The wide brown land seems smaller thanks to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Around the time of Australian Federation in 1901, people living in the outback had little communication, transport or medical treatment available to them.
Reverend John Flynn was the founder of the world’s first Aerial Medical Service, now known as the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS).
Working as a minister in the bush, Flynn dreamed of making the outback a safe place to live. He thought that instead of a patient travelling in tough conditions to get to a doctor, the doctor could go to the patient. World War I then prompted the idea of using planes to take doctors to where they were needed.
In May 1928, Dr St Vincent Welch made the first official flying doctor visit. Within the following year he saw 255 patients but people in very remote places still had no way of contacting the Service.
In 1929 Alfred Traeger brought radio technology to the RFDS by inventing a pedal-powered wireless. He installed a base radio for the Aerial Medical Service and travelled to remote places to install pedal radios and teach people how to communicate using Morse code.
Whole consultations and prescriptions for treatment could now be given over the radio. The vast network that had been created was used for the first School of the Air in 1950.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia is a not-for-profit charitable organisation. The Service is continuing in its efforts to improve the health of people living, working and travelling in remote regions of Australia although communications no longer rely on the pedal radio!
CSIRO’s Australia Advances http://www.csiro.au/promos/ozadvances
The Australian Academy of Science’s Nova http://www.science.org.au/nova
The Australian Science Archive Project http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/