Portrait of Charles J Martin (1866-1955)
Date
Circa 1900
Description
Martin wears pin-striped suit and with curved collar points
A British-born doctor, Charles J Martin emigrated to Australia in 1891, enlivening the physiology departments of the University of Sydney and then Melbourne. He pioneered systematic medical research in Australia, his innovative investigations earning him fellowship of the Royal Society in Australia’s Federation year. Returning home in 1903, Martin became director of London’s Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, which by 1914 was an internationally recognised centre of excellence in medical science.
From World War I’s outset, Lieutenant Colonel Martin spearheaded a new approach, thrust into the belly of British military medicine, as science played an escalating role in Imperial military planning.Having developed an anti-tetanus vaccine, he implored the RAMC to adopt it for combat wounds. Martin’s pleas were initially ignored, but the appalling death toll during the Battle of Mons sparked urgent calls for his serum. British demands escalated so rapidly that the solitary horse he had immunised to supply tetanus antibodies was literally bled to death. Rather than remaining in London, Martin deployed his laboratory to the front. By August 1915 he was attached not to the British Army, but to the AAMC. At 3AGH on the Greek island of Lemnos, Martin investigated diseases afflicting Australian troops at Gallipoli, especially dysentery and typhoid. His painstaking research suggested that
paratyphoid A and B—rather than true typhoid fever—largely accounted for the staggering illness rates… Martin’s team delivered the Australians a multivalent ‘TAB’ vaccine against typhoid and paratyphoid A and B, ahead of any other Imperial forces. As an AAMC regimental medical officer (RMO) in France later attested: ‘every wounded man was given a tetanus anti-toxin and typhoid vaccine, and of
all the hundreds and thousands of wounded men … I never saw a case of either’.
Dr Peter Hobbins
https://medicalhistorymuseum.mdhs.unimelb.edu.au/collections/publications/compassion-and-courage-australian-doctors-and-dentists-in-the-great-war
See full details
Object detail
owner's mark/inscriptions ▫ verso, inside cartouche: 'DEPARTMENT/OF/MEDICAL HISTORY' ▫ 0 - Whole
Do you know something about this object?
Be the first to comment on this object record.