Life was tough 100 years ago but especially tough if you suffered an injury or became sick. When my Uncle Ivor was old, he told a story of when he was a little boy living in Lower Bucca which illustrates some of the difficulties faced. 

You have to realise that calling a doctor when you lived on a farm out of town was not as simple as ringing up and he would just pop around. Firstly, you often did not have access to a telephone in the house. Secondly a doctor may have to rig up the horse and cart, travel slowly on dirt roads across flooded creeks to where the patient was. Even if they had a car, it was not as reliable as the ones we have today.  On many occasions you were on your own for quite a while.

My father worked in the bush as a timber cutter during the war. He recalled that serious accidents did happen, and a patient just had to endure the long and painful trip out of the bush for treatment. Childbirth for mothers to be, could be a nightmare.

Two reflections below may make your hair stand on end but they are true.

Ivor Emery lived in Foxground and Gerroa during his life and was, among other things, a brilliant cricketer in the Gerringong district. 

Ivor Emery: Our nearest doctor was in Coffs Harbour 16 miles away, and the nearest telephone in the town two miles distant, and thus it was first aid applied by either mother or dad, that had to suffice. 

Dad was particularly good at first aid, but if there was blood it shook mother up as she had to be his assistant. I remember having my little toe severed and the next almost the same. Dad applied kerosene and bound the toe back on and it grew quite well. 

Another time I was bitten by a black snake.The doctor's car was being repaired at the time. My uncle had ridden across the flooded creek for help - the bridge having been washed away in the flood - to ring for assistance. In his absence my dad administered first-aid before harnessing the horse in the sulky, and with me in my mother's arms, forded the flooded creek which rose up to their knees in the sulky.  We met the doctor in his car mid-way to Coffs, and he took my mother and I back to the hospital there. After some time I recovered.

There were many accidents with workers in the bush. It was a significant part of pioneering. My uncle slashed his boot and foot when his axe slipped when log-cutting and nearby bled to death. Between Miss Gray and dad they attended him for two hours until the doctor arrived. They massaged his heart and administered spirits to his lips. The doctor wryly said that they had used enough spirits to keep a horse alive! My uncle recovered despite the significant consumption of the abovementioned spirits.

Clive Emery continues with his memories:

Clive Emery: When my siblings and I were young we suffered from all the usual diseases common to the schoolchildren of the day. Complaints like measles, blight, mumps, whooping-cough, croup, diphtheria, and sometimes constipation plagued us during our school days.  

With four of us going to school at one time, if one caught the measles, the rest had to stay at home and mother, realising it would go through the house. She boarded us all in the one room so we would all catch it at the one time, and not be home for weeks on end. She was a good organiser, as time proved, and in no time our faces were spotted like a peewit's egg.  

What with all our complaints and bruises I often wondered how we survived - the boys especially - because of the accidents we sustained. I think we only survived because dad was our doctor. (By a strange coincidence I have his elementary medical book in my library!)

Perhaps one of the most painful things was a succession of boils I managed to contract on my limbs, and red streaks appeared at the nearest glands, be they in the groin or in the armpit, and they swelled. Boils had to run their course, and mother prepared hot poultices of bread and sugar to apply, to bring them to the bursting stage as soon as possible, when dad took over and opened them with his razor. They were so painful the limb had to be supported in a sling.

At dad's judgement of the 'right time', a dish of hot water with salt was brought and the offending boil dipped therein until the pain equalled that of the infection. More hot water was brought and the bathing continued until the swelling burst and dad applied pressure to exude the matter and the wound cleansed with more salt water and bound up to heal.

It was not until the advent of penicillin that boils just withered away.

For bodily complaints castor oil was administered with the desired results, while cuts were healed by a single administration of kerosene, for that valuable commodity was responsible for dad's successes with his stock as well as his family - that and salt!’