| Dr Ruth Bishop, an Australian scientist with three adult children, has devoted her life to the good of the world's children. Twice chairperson of the World Health Organisation scientific working committees, she is recognised overseas but is hardly known of in Australia. After graduating from Melbourne University in 1954, she has worked persistently on the study of gastroenteritis from which 5 million people die every year, particularly in underdeveloped countries where access to hospitals is limited. It is not however limited to poor countries and when an epidemic broke out in Melbourne in 1973, Dr Bishop was providentially on the spot. Her research was based on a belief that the culprit was a virus which she ultimately identified with an electron microscope from tissue samples from an affected child. The search now focuses on the development of an oral vaccine at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne but is hampered by a severe shortage of research funding. A prizewinner for her work, Dr Bishop pays tribute to women doctors who helped her and hopes one day to publish a book on the largely unrecorded work of women in medicine and science. |