The Wind and the Book: Memoirs of a Country Doctor

Browne, David D.

ISBN 10: 052284099X / ISBN 13: 9780522840995

Published by Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1976

About this Item

Ex Library of the Medical Society of Victoria copy -sticker inside front cover. Book reviews pasted on ffep (both sides). Small stain at bottom of Contents page and 1st page of preface. 22 x 14 cm. 161 pp.

Seller Inventory # 000080

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Wind and the Book: Memoirs of a Country Doctor
• Publisher: Melbourne University Press, Carlton
• Publication Date: 1976
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052284099X
• ISBN 13: 9780522840995
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

This is the story of a general practitioner and his patients. The scene is Victoria in the mid-twentieth century. Many of the changes which revolutionized medicine - antibiotics, immunization and blood transfusions - were yet to be made. Conditions were hard, transportation primitive and hospital facilities scarce. The innovating doctor met a public that was often cautious and suspicious, if not actively hostile. In these circumstances Dr Browne struggled for better health care in three country areas. He built his own hospital at Cobden. He campaigned for the immunization of children against diphtheria. Under shocking conditions he carried out one of the earliest blood transfusions in Victoria. For fifty-three years he worked with imagination, compassion and dedication to improve the health of his patients. At a time when general practice is threatened by the rush to specialization, Dr Browne's memoirs are not simply fascinating; they are a warning of the danger of our losing the personal relationship and commitment which has characterized general practice in the past. --- Dr Browne was born in April 1893. He was educated in Victoria and graduated M.B., B.S. from the University of Melbourne in 1916. He then served in France and Flanders until 1918 when he was invalided home. On his return to Melbourne he practised as resident medical officer at the Military Hospital, Mont Park, and at the Women's Hospital and Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. From 1919 to 1924 he was general practitioner at Cobden, Victoria. The next thirty-five years he spent at Wangaratta in general practice and as honorary surgeon at the Wangaratta District Base Hospital. During World War II he served for two years at military hospitals in Victoria. In 1960 he started general practice at McCrae on the Mornington Peninsula, retiring only in 1969 after fifty-three years of active life in the practice of medicine. --- Jacket photo: Wangaratta, c. 1927