Tracking Down the Zam-Buk

Rugby league television commentator Ray Warren recently referred to the "zambuks" coming onto the field to treat an injured player.

'Zambuk' is rarely heard today, but was once in common use in Australia and New Zealand to describe ambulance-men and first-aid officers.

Stationed on the touchlines at representative and first grade games, the 'zambuk' would race across the pitch to help an injured player. They began to be replaced in the 1970s by 'trainers' and 'runners'.

The exact origins of the word itself are now long forgotten - though there is a town in South Africa called Zambuk.

It is thought possible that a Boer War veteran took home to England (or somewhere else in the Empire, including Australia), a secret ointment that could relieve or cure all sorts of ailments.

In 1903, or thereabouts, this new product called 'Zam-Buk', started to appear on chemists' shelves in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Who came up with the idea of creating the 'Zam-Buk' skin-dressing is unknown, but for the first-half of the 20th century it was a very popular product.

The 'Zam-Buk' name found its way into rugby league, and other sports, by the St Johns ambulance-men who carried it in their kit-bags to treat players on the field and sidelines. The advertising cry of "Here Comes Zam-Buk" referred to the product, but within barely a few years of its introduction, 'Zam-Buk' came to mean the ambulance-men themselves.

During the 1910 English [Great Britain] rugby league Lions tour of Australia, The Sydney Sportsman described how the visiting team's fullback, 'the baby elephant' James Sharrock, was knocked-out cold in the First Test: "He made those half-dozen Zambuks wobble at the knees carrying him on the stretcher."

The product itself was an important first-aid medicine for any cuts or abrasions of the skin. In a time long before anti-biotics, a footballer could come to permanent grief merely from scraping his knee on the ground and it becoming infected.

Zam-Buk was a recognised treatment that could successfully kill germs that had entered the skin. Many of the Zam-Buk adverts used headlines such as "Do you realise the danger of a poisoned finger? Death often lurks in a cut."

It was also used for sprains, muscle soreness, burns, and many other skin ailments. Apparently made from vegetable ingredients, the name suggests the original source was African.

Unfortunately, in the first decades of Sydney rugby league, one first-grade player died from an infection caused by a wound received playing football.

Newtown's Jack Holmes, a 1929/30 Kangaroo tourist, suffered an open wound injury to his leg while playing on the Sydney Cricket Ground during the 1931 season.

Some dirt had got into the wound, and germs quickly spread, leading to a case of septicaemia (blood poisoning). In September 1931, aged 25 years old, Holmes died after the toxins overwhelmed his body.

Thanks to the attributes of Zam-Buk, many other footballers were saved from death or permanent disability.

History Article © Sean Fagan / RL1908

References:
The Sydney Sportsman
Terry Williams, Out of the Blue (Newtown RLFC History)

RL1908 Feature Articles

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