Courage and curiosity: surgeon-explorers in Australia and New Zealand. Part II. The science of the outback. The Herbert Moran Lecture concluded.
After the broad brush of the topographical features of Australia and New Zealand had been mapped, the process of fine-tuning the geographic details of these countries continued. In parallel with this, a great wave of detailed scientific exploration proceeded and it was to these expeditions that medical men brought special skills. Surgeons played a special role because of the need of their practical skills in the field. Dozens of expeditions were commissioned throughout the nineteenth century. The aim of some was to search for minerals and document the fertility and water supply for pastoral and agricultural lands. Others had as their major raison d'etre the documentation of the many groups of animals and plants which populated these domains new to Western science. Surgeons and physicians were valued not only for their professional skills in the field, but for the pursuit of botany, zoology and geology, and in many cases for ethnological studies as well.
Pearn
J H
JH
Department of Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland.
D000883:Anthropology / Q000266:history; D001315:Australia; D001695:Biology / Q000266:history; D005101:Expeditions / Q000266:history; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D009520:New Zealand