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Book Reviews
| Kate Blackmore, The Dark Pocket of Time: War, Medicine and the Australian State, 1914-1935 (Adelaide: Lythrum Press, 2008). ISBN 978-1-921013-19-5. 276pp.
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| This a good piece of work and while the publisher has done a commendable job, it is a pity the book was not brought out by a mainstream press because it deserves wider distribution than it will probably enjoy. It is thoroughly researched and well written, and the latter is not an easy task when much of the book is about arcane policy and bureaucratic details. |
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In general terms the study is about the relationships between war, medicine, and the early-twentieth-century Australian state, and more specifically, the process of establishing and administering the scheme of (parsimonious) pensions paid to incapacitated veterans of World War I. Doctors employed by the state played a critical role not only as 'expert' evaluators of disability but also as implicit supporters of the financially restrictive nature of the scheme, sharing the 'poor law' ideology of their political and bureaucratic masters. |
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Kate Blackmore argues that given the level of contemporary medical knowledge and lack of useful medical records, reliable evaluation of the longer-term consequences of common conditions, like gassing, to establish an appropriate level of pension was always going to be difficult. Blackmore, however, does make a strong case for the view that the doctors also erred too much on the side of protecting the public purse to the detriment of justice for veterans and their dependants. |
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The Introduction sets the scene for the book. Chapter 2 focuses on the voluntaristic funding and piecemeal growth of the early repatriation support scheme. In chapter 3 Blackmore points out that conditions such as trench fever and gassing were more common than wounds, and that it is only recently that historians, overseas and here, have become concerned with the details of veterans' ongoing ill health. Chapter 4 discusses the establishment of the Commonwealth Repatriation Department. For historians of medicine, chapters 5 and 7 will probably be the most interesting as the author ably addresses the historiographically significant issues relating to the professionalisation of medicine and the rise of scientific medicine (as a necessary background to understanding the part played by doctors in the repatriation story). Despite the affinities between the 'world views' of doctors and senior bureaucrats, there were tensions and these are the subject of chapter 8. |
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In chapter 9 the author discusses the process of determining war pensions, which is a central topic foreshadowed earlier in the book. She makes the noteworthy point that many contemporaries (themselves suffering great economic hardship) and historians, critical of 'generous' war pensions, failed to understand that the pension was not a welfare benefit but in effect compensation paid by the state for injuries incurred during highly dangerous work. |
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In the Epilogue, among other things, Blackmore points to the similarities between the Repatriation Department's response in the 1920s to gassing and the official response in the 1980s–90s to injuries from chemicals used in the Vietnam War. We are reminded of the persistence of this problem of adequately assessing war-relatedness in disability despite more sophisticated medical knowledge, and of the social, political, and ideological context in which medical knowledge is applied. We are also reminded of the insights offered by historical studies such as this into current matters. |
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The author does a number of things well, and I have already mentioned the quality of the research and writing. But she also delineates the larger national context well, identifying the significant social, political, and ideological factors at work as well as knowledge and power factors in medicine. I have tended to highlight her contributions to the history of medicine because this is a history of medicine and health journal. But she also makes notable contributions to the history of Australian public policy and administration, political history, and not least, welfare history. |
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Finally, while Kate Blackmore's passion for justice is evident, the book never descends into propaganda. Her passion never compromises her commitment to scholarship and the historian's (always flawed) search for truth. |
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| MILTON LEWIS
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| UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY |
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