Virtual
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Australia

Jo Bancroft was born in Burpengary, Qld to Cecilia and Dr Thomas Lane Bancroft, medical naturalist. She was home schooled before attending Brisbane Girls’ Grammar and going on to the University of Queensland (BSc 1918 & MSc 1930). In 1918-1919 she gained a Walter & Eliza Hall Fellowship in economic biology to research tick resistance in cattle, fly-borne diseases of cattle and horses, and fatal epizootics (epidemics in animals) in fresh-water fish. Fourteen joint papers with her honours supervisor were published.

Jo moved to Sydney and graduated with a medical degree from the University of Sydney in 1924. Later that year she married fellow medical student Ian Murray Mackerras under a large river-gum tree on the banks of the Burnett River, Eidsvold. She completed a resident year at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital before commencing medical practice in Sydney. Jo and Ian published a paper on blood parasites in fish, the first of 23 joint papers. Later they would become known as the most productive and distinguished husband-and-wife partnerships in the history of Australian science.

Their only child David was born in 1926 and Jo retired to domesticity. The family relocated to Canberra when Ian joined the CSIR’s Division of Economic Entomology in 1929. A kindergarten opened nearby and in October 1930 Jo joined the same division as a junior research officer working on blowfly control in sheep and tick-borne fevers in cattle. In those times legislation forbade the employment by government of both man and wife. It is unknown how Jo survived a challenge which is in the records, but it is fortunate for Australian science that she did, as, for the next nine years her own papers and joint ones with Ian and others greatly expanded the knowledge on general and veterinary entomology.

In 1939, Ian, who had served in WWI, was appointed a Major in the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC) serving as a pathologist in the Middle East and North Africa before returning to Melbourne in 1942 where he was appointed Director of Entomology at Land Headquarters. Jo enlisted in February 1942 and began service in Sydney as a Captain in the AAMC.

The rapid advancement through South East Asian saw the Japanese take control of Dutch East India [Indonesia] which controlled most of the world’s supplies of quinine, the principal anti-malarial drug.

When Australian troops were rushed to Papua New Guinea, one of the world’s most malarious regions, they were ill-equipped with uniforms which disintegrated in the constant rain, no mosquito nets and a shortage of quinine and the synthetic drug atebrin. At Milne Bay the malaria epidemic was among the worst ever suffered by the Australian Army. If the infection rates were sustained, the whole of the Milne Force would have been lost in less than two months.

By June 1943 it was estimated that 25,000 Australians serving in PNG had contracted malaria. Evacuated soldiers were transported on the 4th Australian Hospital train which ran between Cairns and Mareeba and onwards to the Rocky River siding three times a week.They recuperated in the malaria unit at the Rocky River Twin Hospitals run by the 2/2nd and 2/6th Australian General Hospitals on the cooler Atherton Tablelands.

The newly created Land Headquarters Medical Research (LHMR) began its work in June 1943. Jo, newly promoted to Major, began research into malaria control by suppressive drugs. Mosquito lavae were collected in PNG and flown to Cairns where they were grown to maturity, infected with malarial parasites and then used to transmit the disease to their human hosts. When supplies of anopheline larvae failed she contrived a brilliant laboratory breeding program.

Jo led a team of soldier scientists in the experimental infection of 1,189 soldier volunteers. It was found that a dose of 0.2 grams of atabrine would suppress malaria. The treatment resulted in a dramatic fall in the rate of infection in troops. Allied forces became relatively malaria free, a significant factor in their eventual victory against the Japanese.

Brigadier Hamilton Fairley, Brigadier Steigrad & Maj-Gen Lloyd were fulsome in their praise of Jo's work and commented "Few women can have made a greater contribution to the Allied war effort". Despite three recommendations the Military Decoration (MBE), eligibility did not extend to female officers and Jo received no medals or awards for her critical war work.

After the war Jo continued her research at the Qld CSIR laboratories before moving to the Qld Institute of Medical Research (QIMR). Both Jo and Ian were elected fellows of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia in 1957. They helped establish the Marine Research Station on Heron Island. In 1961 they left QMIR and returned to Canberra as research fellows of CSIRO's division of entomology. In 1965 Jo was awarded the WB Clarke Medal of the Royal Society of NSW. Both Jo and Ian continued their research and published more papers.

"Plain brilliant, adored by her husband", said a relative: "and by everyone who knew her" added a colleague.

References:
Norris, KR: "Ian Murray Mackerras" (1898-1980), Australian Academy of Science
Morrison, Patricia: "Jo Mackerras, 200 Australian Women", Lost Story www.loststory.net/australianwomen/jo-mackerrass
Howe-Willis, Ian: Äustralian malariology during WWII (Part 3 of Pioneers of Australian military malariology), Journal of Military and Veterans' Health
Mackerras, Mabel Josephine, Australian Military Forces, NAA: B883, NX137899, National Archives of Australia