Clunes Mathison, the son of teachers and the only survivor of six children, decided on a medical career 'surely influenced by the experience of witnessing ... the deaths from disease that devastated his family'. (Ross McMullin, Farewell, Dear People, p.285). He attended the University of Melbourne, Victoria, and completed his medical degree with first-class honours in medicine and surgery.
Realising he needed to work overseas in order to pursue his goal of medical research, in 1908 Mathison secured a position as demonstrator in physiology at St Mary's Hospital medical school in London, United Kingdom, and later at University College, London as a doctor of science research. His 'reputation of being the best student that Melbourne University had turned out from its medical faculty' (McMullin, p. 292) continued with laboratory research work of the highest standard, the publishing of well regarded research papers and in teaching.
In 1913 Mathison returned to Melbourne as sub-director of clinical pathology laboratories at Melbourne Hospital, a position created for him. He continued researching, teaching and publishing while proposals for a research institute that he was to lead were discussed. The institute became the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute after World War I.
At the outbreak of World War I, Mathison enlisted as a field ambulance captain in the AIF 2nd Field Ambulance and embarked for Egypt, 20 October 1914. Fate led Mathison to replace an injured 5th Battalion doctor before the Gallipoli landing. From 25 April to 9 May, Mathison worked 'with irrepressible cheerfulness' (McMullin, p. 312) as a field doctor but was wounded and died in hospital at Alexandria, Egypt, 18 May 1915 aged 31. Described in obituaries and letters of the time as a brilliant man and doctor, his death '... [f]or the School of Medicine in Melbourne, for the science of medicine throughout the world ... is irreparable.' (McMullin, p.317)
Source: Ross McMullin, 'Clunes Mathison : The Medical Scientist', Farewell, Dear People (2012): 275-323
