Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

WUNDERLY Sir Harry Wyatt MD FRCP FRACP

1892 – 1971

Harry Wyatt Wunderly was born on 30th May 1892, at Hawthorn, Melbourne.  He was the youngest son of Jacques (James) Wunderly, an accountant, and Mary Jane, nee Hawkeswood.  His father died of tuberculosis (TB) when he was five years old. Wunderly was educated at Wesley College and studied medicine at Melbourne University. While at university he contracted TB and had to take a year off study, graduating in 1915. Wunderly moved to SA after completing medicine, and joined a general practice in the Adelaide Hills.  He married Alice Jean Bowman Barker at Mount Barker, on 18th February 1919. She was the daughter of Mr and Mrs Alfred James Barker of Caithness, Mount Barker. Wunderly began as a consultant physician specialising in TB, in Adelaide, in 1924.  He was appointed by the South Australian Government to investigate methods of treating the disease.  After visiting England, Switzerland and Austria, during 1924 and 1925, he advocated policy on TB control that promoted early diagnosis and notification and the strict supervision of milk supply. He carried out tuberculin surveys of young women, leading to chest X-rays for those who tested positive to the Mantoux test.  He was also involved in the design and manufacture of X-ray machines for mass surveys and, in April 1939, promoted the value of large-scale surveys. 

When WW2 started in September1939, Wunderly recommended to the Department of Defence that troops be routinely screen for TB; this led to the successful screening of 16 Bde before embarkation in January 1940. By 9th January 1940, 6,775 soldiers were screened. The cost of the screening was about fourpence for each man, and within two months 22,000 men had been tested.  Screening for CMF troops was delayed on a cost basis and did not begin until 1942.  Wunderly then enlisted in the AAMC on 1st June 1942, at the rank of captain. He was called up for full-time duty with 101 AGH. However, by the end of June, he was transferred to 116 AGH, Charters Towers, QLD, and promoted to major on 1st September 1942. He was unable to serve overseas due to his pulmonary fibrosis and B medical classification. He was appointed to 106 AGH, a sanitorium in Bonegilla, Victoria, during 1943 and then attached to 115 AMH, Heidelberg, Melbourne, as OC medical division, on 10 August 1944. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 27th September 1945. The military fully exploited his expertise in TB, so he subsequently remained within Australia throughout the war. Wunderly was then attached as DDMS Northern Command in 1946 and transferred to 3 MD for discharge, on 7th May 1947.

Wunderly moved to Canberra after the war and, in 1947, became the first director of TB in the Commonwealth Department of Health. During this time, he developed a national TB control programme, with free medical care for people with active TB and the provision of the preventative BCG vaccine and streptomycin the first anti-tuberculosis drug. Wunderly was also a fellow of Royal College of Physicians, (RCP) the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and the American College of Chest Physicians.  He gave a substantial amount of money to the RACP, which created the Wunderly travelling scholarship in 1947.  He was knighted in 1954 and retired in 1957.  However, he continued to be involved with TB and became the president of the National Association for the Prevention Tuberculosis in Australia from 1959 to 1961.  He also consulted with the World Health organisation on TB. Harry Wyatt Wunderly died 16th April 1971, just six months after his wife Alice died.  They had no children.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD