The start of the Ottery, Tent Hill and then Vegetable Creek tin discoveries precipitated a mining boom, and combined with the great influx of people into the district, accidents were frequent.
  In 1881 this prompted a mining engineer, Alfred Cadell, to organise a medical benefits fund – the Vegetable Creek Medical Fund Association – reputed to be the first such fund in Australia. There was a weekly subscription rate of 1/- per man (also covering his non-working family), and 6d per working boy under 15 years of age.
  The proceeds helped to establish a medical practitioner in the settlement – Dr John Thomas Burgoyne being the first doctor – and brought about the c1882 construction of Emmaville’s, still so named, Vegetable Creek Hospital. 
  The first local branch of St John Ambulance (first Australian branch formed in Melbourne in 1883) was started in Vegetable Creek after a series of lectures by a subsequent medical officer, Dr Davenport Parry.