiently far to allow increased government intervention in public health. Secondly, tropical medicine had in the 1890s and 1900s developed as an independent scientific discipline with some outstanding successes to its credit. Thus, the association between the promotion of public health, the provision of medical services and the development of Australia's tropical Northern Territory came to be strong and the Commonwealth Government persistently argued that the successful development of the Northern Territory was heavily dependent on the provision of medical services. Without adequate health care the north would remain a frontier province only thinly populated by a male society, unable to reproduce and extend itself, and with only a precarious economic base. The Commonwealth Government’s rhetoric was never matched by financial commitment during the period 1911 to 1939. Medical facilities even in the more populous town centres were very limited and far below what medical technology made possible. Charitable organizations were relied on to provide medical services in remote areas and mission societies to provide medical care to the Northern Territory’s large Aboriginal population. Until the late 1930s no attempt was made to provide for settlers living in remote areas and those medical services which were to have been in the vanguard of the settler movement came in its wake. It was not until public pressure was brought to bear and the dire predictions regarding the consequences of continued inactivity reached Canberra from the Territory ' s medical staff that basic medical services were provided. If one side of the white Australia coin was the settlement of white races, the other side was the protection of that population from those diseases carried by the Aboriginal population. It was this aspect of the white Australia policy which was more vigorously pursued in the Northern Territory than the provision of medical services. Fear of contamination led to wide ranging institutionalisation policies for Aboriginal people, coupled with the enforced treatment of Aborigines suffering diseases which were seen to threaten the white population and gross neglect with far reaching consequences for those that did not. While not altogether dissimilar to medical services in other remote parts of Australia, the significance of developments in the Northern Territory lies in the disparity between government rhetoric and financial commitment. It is difficult to penetrate the rhetoric of the time but the Commonwealth Government's unwillingness to finance development ventures in the Territory raises questions regarding the real beliefs of the government as to the potential of the north. This study provides a very specific example of the Commonwealth Government's lack of commitment to the development of the Northern Territory and the reluctance to provide financial resources for development until economically viable industries had been established or, as was to happen at the close of this period, the threat of invasion was felt. Further, the irrelevance of tropical medicine to Australia is illustrated and reveals the social, political and economic forces involved in the relationship between the state and the public in the field of public health and medical services.