News

Science the victor in the Battle of Kokoda

Media Release, Monday 16 June 2003

A new book has suggested that despite controversy surrounding his alleged attempts to relocate Nazi scientists to Australia after WW2, Australian scientist Victor Trikojus may have “won” the Battle of Kokoda with innovative science.

Professor Emeritus Ross Humphreys, an historian from the University of Queensland, has recently completed a biography of the biochemist and former University of Melbourne academic, Professor Victor Trikojus.

Professor Trikojus developed the drug Sulphaguanidine from early experimentation with sulphonamide, and though now not widely used, the drug effectively knocked out many diarrhea-causing organisms, including the bacillary dysentery that debilitated both the Australian and Japanese armies in New Guinea during WW2.

Professor Humphreys says that during the Battle of Kokoda in 1942, when Japanese troops came within 55km of Port Moresby, more than 2000 Australian soldiers were stricken with bacillary dysentery and were admitted to medical holding units, after forcing a Japanese retreat.

The soldiers were treated with the first 37kg of sulphaguanidine ever to be produced from a manufacturing process developed by Professor Trikojus, and the epidemic was rapidly checked.

Wartime medical expert Colonel Sir Alan Newton wrote at the time that “had the drug not been available the course of the new Guinea campaign might have been unfavourable to our cause...Happily the drug was there to give, owing to the efforts of an Australian scientist, Professor Trikojus.”

In a soon-to-be-published biography, Professor Humphreys describes in detail Trikojus' wartime production of vital drugs.

“The liberal-minded Trikojus was accused of anti-Semitism that has never been proved”, according to Professor Humphreys, who suggests it was his deep patriotism during the 1940s that was misunderstood and mistrusted by more recent commentators.

Professor Humphreys will present his analysis of Professor Trikojus’ development of the drug sulphaguanidine in a seminar for the History of the University Unit at the University of Melbourne this Wednesday 18 June.

What:
“Victor Trikojus: Interesting Times in World War II and After”
Seminar by Emeritus Professor Ross Humphreys for the History of the University Unit at the University of Melbourne

Where:
Gryphon Gallery,1888 Building/School of Graduate Studies
University of Melbourne (near Gate 8)

When:
4.30pm Wednesday 18 June 2003

Media are welcome to attend.