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It is refreshing to find a work that is exploratory and invites its readers into a world more complex than they had imagined. Such a work is a recent book by Peter Dowling, Fatal Contact: How Epidemics Nearly Wiped Out Australia’s First Peoples.
Who better to consult than Dr Hippocrates and his humours? Before Tony Abbott's deposition the choleric element dominated in Australia, full of sound and fury. This has been followed by the preponderance of the sanguine humour, expressing itself in that sunny optimism that makes light of problems. But more recent events suggest that the humours are again in chronic imbalance. The core weakness in the Australian constitution has not been removed with the accession of Malcolm Turnbull.
Mental illness has always been with us. Hippocrates attached melancholia to an excess of black bile. Christ cast out demons from the afflicted. My sister suicided after years of suffering, undiagnosed because of fear of stigma.
Peter Roebuck’s cricket commentaries connect us with more than just a game.