"Ring the bell and win a cigar". Some early experiments on the measurement of human strength in Port Jackson and Van Diemen's Land.

The first medical research formally undertaken on Australian soil was a series of experiments to test different factors which might modify muscular power. The experiments were conducted by François Péron, a Parisian doctor and naturalist, who travelled with Baudin's French scientific expedition to Nouvelle Hollande and Terre de Diemen. Péron used a dynamometer, an instrument for measuring strength. He conducted his experiments at Port Jackson, and at Maria Island (in Van Diemen's Land) in 1902. The basis for the experiments, an account of the equipment used, and the results are presented together for the first time.