Tim Sherratt Published in Australasian Science , Summer 1993, p. 64.
Australian scientists are wimps.
They spend all their time working away in the background, investigating some topic that nobody else in the world understands. Jean Macnamara , who was rather short and certainly did have a collection of odd-looking hats, was one Australian scientist who was determined to be of use to society and to make things happen, even though this sometimes brought her into conflict with her scientific colleagues. Jean Macnamara graduated in medicine from the University of Melbourne in the 1920s. In those days, polio was still a much feared disease, causing paralysis and sometimes death in children. Those who survived might well be crippled for life.