Australian History
Book Details

Malaria Frontline

Australian Army Research during World War II

Tony Sweeney

Malaria Frontline chronicles the Australian search to find a cure for malaria and the scientific breakthroughs.

Opinion

'a thorough, lucid, compelling account' (Historical Records of Australian Science, 2003, 14)

‘Although his is a scholarly, highly scientific and meticulously researched work, the author still has managed to produce a book that is infinitely readable and, surprisingly, engaging . . . [a] true war story of achievement, bravery and courage that did not take place on the battlefield but which, nonetheless, turned the tide of war.’ (Cairns Post, 22/2/2003)

About this Title

During World War II the hidden killer, malaria, was one of the most powerful enemies of Australian troops in the south-west Pacific. Malaria casualties during 1942 and 1943 were so serious that the Australian War Cabinet thought there would be insufficient reinforcements to maintain the army at strength against the Japanese in New Guinea.

In June 1943 the Australian Army formed a special research team, the Land Headquarters Medical Research Unit, under the guidance of Neil Hamilton Fairley, to tackle the problem of malarial infection. Experiments at Cairns on more than 800 volunteers (including the artist Donald Friend) and over 300 malaria-infected soldiers from New Guinea, constituted the largest series of clinical trials involving experimental transmission of human malaria ever conducted. Malaria was transmitted to the volunteers by mosquitoes previously fed on soldiers who had acquired the disease in New Guinea, and test drugs were then administered to assess their efficacy.

By early 1944 the results showed that the drug atebrin provided complete protection, provided it was taken scrupulously each day. The rigid atebrin discipline adopted by the Australian Army resulted in the lowest malaria levels ever recorded among troops operating for extended periods in highly malarious areas—and helped turn the tide of the war.

This meticulously documented book is the result of more than a decade of investigation by Dr Tony Sweeney. He chronicles the Australian search to find a cure for malaria and the scientific breakthroughs. Malaria Frontline puts this story into the context of the continuing global fight against malaria.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by C. R. B. Blackburn
Acknowledgements

Prologue—Escape from Rabaul
1 War and Malaria
2 Critical Shortages of Antimalarial Supplies
3 Our Worst Enemy
4 Anti Sweat
5 Priority Neill
6 Neil Desperandum
7 Atebrin
8 Atherton Conference
9 Subinoculation
10 Setbacks and Dilemmas in the US Program
11 Captured from the Enemy
12 ‘SB’
13 The Birth of Chloroquin
14 The Problem of Vivax
15 Reorientation of the US Program
16 The Answer to the Maiden’s Prayer
17 The Possibility of an ‘X’ Factor
18 Paludrine
19 Mode of Action
20 Tolerance and Immunity
21 Guinea Pigs
22 The Military Value of the Cairns Research
23 A Glorious Gamble in Science
24 Press Reports
Epilogue—The Rise of Drug Resistance

Appendix 1 Nominal Roll of Volunteers
Appendix 2 Nominal Roll of Donors
Appendix 3 Nominal Roll of Staff
Appendix 4 Summary of Findings from Repatriation Medical Authority Workshop, July 1999

Glossary
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Tony Sweeney is a medical entomologist with extensive experience in control and research on malaria and mosquitoes. He was the Commanding Officer of the Australian Army Malaria Research Unit in Sydney, and the Medical Entomologist with the South Pacific Commission in Noumea. He is currently Adjunct Professor at the Institute for the Biotechnology of Infectious Diseases, University of Technology, Sydney.

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978-0-522-85033-8