Since there was no examination at the end of second year, which was largely devoted to anatomy (four students to a human cadaver), I took First Year Geology as an evening student, with Sir Douglas Mawson and Dr Cecil Madigan as teachers; I received a credit at the end-of-year examination. I had joined the Science Students Association during my first year, maintained my association with it throughout my time at Adelaide University, and was elected its President in 1937.

I did quite well in medical studies in the succeeding years, gaining top place and Dr Davies Thomas Scholarships in 1935 and 1936, and the Lister Prize for Clinical Surgery in 1937. However, to my disgust (which I can still vividly remember), I obtained only third place in the final year examinations. It was a small compensation to gain the Dr Charles Gosse Medal for Ophthalmology.

In the summer of 1937–38 there was a severe outbreak of poliomyelitis in Australia. The Northfield Infectious Disease Hospital appealed to fifth year students for help, and a friend and somewhat older colleague, David Shepherd (who was already a qualified pharmacist) and I volunteered and spent the long vacation working there, mostly on poliomyelitis and diphtheria. I was not worried about ‘infantile paralysis’, as poliomyelitis was then called, but my confidence was undermined when, soon after my arrival, I admitted a young man with paralysis who had been in the same class as me at Rose Park Primary School. The Superintendent of Northfield Hospital at the time, Dr Alan Finger, was an active and sincere Communist. Although I read, and indeed still have, some of the books about communism that he gave me, I refused his invitations to attend meetings, and have in fact never attended a political meeting of any kind. However, for some time after enlistment in the Australian Army, all my outgoing letters were opened and censored (the convention was that officers censored their own letters). I was unaware of this until much later. I enjoyed my time at Northfield, doing laboratory work, mainly diagnosis of diphtheria, and helping with patients of all kinds. In addition, I had my first experiments with sex there, with an older and wiser nurse, who was very tolerant of my ‘falling in love’ with her.