Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin during the night of December 24, 1974. By morning a city, of some 45,000 people and of 12,000 homes, had ceased to exist. The following is an account of how the health personnel in Darwin, both Government and private, dealt with this unique and overwhelming disaster. The situation can be considered to have been composed of six phases: Phase I, Preparation; II, The Cyclone; III, Casualties; IV, Emergency Centres - Air Evacuation; V, Health Clean Up; and VI, Reconstruction.

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This report represents a review of cryptococcosis in the Northern Territory from 1957 to 1975. There were 26 cases over a 19-year period; 25 of these were in full-blooded Aborigines. The disease occurred throughout the rural areas of the Territory as isolated cases. There were 24 cases of cryptococcal meningitis and only two with solitary lung involvement. The overall mortality was 50%. In all five untreated cases the disease was fatal. There were eight deaths among the 20 patients receiving chemotherapy, a mortality of 40%. Lung resection was performed in six cases of localized pulmonary cryptococcosis. The outcome for these was excellent.

Physical, mental and social health depends on the conditions under which people live, where the environment has to be cleanly maintained to avoid spread of diseases. Settled existences have to take care that the houses are not too close, prevent drinking water from pollution, proper sanitation, systematic garbage collection services, to lead to a healthy disease free living.

Aboriginal people in olden days learned about the food from their forefathers where everybody helped each other to know about the foods and how to use them. However, now the situation has changed and most of the foods are bought from the stores. Health workers need to help the store manager and the people working there to enable the people to learn more about food by way of posters, attractively arranging foods on shelves and providing different sizes of packets or tins of foods.

When anaesthetising an Aboriginal patient, Aboriginal health workers should consider make-up factors, like the presence of special anatomical features, variations from a white person in physiological terms, personal habits and the patient's psychological condition.

The advantages of breast feeding and maintaining good health of lactating mothers are highlighted and the problems faced by babies who are deprived of breast-feeding are mentioned. Health workers must impart knowledge about bottle-feeding such as the measurement and preparation of milk mixture, hygiene and sterility to be maintained in case of mothers and guardians who need to bottle feed their babies, and encourage breast-feeding wherever possible.

*Warning: Please be aware that this item contains words and phrases about places and groups of people which reflect the attitude of the creator at the time, and which are now considered offensive.* Twenty-thousand years ago there were Aborigines in Australia and maybe 30,000 years ago there were Aborigines in Australia. lt has taken all that time to get the first National Health Worker Conference going. And I think that's a fantastic effort. I'm extremely confused, as a Balanda, amongst all these Yolngu. However, firstly I want to say congratulations to John White - because he's the organizer - to Ronnie Gamarang, to Bruce Herbert, to Paddles, to Ina, to Cheryl Shelley, to Mary Keller, to Harry Singh, to Gatjil, to Lorabelle Reynolds, to Sherry Scribbens, to Alexander from Ngukurr, to Margaret Hall, to Mr Spain for lending us this hospital, to the commissioning team, to Eddie Tolson for the recording, to Wayne Mulholland and a thousand other people that I've left out. The whole thing is the brain child of Dr Brian Reid, supported by Dr Charles Gurd, and I think it's a great brain child. Dr Reid asked me to say that he understands that the Department of Education has funds available for 1979 and would be interested in giving some support.

Children who get sick with a cough and running nose (maybe sneezing, sore throat or sore ears as well) have a respiratory infection. If they get worse and become hot, they need medicine. Penicillin injections are the best medicine for this sickness.

Aboriginal women in Central Australia are different from their counterparts in other region when it comes to family planning. Various contraceptive techniques are discussed such as intra-uterine devices, Lippes loop, and contraceptive pills which are widely used by Aboriginal women in this region.

Food habits of Aboriginal people have changed over years. People in olden days got their food from land and sea while as time passed they were forced to change their ways and adopt the lifestyle with junk food, little exercise and resulting sickness. It is suggested that Aboriginal people need to be educated regarding how to spend enough money on the right kinds of food to keep their families strong.

In the Northern Territory, "homemaker" services are provided through (1) a Departmental homemaker service, and (2) non-government homemaker services, generally funded by this Department, although under a range of funding programs. The diversity of funding programs has hindered the development of a consistent policy in relation to non-government homemaker services. However, the Departmental program has been developed within a relatively consistent set of objectives. This paper briefly examines these services and the functions they perform, and canvases a range of options for their future development. It has been prepared by Jim Pearse of the Community Services Division. Incorrect page numbering sequences are as they appear in the original document.

Four hundred and ninety-three patients were admitted to the Royal Darwin Hospital in 1980 with urinary tract disease. Aboriginals had an increased incidence (p less than 0.005) of urinary tract infection and glomerulonephritis (p less than 0.001) compared with non Aboriginals. Aboriginals with post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis tended to grow Group A Beta hemolytic streptococci from their skins, non Aboriginals tended to grow it from their throats. Aboriginals had a lower incidence of urolithiasis (p less than 0.001). There was no difference in the incidence of benign prostatic hypertrophy between the two populations.

Data on 33 Aboriginal children with rheumatic heart disease who attended the Royal Darwin Hospital over a four-year period were examined. Mitral-valve incompetence was the most-common valvular lesion that occurred as a result of rheumatic heart disease and was present in 30 children. Mitral stenosis was present in 17 children and was accompanied by incompetence in all cases; it was present by the age of 13 years in more than half the children. Five children died in the period of the study and four of these had mitral stenosis as part of their valvular abnormality. Rheumatic heart disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory.

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Extrahepatic portal hypertension was induced in the rabbit by a one-stage complete ligation of the portal vein. End renal vein to side splenic vein shunts (renosplenic) were performed with haemorrhagic necrosis of the left kidney occurring after ligation of the left renal vein lateral to the adrenolumbar tributary. Thus the ureteric, lumbar, and pericapsular collaterals cannot adequately drain the left kidney. Ligation of the left renal vein on the medial side of the adrenolumbar tributary maintained a patent left renal vein in all cases with 60% of left kidney biopsies showing no histological evidence of changes to glomeruli or tubules, and the remainder showing early acute tubular necrosis.

Shigellosis is endemic in Central Australia and the infections are predominantly due to Shigella flexneri 6, Shigella flexneri 2a and Shigella sonnei. Plasmid profiles of isolates collected from 1985-9, suggested that infections caused by Shigella flexneri 6 were predominantly due to a single clone, whereas those caused by Shigella flexneri 2a and Shigella sonnei were due to several genetically diverse strains, although strains with identical plasmid profiles were found in widely separated geographical areas and in different years.

Volatile substance abuse has been reported in the literature over the past 20 years or so, and has apparently increased as countries have become more industrialised. This review attempts to clarify trends in volatile substance abuse, problems associated with this behaviour and possible solutions. Data sources included a Medline Search on volatile substance abuse over the last five years, Commonwealth publications, recent State and Territory inhouse publications, three research monographs from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and an article library from the author's workplace. Some 250 articles and monographs were identified, reviewed and categorised into sections relating to epidemiology (including mortality), physiological effects and responses to the problem. Articles were used for reference where they reflected the most up-to-date information or where they were seen as authoritative statements. While the body of knowledge concerning volatile substance abuse has improved, little progress has been made in finding effective solutions to the problem. The fact that users are typically young and that there is a real risk of sudden death associated with even initial use suggests that continuing research is needed to develop innovative approaches to the problem.