When a dubious doctor boarded the train at Albury, the ladies on board wailed in fear. Photo: AI generated.
Back in 1913, a Junee joker boarded the train at Albury for an elaborate medical prank that left the ladies swooning and the man in question being seized by police.
In post-COVID Australia, vaccine skepticism has become fashionable but back at the dawn of the 20th century, protection from deadly disease was a matter of life and death.
Illnesses such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough and measles killed one in 30 children and polio, smallpox and even bubonic plague routinely took their toll on the broader population.
If an active case of an infectious illness was discovered in a town, or on a ship or train, all those in the vicinity would be inoculated to try to prevent an outbreak.
In the winter of 1913, Sydney was in the grip of a smallpox epidemic with more than 200 people hospitalised, the CBD under quarantine and thousands of doses of vaccine or “lymph” administered across NSW.
Neighbouring states enacted their own quarantine laws that required interstate passengers to produce a certificate of vaccination. If a passenger was unable to do so at the Victorian border at Wodonga, they were directed to a vaccination station where they would need to submit to a jab before crossing the Murray.
Within this context, just weeks after the “smallpox scare of 1913” had reached its peak, a man wearing his Sunday best and carrying a leather satchel took his seat on a northbound train from Albury station.
According to the Young Chronicle from 2 August 1913, the well-dressed gent “was looked on with kindly eyes” by the ladies in the compartment and he introduced himself as a doctor with a mission.
To the ladies’ horror, he proceeded to confide that “he had received instructions to vaccinate everyone on the train”.
As his audience drew back in fear, the counterfeit doctor “babbled on, telling them of his awful surgical experiences, particularly in regard to vaccinations, and how he had often had to amputate an arm through misapplying lymph”.
To enhance the charade, he produced an oversized hypodermic syringe, commonly known as a “pig-stabber”, sharpened the tip on the leather of his boot, and told the poor passengers to bare their arms.
As the terrified women “immediately set up a wail” the Junee railway station came into view.
“Half hanging out of the windows, they wildly beckoned to the policeman on duty, who immediately rushed to the aid of the distressed damsels,” reported the Young Chronicle.
“They poured out their tale of woe to the officer, and the ‘vaccinationist’ began to quake as the policeman bundled him out of the carriage.
“‘Would the ladies lay a charge?’ asked the police officer. ‘No, we won’t,’ they replied, as the train whistled, and they departed on their journey without being inoculated.”
As the triumphant travellers continued north, the bogus Junee medical man quickly made himself scarce!
