Woman Vet. President

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31585, 24 January 1968, Page 2

Woman Vet. President

A tradition of nearly 100 years standing was broken recently when a woman was made president of the British Veterinary Association.

She is Miss Mary Brancker, who has an extensive private practice for farm as well as domestic animals near Birmingham. A brisk, enthusiastic woman in her fifties. Miss Brancker does not feel that there is anything startling about the association’s tradition. It had nothing to do with prejudice, she says. It was just that women have not had time to take an active part in the work of the association. Kicked By Pig Pigs are her main agricultural interest and she bears a scar on her face where one once kicked her. “I think I am the only veterinary surgeon in the country who has been kicked in the face by a pig,” she says. Since the first woman qualified as a veterinary surgeon in Britain in 1929, the profession has had a growing attraction for girls. The only field not open to women is the Army Veterinary Service in Britain. Miss Brancker believes that the British Government’s proposals to develop fish ’arming on a large scale will offer considerable scope to veterinary surgeons, particularly

women, on the research side. “If fish farming in the ocean is to be successful, we have to know a great deal about fish diseases and about the right conditions under which to breed fish,” she says. Overseas Students Until veterinary colleges were established in some of the Commonwealth countries, many students went to Britain to study. One leading African who qualified at the University of Glasgow was the Prime Minister of Gambia (Sir Dawda Jawara). As a qualified veterinary surgeon he attended a recent congress of the British Veterinary Association. Miss Brancker rejects the suggestion that women need to be tough and physically strong to practise as veterinary surgeons.

Most have to face frightened or difficult animals, cap able of inflicting considerable personal injury, but women can usually cope, she says. Besides being injured by a pig, Miss Brancker has been bitten by an Alsatian dog and kicked by cows.