Dr. J. F. Filmer’s Contribution To Animal Research

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29336, 15 October 1960, Page 15

Dr. J. F. Filmer’s Contribution To Animal Research

In his 22 years as director of the animal research division of the Department of Agriculture, a position from which he retired last month, Dr. J. F. Filmer made notable contributions not only in the field of research in which he was particularly qualified and interested but also in many other activities that promoted the advancement of the science and practice of farming in New Zealand, says the department’s latest newsletter.

Before he came to New Zealand in 1938, Dr. Filmer was already distinguished for his veterinary and research work in Australia. His first major research in Australia, which led to an established reputation in his own country and later in New Zealand as an authority on deficiency diseases of animals, concerned a disease affecting sheep and cattle in the Denmark district of Western Australia. The condition was similar to the bush sickness Jhat was then a serious problem in New Zealand, and like bush sickness it responded to treatment with iron oxide ore. Observation that the amount of iron needed to cure an animal was far more than the normal needs of the animal for that element led Dr. Filmer and Mr E. J. Underwood, with whom he was associated in the research, to postulate that some impurity in the ore was responsible for the cures, and they finally showed that this was cobalt. “Inestimable Value” The discovery that cobalt was an essential nutrient for ruminants has proved of inestimable value, for the need for it has been found in almost every country where sheep are raised. The initial research led to rapid growth of knowledge on cobalt and vitamin 812 and the influence of this vitamin on the nutrition of both ruminants and nonruminants. For a thesis on his work on cobalt deficiency Melbourne University conferred on Dr. Filmer the degree of doctor of veterinary science soon after he joined the then Wallaceville Veterinary Laboratory as a veterinary research officer in February, 1938. Dr. Filmer’s appointment as director of the new animal research division of the department in March, 1938, called for high qualities as an administrator and subordination of his own capacity and talent for research to his job of stimulating the work of his staff and providing facilities. The division started with the Wallaceville station well established in the study of disease and with a new station at Ruakura to be built up to study the breeding and management of healthy animals. Under his direction smaller stations for special purposes were established at Mamaku for cobalt studies, at Kirwee 4or hogget mortality studies and lamb fattening trials, at Manutuke for facial eczema research, and at Whatawhata for research into sheep and cattle management on hill country. Dr. Filmer’s arrival in New Zealand in 1938 coincided with a serious outbreak of facial eczema investigation of which was one of his first responsibilities. He has taken a special place in subsequent work on the disease and gave broad guidance not only to his own staff but to the many

others who contributed to facial eczema studies. The major discoveries of the cause of the disease by a fungus and identification of the causal poison were made while he was still guiding the facial eczema team. The Public Service Commission’s appreciation of Dr. Filmer’s work was expressed at a farewell function at Wallaceville by the chairman (Mr L. A. Atkinson) who said that under Dr. Filmer’s direction of animal research something had happened that anyone could chalk up as a major achievement. Extremely valuable work had been done, and would continue to be done, by the team he had built up. All could feel pricte in the extremely high honours he had received in his field of work and they must be a source of great satisfaction and credit to him. He could vacate his office with the feeling that his 22 years in New Zealand had been really worth while in that he had made a contribution to the country’s prosperity that did not fall to the lot of many people.