The Secrets of the Anzacs: The Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919 (2015)
Raden Dunbar (Author)
Scribe Publications
Publication date: 2015
Language: English
Physical Details: 288 pages
During World War I, nearly 60,000 soldiers in the Australian army were treated by army doctors in Egypt, Europe, and Australia for venereal diseases. The Secrets of the Anzacs reveals how this silent, secret scourge took hold in Cairo in 1914, and continued until 1919 when survivors of the war waited in Europe to be repatriated. Moralistic commanders in Egypt ordered strict punishments for men with VD, and the young victims were sent back to Australia in disgrace, most of them inventing amazing excuses for their inexplicable return. Medical officers couldn’t afford to be puritanical, though. They tried to prevent the diseases, as well to cure them with toxic drugs in army VD hospitals in Cairo, in England, and at Langwarrin, near Melbourne. Eventually, even the army had to face facts, and, after the AIF arrived in Europe in 1916, commanders ordered that huge quantities of prophylactics be distributed, and that safe-sex education be given as well.
...MoreReview Peter Hobbins (2016) Review of "The Library at the End of the World: Natural Science and Its Illustrators". Historical Records of Australian Science (pp. 92-102).
Similar Citations
Article
Wingfield, Nancy M.;
(2013)
The Enemy Within: Regulating Prostitution and Controlling Venereal Disease in Cisleithanian Austria during the Great War
Article
Scheer, Tamara;
(2015)
Etappenliebe: Belgrad, Cetinje und Lublin unter österreichisch-ungarischer Besatzungsmacht im Ersten Weltkrieg
Thesis
Barnes, Abigail Claire;
(2010)
Pure Spaces and Impure Bodies: The Detention of Prostitutes in the U.S. during World War One
Article
Rhoades, Michelle K.;
(2006)
Renegotiating French Masculinity: Medicine and Venereal Disease during the Great War
Article
Changboo Kang;
(2020)
Between Mars and Eros: British Army's Fight Against Venereal Disease during the First World War
Article
Beth Baron;
(2022)
Colliding Bodies: Prostitutes, Soldiers, and Venereal Diseases in Colonial Egypt
Article
Bonah, Christian;
(2015)
“A word from man to man”: Interwar Venereal Disease Education Films for Military Audiences in France
Article
Bowen, Elliott;
(2013)
Limits of the Lab: Diagnosing “Latent Gonorrhea,” 1872--1910
Article
Bates, Victoria;
(2013)
“So Far as I Can Define without a Microscopical Examination”: Venereal Disease Diagnosis in English Courts, 1850--1914
Article
Bonah, Christian;
Laukötter, Anja;
(2015)
Introduction: Screening Diseases: Films on Sex Hygiene in Germany and France in the First Half of the 20th Century
Article
Neefs, Hans;
(2004)
The Introduction of Diagnostic and Treatment Innovations for Syphilis in Post-War VD Policy: “L'expérience belge”
Article
Katzir, Shaul;
(2012)
Who Knew Piezoelectricity? Rutherford and Langevin on Submarine Detection and the Invention of Sonar
Article
Tyquin, Michael;
(2011)
Doctors and Nurses: Gender Relations, Jealousy, and Maladministration in Wartime
Book
Alexia Moncrieff;
(2020)
Expertise, Authority and Control: The Australian Army Medical Corps in the First World War
Book
Tyquin, Michael;
(2006)
Madness and the Military: Australia's Experience of the Great War
Article
Damousi, Joy;
(2007)
Australian Medical Intellectuals and the Great War
Article
Twidale, C. Rowl;
Bourne, Jennie A.;
(2002)
International Science “Down Under”: The British Association Meeting in Australia, August 1914, with Special Reference to Related Activities in Adelaide
Article
Larsson, Marina;
(2009)
Families and Institutions for Shell-Shocked Soldiers in Australia after the First World War
Article
Palmer, Steven;
(2010)
Toward Responsibility in International Health: Death Following Treatment in Rockefeller Hookworm Campaigns, 1914--1934
Book
Humphries, Mark Osborne;
(2013)
The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada
Be the first to comment!