Doctor's diary

Extract from diary kept by Dr Frederick Renner while attached to the Overland Telegraph Line construction works as a medical officer. His practice extended along the length of the growing line, but because of the telegraph he was easily contacted and able to provide care to his patients, though there were not many of these. With so few patients he had plenty of time to record details of the flora, the weather, the type of country and the water supplies along the Telegraph Line.

His entry for 10 March 1872 records 'Cook very bad with dysenterie'. Another man was suffering from haemorrhoids. Over the following few days he notes their improvement. By 14 March they were well enough for him to move on to Tennant Creek.

After the work was completed, Dr Renner returned to Adelaide and entered general practice. Several years later, with several other doctors, he operated the Kapunda Hospital. He subsequently practiced in Hahndorf, Carrieton and Peterborough, where he died in 1893. He had arrived in South Australia in 1848 as a young newly graduated doctor and surgeon, where he had practiced for several years before moving to the Murray-Darling region. Here his practice had extended for hundreds of miles.

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