Narraburra

I am an ancient pathologist but new to Wikipedia. I graduated in medicine in 1957 and trained as a general pathologist, qualifying in this speciality in 1967. For 20 years I was a service pathologist, working in laboratories in a group of small hospitals in rural Australia. I became interested in what was then a little known disease, Mycobacterium ulcerans infection, now known more commonly as the 'Buruli ulcer' , which for some still unknown reason occurred in my pathology parish and was first described from that area. As well as a hospital pathologist I was the coroner's pathologist for the district and was involved with several fatal diving accidents. Abalone collection was a well established industry and the divers were remunerated according to harvest, spending long hours underwater and paying scant attention to decompression tables. Decompression sickness was common. I myself trained and qualified as a scuba diver and have had many interesting diving experiences. From the country area I had short breaks, teaching pathology at the University of Papua New Guinea and serving as a pathologist with the Australian Army in Vietnam. I retain an interest in Tropical disease and I am a fellow of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine.

After 20 years I returned to the city, was involved in pathology teaching and became mildly academic. I obtained my MD by thesis in 1992 on Mycobacterium ulcerans infection and later, a PhD on Charles Darwin's illness. My contention is that CD suffered from a mitochondrial disease due to a maternally inherited pathological mitochondrial DNA mutation of the MELAS type. I retain an interest in several topics, one being the mammalian dive response. Strangely, this interest arose from the subject of my PhD thesis as well as my experiences with diving and the diving industry.. Darwin suffered chronic illness for most of his adult life and tried many different therapies. The only treatment that was of more lasting benefit was the 'wondrous water cure' (hydropathy); part of the benefit derived from this may have been due to the mammalian dive response.