Not for Glory

I thought I knew about the history of women in medicine until I read Not For Glory, the compelling stories of Australian women doctors who served our country on the battlefields of war. 

The battles faced by these remarkable pioneers were not just nation against nation. They also had to battle the dominant medical and military hierarchies of their time for professional recognition, respect and acceptance. Their inspirational stories exemplify the very best of feminist and humanist principles. 

Those of us who have had the privilege of being leaders in our profession owe so much to the medical women in our history who defied convention, forming the vanguard for those of us who followed. 

- Professor Kerryn Phelps AM, President, Australian Medical Association 2000-2003 

More Australians at war - but women, not men; healers not killers - stories rarely heard but well told and needing to be heard. 

- Professor Peter Stanley, Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, University of New South Wales, Canberra 

At the outbreak of the First World War, female medical practitioners rush to volunteer in the Australian Army. They rudely were dismissed as 'too illogical or hysterical for service'. Despite this rebuttal, Australian women went on to serve with British units in theatres of war as diverse as France, Serbia and the Middle East. Their heroism and devotion to duty, and their struggle against a male dominated military hierarchy is one of the untold stories of Anzac. 

In a remarkable book spanning a century of service, Susan Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare capture the lives of women too long forgotten to history. Detailed archival research, searching oral history, and vibrant participant observation shape a narrative that is bound to captivate the reader and throw new light on women's experience of war. This long overdue book is an immensely valuable contribution to the Anzac Centenary. 

- Professor Bruce Scates, Chair of the Military and Cultural History Panel, Anzac Centenary Advisory Board

Australian women doctors who tended to the wartime casualties across the globe since the Great War have been largely overlooked by historians. The extraordinary courage, skill and resourcefulness of these women allowed them to endure the extremely trying and dangerous conditions under which they often worked, as well as the entrenched prejudice against their sex frequently shown by military authorities. Based on extensive archival research and oral interviews, this volume brings their stories to light in a style that will engage and captivate the reader and change the way we think about the role of Australian women and war. 

- Professor Rae Frances, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Monash University