One of the many strange elements in Brisbane’s public-health history is that bubonic plague, something most Australians associate with medieval Europe, was rife in Brisbane in the early 20th century. Dr Burnett Ham, Queensland’s Commissioner of Public Health, warned frightened citizens that this was truly the ‘horrific Bubonic Plague’, having been ‘confirmed by clinical and bacteriological evidence of such a convincing description as to place the diagnosis beyond any doubt’.1
Unfortunately for Dr Ham, not everyone thought this ‘medical fact’ was any more than a ‘medical myth’, a cover-up for medical incompetence and featherbedding. The most vocal, persistent and best-informed critic was Dr Thomas Pennington Lucas.