Histories of Antarctic exploration generally concentrate on the principal expeditioners to the exclusion of those who made up the numbers. This paper specifically examines the small coterie of medical men who went south with the British and Australian Antarctic expeditions in the so-called 'Golden Age' of Antarctic exploration, from Carsten Borchgrevink's 1898 expedition to Cape Adare to Douglas Mawson's to Adelie Land and King George V land in 1911. These were a disparate group of men from a variety of different universities. None had Specialist medical training: all were essentially general practitioners. The paper explores the medical backgrounds of these men. It looks at the prevailing medical milieu in which they were trained, the medical supplies they took with them and the medical care each had to provide. Furthermore it examines their involvement in expeditionary journeys and their subsidiary roles with each expedition.