SEMINAR: Muscles, Medicine and the Beginnings of Human Biology: Short stories from a long life"

The Seminar: Published research papers deal with facts. Yet behind them are often untold human stories. This School is full of them, waiting to be told. Here I tell stories about three of my interests.1) Beginnings of research into muscle regeneration; 2) teaching the 'new' anatomy of modern medical education and 3) the roots of human biological studies in East Africa and Australia. The histology of muscle regeneration was first described in the German literature (Waldeyer,1865) and later studied in Oxford (Le Gros Clark,1946),This triggered my 1952 PhD thesis from the Anatomy Department of University College London. This investigated the histology and electrical activity of the reinnervation of regenerating muscle. A decade later at Washington University Medical School St Louis, Anatomy Department I used the then new instrument of electron microscopy to start the story of the role of satellite cells in muscle regeneration. (Allbrook,1962),This work continued at Makerere College, Uganda (Muir, Kanji & Allbrook,1964) and later still here at UWA (Allbrook 1965) Medical education. After World War 2.ways of teaching medical anatomy changed greatly. Anatomy at UCL led this change. I went there in 1950. Traditionally students had to memorise huge quantities of anatomical structures and relationships. The new emphasis was on understanding the structures of the living body. This was vigorously opposed by anatomists of the old school! My job as Prof at Makerere was to make the same change there. As Medical Dean I helped develop a brand new medical course for120 students to meet the clinical and social needs of the new states of Uganda and Kenya. It was done quickly. A very exciting job for young academics. For me the concept of Human Biology also began in Uganda at Makerere and Ethiopia in the 1950's.There I first saw examples of the impact of diet, culture, climate and genetics on disease patterns in populations. In the next door lab to the Anatomy Department was the British MRC Nutrition Unit. Hugh Trowell, the clinician and Rex Dean the researcher showed the dire effects of culturally induced malnutrition in the childhood disease of kwashiorkor. My then student Joe Mungai and I did slightly crazy investigations and blood and anthropometric surveys comparing northern Uganda Karamojong tribesmen with British Welsh Fusilier soldiers With Elsie Sibthorpe I wrote how nutrition affects the pelvic skeletal anatomy of Baganda women and the often catastrophic effects that had on childbirth. I also became an unwilling expert in forensic skeletal anatomy working with detectives in Kenya and in WA.. Also here, with Michael Alpers in Microbiology and medical students Fiona Stanley and Bruce Robinson I did physical anthropological and medical surveys of Western Desert Aboriginal populations. We found malnutrition and failure to thrive here and reported on it to State and Federal Governments. Such experiences in field and lab research convinced me that the anatomical teaching I professed and human biology were natural allies. So I recruited passionate people like Len Freedman and Neville Bruce to develop research and teaching in this new discipline here in Australia.(Freedman & Allbrook 1973; David Allbrook, 1974) The rest is history.You will find more in 'Because We Care:short stories from a long life.' David Allbrook 2009