Expertise, Authority and Control charts the development of Australian military medicine in the First World War in the first major study of the Australian Army Medical Corps in over seventy years. It examines the provision of medical care to Australian soldiers during the Dardanelles campaign and explores the imperial and medical-military hierarchies that were blended and challenged during the campaign. By the end of 1918, the AAMC was a radically different organisation. Using army orders, unit war diaries and memoranda written to disseminate information within the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) and between British and Australian soldiers, it maps the provision of medical care through casualty clearance and evacuation, rehabilitation, and the prevention and treatment of venereal disease. In doing so, she reassesses Australian military medicine and maps the transition to an infrastructure for the AIF in the field, especially in response to conflicts with traditional imperial, military and medical hierarchies.

'This is a welcome and easily digestible volume and an essential tool (alongside Butler) to understand our medical war.'

Mike O'Brien - President of the Royal United Services Institute of Victoria

'Critical historiographical evaluations are deftly woven through the chapters, with several theses, genres and themes investigated for how they might support or refute events under discussion … This is an important book which offers a far more nuanced account of Australia’s medical campaign in the First World War than that of Simpson and his donkey.'

Jan McLeod Source: Reconnaissance