The establishment of the Federal Health Service stemmed from the need to exclude dangerous infectious diseases from Australia. Disease such as smallpox and plague were constant threats to a country newly settled by Europeans with maritime ties, and cholera was endemic in neighboring countries. There were also the less immediate but acknowledged risks of the introduction into Australia of yellow fever and louse typhus. In other words, the earliest Federal Health Service was essentially a quarantine service -established on the basis of meticulous maritime quarantine and supported by a specially trained staff of quarantine medical officers with a chain of quarantine stations strung around the Australian coastline
