First World War
Fairley joined the Australian Army Medical Corps with the rank of captain on 1 August 1915 and was posted to Royal Melbourne Hospital as a resident medical officer. He investigated an epidemic of meningitis that was occurring in local Army camps, and his first published paper was an analysis of this disease, documenting fifty cases. In 1916, he co-authored a monograph published by the Federal government detailing 644 cases, of which 338 (52%) were fatal, this being before the invention of antibiotic drugs.
Fairley enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 24 August 1916. On 5 September 1916, he embarked for Egypt on RMS Kashgar, joining the 14th General Hospital in Cairo. There he encountered Major Charles Martin, formerly Professor of Physiology at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Lister Institute from 1903 to 1930. At this time, Martin was working as a Consulting Physician to the AIF in Egypt and commanded the Anzac Field Laboratory.
While in Egypt, Fairley investigated schistosomiasis (then known as bilharzia). The disease was known to be caused by contact with fresh water inhabited by certain species of snails, and orders had been issued that prohibited bathing in fresh water, but the troops were slow to appreciate the danger involved. In its toxic phase, the disease was easily confused with typhus, so Fairley developed a complement fixation test for the disease along the lines of the Wassermann test. He studied its pathology, confirming that the worms in the circulatory system could be cured by intravenous tartaric acid. Fairley also studied, and later published papers on typhus, malaria, and bacillary dysentery.
Fairley married Staff Nurse Violet May Phillips at the Garrison Church, Abbassia, Cairo on 12 February 1919. They later divorced on 21 November 1924. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 15 March 1919 and commanded the 14th General Hospital for a time before embarking for the United Kingdom in June 1919. For his services in the First World War, Fairley was mentioned in despatches and made an Officer of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire. His citation read:
Brilliant work in Pathology – the result of eighteen months of patient and skilful work in the laboratory of the 14th Australian General Hospital. His work on Bilharzia will be of untold value to the civilian population of Egypt.Read more about this topic: Neil Hamilton Fairley
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit ling’ring here;”
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