ROYAL AUSTRALASIAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS,
MELBOURNIE LAYING OF FOUNDATION STONE,
6TH MARCH, 1964+
Speech by the Pri~ me Minister, the Rt. Hon, Sir Robert Menzi& es
Mr. President, My Lord, My Lord Mayor and Ladies and Gentlemen:
I put a prudent question to the President just now,
I said: " Do I lay this stone first and speak afterwards?" and
he said: " Speak first". And I hope if I forget to lay this stone,
he will remind me.
As a matter of fact, you know, I am a masquerader on
an occasion of this kind, Here I am all done up as a surgeon.
Two days ago I took out three Members of Parliament and had them
sworn as Ministers and I didn't know which of my many ties I ought
to wear on that occasion but I found that the one which was the
cleanest and most presentable was the tie of the Royal College of
Gynaecologists and Obstetricians ( Laughter) and I am very distinguished
in that field. So I put on that tie and the Governor-
General who doesn't miss much, had a look at me afterwards and
said, " What tie is that you are wearing?" I said, " Sir, I am a
gynaecologist and obstetrician ( Laughter) and nobody ought to know
it better than you do because I hove just given birth to three new
Ministers" ( Laughter)
I am also a physician, I am an architect though sadly
out of date in my architectural views. In fact there are very few
things that you can name that I am not one of them in a fraudulent
sense; when they mean there is no merit in this matter they
always say causa honoris and, causa honoris, I am a most versatile
character, but in reality I know nothing about these things. But
I do know that when I read through the story of this College,
beginning as recently as 1926, I found this the most exciting story',
I think, that any Australian could read. A wonderful story, This
country has for many, many years enjoyed a world reputation in the
field of surgery, but it was only as recently as 1926 that this
College was established, later to become the Royal Australasian
College of Surgeons, now holding its hood up in any company in the
world, now with its fellowships, honoured and respected and valued
all over the world. This is a wonderful story to be able to tell
after thirtyseven or thirtycight years, and it marks two things, one
of them being the enormous development of surgery in the modern
world. Occasionally in an idle moment I have a look at Sam
Pepyst diary or one of those earnest recorAs or not so earnest
records about the tail end of the seventeenth century and there
are one or two descriptions of operations. It couldn't have been
much fun, I think, for the patient in those days before annesthetics,
before antiseptic or aseptic surgery. Not much fun, except for
one thing and that was that to induce a species of anaesthesia
in the patient, liberal applications of grog were made and so the
patient, in a state of affairs that would never recommend itself
to any modern temperance body, became almost unconscious to the
villainies that were being perpetrated on him. Well, that's of
course before your time and before my time.
All I know is that probably in the lost fifty, Sixty,
seventy years the developments in the art and science of surgery
in the world have been phenomenal, Indeed it is worthwhile people
recalling occasionally that although we do manage to destroy life
on a very great scale in the modern world, you surgeons have
El -2
managed to preserve life to sustain life to the most astonishing
degree, and all this is due to learning, constant-. study, a constant
willingness to learn new techniques and a devotion to the task
which excludes, I an perfectly certain, at the time of operation,
all other considerations,
I don't mind saying to you as a man with two professionsthe
profession of the law and the profession of politics that I
envy you the profession that you pursue. This is, in the highest
sense of the world, a constructive occupation. But if people had
not founded this College, if they had not taken steps to encourage
post-graduate work, further work, expert lectures, expert experimentation
and teaching and thought surgery would have tended to
stand still except for what might read in the documents
proceeding from some other countries. The great thing about this
ollege, the marvellous thing I think about it every time I
drive past it when I come into Melbourne is that it represents
the consciousness in practical terms of the need constantly to
learn more, to know more at the end of one day than one knew at
the end of the previous day, to be willing to learn to be willing
to be bold, There is a lot of courage, I always think, required in
the art of the surgeon. A man who is timid, a man who says, " No,
IVll play safe," might get by, but he will never add to the sum of
surgical knowledge. Many lives that would have been lost if every
surgeon had played safe, have been rescued because many decided that
courage should be added to skill and that between the two of them,
wonderful results might be attained.
And so it is not merely a matter of recalling what has
happened in the field of surgery on the world scene today is an
opportunity to recall with pride what has happened in this part of
the world in Australia and in New Zealand, to recall the great
men, the Imaginative men who established the College, and the
couple of generations of people who understood that they must go
on and on and learn to become more and more competent, not simply
because this would be of some advantage to them. Wie all have some
advantages from whatever we do in a material sense, but the driving
force in this College has been the widening of the boundaries of
knowledge the raising of the standards of surgical skill, the
benefit of' the people as a whole.
And that is why, in whatever capacity I may masquerade
myself today7 I would like to say before I lay the foundation stone
that as a Prime Minister who as has just been said, performed a
successful operation not very long ago, as a Prime Minister who has
been saddled with the responsibilities of Government in this
country for a long, long time, I would think myself rather odd if
I didni't so that while occasionally in my simple vanity I may be
tempted to Think that I have done something useful or something
good, today I am perfectly certain that I am addressing, particularly
in the professional sense here today, men who, for themselves and
for those who come after them are doing work about which nobody
can argue. This is constructive work, not as well known as the
work of people who are in the headlines but very frequently
immeasurably more important. And so, as the Head of the Government,
I say how grateful I am to you, Sir, for having invited me to come
here, how proud I am to have the opportunity of being associated
with this great development and how confident I am that just as you
now look back on fairly modest beginnings, and I admit that price
of œ E13,000 made me a little green with envy ( I don't think we will
be able to build a new Parliament House with that) but just as you
look back on these modest beginnings, so your sons and grandsons
will look back on this with all its extensions as a modest beginning
because year after year, generation after generation, this work will
go on. I thank you, I congr~ atulate you and I will now go across and
hope when I pull the right string or handle the right instrument
I ought to have a ward sister with me, I think that I may declare
the stone well and truly laid.