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CHAPTER 16
MEDICAL
SCIENCE
With the taking over of all charitable institutions by the
colony on January 1, 1860 , the old social system based on convictism
crumbled into dus t, and a new epoch was born. Assisted only by Miller,
Hall had laboured diligently to mitigate the death throes of the old and
the birth pangs of the new. Although the effort was costly in energy
and time, and often detrimental to his own personal circumstances , yet he
could, with pardonab le pride, claim some measure of success. Indeed,
by 1860 , Hall had achieved a unique , dominating position in Hobarton
society: not only was he 11Dr Hall11 with whose fearless , determined
outspokenness everyone, including the Governor, had to reckon, but he was
also well known and approved in medi cal . circles throughout Aus tralia and
in England. In spite of the diversity and complexity of his activities ,
his motivation was simple and therefore exceptional and puzzling to his
contemporaries : in essence, he was a 11phys ician11 , a healer of the sick ,
whose tool of trade was medical science, and whose sole concern was the
health and welfare of the individual . From the tiniest, abandoned waif
to the Governor, all persons of any class or creed were equally deserving
of his compassion and devoted care in sickness or in need . But to cure
the sick, or to prevent the healthy from becoming so, it was necessary,
more often than not , to reform the social system. The physician, therefore ,
became the sanitarian and the social reformer , his tools of trade sanitary
science and the instruments of authority and government . Consequently
Hall 's dual role of medical scientist and social reformer, which developed
gradually in the middle and late fifties , ch aracterized the last twenty
years of his life, with his original dedication to medical science,
buttressed by his strong religious faith, gradually predominating , as the
intensity of the need for social reform slowly diminished. It also gave
to his character a double-sided edge, difficult to comprehend and to cope
with: he was , at times , as the occasion demanded it, both the fiery,
emo tional, aggr essive fighter, and the coo 1, composed, controlled, learned
man of science .
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