VETERINARIAN PROMOTED

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 17

VETERINARIAN PROMOTED

Auckland Post For Mr A. G. Brash

Mr A. G. Brash, senior veterinarian of the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, has been appointed livestock superintendent for the Auckland and Northland area. He was born at Wyndham and educated at the Southland Technical College. After graduating bachelor of veterinary science from the Sydney Veterinary School in 1937 he spent two years in practice in Invercargill and in 1940 joined the department in Christchurch. He has been senior veterinarian for the last 13 years. Well-known to farmers throughout the northern half of the South Island, Mr Brash made several visits to the Chatham Islands, where he was the first man to recognise copper and cobalt deficiencies in the livestock. He has taken a leading role in the eradication of tuberculosis in town supply herds in the Christchurch district and took an active part in the campaign being waged by the local milk supply companies to eradicate brucellosis, which causes undulant fever in humans. Mr Brash was responsible for the diagnosis of the original outbreak of scrapie disease in sheep in 1952. when imported stud sheep

on a Mid-Canterbury property deyeloped the disease and caused a subsequent outbreak in Southland. Many sheep were slaughtered on the properties concerned and on contact farms and the disease now appears to have l?een completely eradicated. As well as contagious stock disease problems, quarantine and import and export of livestock inspections, Mr Brash also supervised meat inspection at five export slaughterhouses and three abattoirs in his district. “The eradication of tuberculosis from town supply herds in the Christchurch area to the stage where all herds are now virtually free from the disease is one of the greatest advances I have seen since I joined the Christchurch staff,” Mr Brash said. “This could not have been achieved without the wonderful co-operation we have received from the farmers. “Local town milk suppliers who, on their own initiative, have begun a campaign to wipe out brucellosis can take as a real feather in their caps the fact they were the first district to make a start,” he said.