Since the coming of Europeans the record of Aboriginal health has been one of unmitigated disaster. For 140 years the Aboriginal population plummeted until the race was within sight of extinction. Since then, as population has risen (in recent years rapidly) the record has been one of infant mortality, shamefully excessive by white Australian or world standards, and levels of morbidity which compare unfavourably with those of most societies in the world for which records are available. Even today, despite considerable expenditure on medical research, technology and expertise, the most recent comprehensive review of Aboriginal health can still legitimately describe the situation as one of crisis (Reid 1982).

The variety and emphasis of the diseases and morbid conditions common among Aborigines, ranging as they do through infectious and respiratory diseases, gastroenteritis, sexually transmitted, dental and eye diseases, together with widespread malnutrition, strongly suggest a common set of environmental factors in the context from which these ills emerge. That this should be so for people who have shown themselves capable of achieving physical and psychic health over millennia in diverse and frequently inhospitable habitats suggests that these factors are likely to be found in the changes, physical and other, imposed on them and their habitat by the European invasion.