George Biro was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1938, to an Italian mother and a Hungarian father. The family migrated to Australia in 1947. With such a cosmopolitan background and being good at languages, he harboured thoughts of becoming a journalist. His parents actively discouraged such folderols and recommended he find a more secure and socially acceptable job. So he became a medical student in Sydney; whether this fulfilled the parental criteria is a moot point.
After graduation George joined a group practice in Manly, New South Wales, as a GP/anaesthetist. Later he worked in Ryde Hospital in Sydney. In 1990, having acquired what he saw as the insisted-upon security and social acceptability, he reverted to his first love of writing to become a freelance medical journalist. His articles have appeared in various medical publications. This is his second book.
Jim Leavesley was born in Blackpool, the holiday resort in northwest England. He had early fantasies of becoming a Lancashire county cricketer, but again parental reproval—coupled with the obvious fact he was not good enough at cricket—soon put an end to that nonsense.
He entered Liverpool University Medical School, graduating in 1954. He migrated to Perth, Western Australia, in 1957. After having worked as a GP in the same medical practice for 33 years he retired to Margaret River, not to grow grapes but to pursue his lifelong ambition of studying and writing about medical history.
Between 1978 and 1986 he did a weekly medical talkback broadcast on local ABC radio, and from 1981 he has been a regular contributor to programs produced by the Science Unit of the ABC, mostly ‘Ockham’s Razor’. He lectures extensively on medical history and writes a fortnightly column called ‘Historically Speaking’ for Australian Doctor. In 1993 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for ‘services to medicine in general and medical history in particular’. This is his sixth book.