Melville Birks

Melville Birks spent his early childhood in Murtho, one of the Village Settlements on the Murray River, in which experiment his parents lost their life savings. He received his early education at State schools and took a course in agriculture at Roseworthy College where he distinguished himself, gaining the silver medal as dux of his year in 1894. He was a quiet gentle boy with poor eyesight, not a genius like brother, but his ambitions lay in the medical field, and in 1896 went to Way College in order to matriculate.[6] Through the generosity of a maiden aunt he was in 1899 able to embark on a medical degree course at the University of Adelaide, which he completed in five years, and incidentally proved to be an excellent rower.[7] He gained his medical degree in 1902 and served a year as House Surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, then spent three years in England and on the Continent, and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (F.R.C.S),[8] which he gained despite needing to practice his profession while he studied.[9] While in London he met Janet Catherine "Netta" MacIntyre, a daughter of Patrick B. MacIntyre of Findon, Roseshire of Crofters Commission fame. Janet had trained as a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital in London, and was appointed sister-in-charge of the Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses (now Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery), attached to that hospital.[10]

They were married shortly afterwards and in 1908 returned to Australia, settling in Peterborough (then called Petersburg) where Melville practised in partnership with Dr. Goode[6] from 1908 to 1913. While in Peterborough, he became interested in occupational diseases peculiar to railwaymen. He took a great interest in public affairs and gave lectures on health and other subjects for the Railway Town Men's Movement, and the Y.M.C.A and in his early days there often gave morning lectures at the old Socialist Hall. For a time he held the position of Mayor.[6]

On 1 June 1913 he succeeded Dr. Seabrook as Superintendent of the Broken Hill Hospital. Here his efficiency and broad sympathy won him many friends, but his straightforward honesty aroused antagonism on both sides of the Union question, which was always to the fore in that town, often having to side with either the employer or employee in Workmen's Compensation cases.[9] He volunteered to serve during The Great War, but was rejected on account of the essential nature of his position, but the War cost him in other ways, as he had to run the hospital with inadequate staff.[11] He worked for long hours in the operating theatre, supported only by nursing staff.[12]

While at "The Barrier" he did much important research work on miner's phthisis (silicosis) and lead poisoning.[9] In 1919 he was granted a year's study leave and proceeded with his family to Great Britain, Europe, Canada and America studying diseases of miners. While in Brussels he read a paper on lead poisoning at a World Medical Conference.[6] He resumed his post as Surgeon Superintendent of Broken Hill Hospital in September 1920 the following year but in August 1922, feeling out of sorts, he went for a holiday to the Eastern States, where in Wentworth he collapsed. He spent some time with his brother Walter Richard Birks (1886–1960), who was in charge of the Agricultural College at Dookie, Victoria, then to Melbourne, where his peculiar disease was diagnosed by Dr. Stawell, and was admitted to a private hospital where he was nursed for eleven months, then three months in Melbourne General Hospital. In December 1923[12] he returned to Adelaide, where four months later he died at his mother's home in Rose Park.

" No one can estimate the work of Dr Birks at Broken Hill both in bringing the hospital to a high state of efficiency and in establishing a fine training school for nurses. The idealism, the fine sense of honor, the devotion to duty of our "Head" could not fail to me the nurses under him regard their work as a high calling. Though the professional side came first it never overshadowed, or blotted out the human side. We were taught to regard ones patients as beings whom all our skill and care must be called on to relieve. He never sanctioned anything perfunctory in our mental approach of professional handling of patients impressions of her work directed by such a man is a gracious advantage for which a nurse can never be sufficiently grateful." ... Sister Graham of Broken Hill, who nursed him in the last weeks of his life.[11]

"Dr Birks's two main interests during his life at Broken Hill were his surgical work at the hospital, and the study of social and economic problems as revealed by his close association with the workers. With regards to the first, there is no question that the high level of surgical work which Broken Hill now enjoys was due first and last to Dr Birks. He was a thoroughly sound, although slightly conservative surgeon, and was a master of asepsis, with the result that aseptic measures were, and still are, carried out at Broken Hill in a manner at least equal to that of any other hospital in Australia. A paper which he read before the South Australian branch of the British Medical Association, entitled 'The treatment of mine injuries at Broken Hill', was evidence of the remarkable results which he was able to obtain in many serious and mutilating conditions. His interest in the working class was shown by the frequent lectures which he gave before the various unions and the local branch of the Workers Educational Association. These were usually on some topic such as public health, with special reference to conditions at The Barrier as he knew them."[9]