(Peter Symes. 288 pages, Colour and B&W illustrations. AUD$38.00; price includes postage within Australia. To the United Kingdom the cost of book and postage is AUD72.00. Contact me for postage to other countries.)
John Alexander Gunn was an Australian pastoralist who developed a double-dose vaccine for anthrax, which was used from 1893 and which out-performed the vaccine produced by Louis Pasteur. He then formed a partnership with John M’Garvie Smith to inoculate sheep and cattle. From 1897 they introduced a single-dose vaccine. Over the years the partnership was successful and financially rewarding, but it also became tempestuous—to the point that John Gunn suspected his partner may kill him.
Famed for his vaccine, he also came to the fore on rural matters, serving on the Pastures and Stock Protection Boards’ Council of Advice and, ultimately, becoming Chairman of the Council. In this role he led the project to implement a plan to eradicate rabbits through the work of Dr. Danysz. He was later appointed to the New South Wales Parliament’s Legislative Council.
This biography covers the life and labours of John Gunn, illustrating his work within the times he lived and highlighting many of the issues that faced him and the rural community at the time. It is a study of an impressive man and his forgotten times.
