Medical kit in leather pouch : Private G R Kenihan, 4 Light Horse Field Ambulance, AIF

Standard issue brown leather medical pouch as carried by members of Australian Field Ambulances during the First World War, The pouch has a flap secured by a leather tab and brass post. There are two vertically aligned leather keepers sewn to the back to allow it to be carried on a waist belt. The pouch is stamped underneath the flap with a broad arrow 'W.A AUSTRALIA C.G.H.F.' and impressed in the top of the flap with the owner's initials and service number 'G R K 16968'. The pouch contains the following items: A 2 cc capacity glass and steel hypodermic syringe (missing needles) made by Ogden, Australia; a khaki cotton bandage secured by a safety pin; a square green glass bottle with wood and cork stopper bearing an elastoplast label over the original paper one, labelled 'SALICYLATE; a square black Bakelite bottle with black Bakelite screw lid, bearing an elastoplast label marked 'PHENOACETIN 5 GRAINS'; a square black Bakelite bottle with black Bakelite screw lid, bearing an elastoplast label marked 'BICARB SODA'; a square black Bakelite bottle with a black Bakelite screw lid, bearing an elastoplast label over the original paper label marked 'LEAD (illegible words) No 8); rectangular black Bakelite bottle with black Bakelite screw lid, with '11' scratched into the body and marked on a piece of elastoplast stuck to the top of the lid, and an elastoplast label marked' POT[tassium] PERMANG[anate]; rectangular black Bakelite bottle with black Bakelite screw lid with elastoplast on top marked '6', '12' scratched into the body of the bottle, and an illegible elastoplast label.

This standard issue light horse field ambulance medical kit was carried by 16968 Private George Roe Kenihan during his service in Palestine with 4 and 5 Light Horse Field Ambulances. The needles for the hypodermic syringe and the morphine, which would originally have been part of the kit, are no longer present. Kenihan, who was born at Baroota, South Australia, enlisted in the AIF in Adelaide, on 6 July 1916. He was assigned to the Army Medical Corps and was sent to Seymour in Victoria to undertake specialist medical training. On completion of the course he was assigned to the reinforcements for the Camel Corps Field Ambulance in Palestine. Kenihan left Melbourne for Egypt aboard HMAT A42 Boorara on 10 May 1917. On arrival in Egypt he was transferred to 4 Light Horse Regiment Field Ambulance. He helped to treat the wounded after the Australian charge at Beersheba on 31 October 1917. In September 1918 Kenihan was transferred to 5 Light Horse Field Ambulance, and it was while he was serving with this unit that he took part in the formal Australian entry into Damascus on 2 October 1918. He returned to Australia on 14 July 1919.