The oil of the dugong: Towards a history of an Indigenous medicine

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and Australian settler perceptions of medicinal practice by examining the manufacture and use of dugong oil. From the mid-nineteenth century, Moreton Bay was the location of a dugong industry which manufactured oil for Brisbane and Sydney with ambitions to go worldwide. At this time, Australia was following Britain in the move to professionalise medicine. In order to be identified as professionals and to distance themselves from quacks, Australian medical practitioners were increasingly registering their names with the New South Wales Medical Board, established in 1838, to mirror British medical trends. At the same time, however, some were ‘discovering’ new medicinal remedies learned from the Indigenous inhabitants of Australia. This article tracks the growth of the dugong industry in the mid-nineteenth century, before analysing how dugong oil made its way through the hands of medical practitioners into newspaper advertisements and exhibitions from Australia to Europe.