Robert Hughes Black ED MD DTM&H Dip Anth FRACP (1917-1988) was a world authority on malaria and Professor of Tropical Medicine in the Commonwealth Institute of Health, University of Sydney, for twenty years. Dr Robert Black met Nora Heysen while she was a war artist in New Guinea. They finally married in 1953 after which she often travelled with her husband to tropical regions where she painted the local people. Black's major contributions were in the prevention and control of malaria in the armed forces, in Australia and in developing countries, working in conjunction with the World Health Organisation (WHO). He eradicated malaria from the Northern Territory, Cape York and the Torres Strait Islands in 1962 - the area was officially declared to be malaria free by WHO in 1981. Black became a consultant for WHO and devoted the rest of his working life to preventing and eradicating malaria. He is the only Australian to have been awarded the Darling Foundation Medal and Prize by WHO for his work in the control of malaria.
