This wonderful book introduces a man who was a true hero. He defeated the dragon of anthrax, found a pot of gold, married a beautiful maiden, encountered a demon and died at the peak of his powers. Anthrax is a ferocious beast: in the 1880s it could kill 500 sheep in one day. But it is also fastidious and will live only within certain areas and types of soil. In Australia it was known as the Cumberland Disease, as it seemed to have spread from the Cumberland Plain around Sydney. It seemed particularly virulent around the Riverina where a landowner Arthur Devlin sounded the alarm.
At that time, the New South Wales government was actually more worried about the rabbit plague and was negotiating with the great French scientist Louis Pasteur, who claimed his ‘chicken cholera vaccine’ would wipe out rabbits. The government chose not to take that option, probably sensibly, but Devlin was able to contact Pasteur’s Sydney team, which was headed by Adrien Loir, nephew of Pasteur’s wife. Pasteur had in 1881 developed a vaccine against anthrax (known in French as ‘charbon’―coal―from anthracite, get it?) and in 1888 Loir was able successfully to use it on Devlin’s sheep. And this is where our hero, J.A. Gunn, comes into the story. The son of Scottish immigrants, he was then only 18 but already managing a nearby property for the Goldsborough firm.
The story is brilliantly told in Peter Symes’s biography of Gunn. It is a model of exposition, so well done that one can easily follow even quite technical material. Over time, our hero, quaintly referred to throughout as ‘Mr Gunn’, progressed from designing a more efficient vaccine, to marketing it in collaboration with a properly qualified scientist, John M’Garvie Smith. The profits enabled Gunn to move from manager to landowner and even property investor; but he had a parallel life as a local influencer, climaxing in his appointment to the NSW Legislative Council in 1908. Sadly, he died two years later, at the age of 50, from ‘chronic nephritis’. By then, the relationship with M’Garvie Smith had soured and Gunn even wrote to his solicitor that “the man is a devil neither more nor less and a mad one at that”. A document explaining how to prepare the vaccine, written in 1908, but not to be opened until after Gunn’s death is entitled “Directions in case of my death at Mr. Smiths hands …”. The accusation appears to be unfounded, and I wondered if his ‘chronic’ illness was not affecting his mind. Gunn’s story was forgotten as Australia was catapulted into the larger horrors of World War I.
From a broader perspective, this book offers a remarkable insight into rural politics at the turn of the 20th century. Federation didn’t seem to impact local issues very much and there were still many absurdities, such as the lack of fencing around Crown land, which allowed rabbits to proliferate. Most of Gunn’s later years were taken up with the rabbit problem and he urged caution about the government proposal for mass poisoning. Throughout, his advice was sensible and courteous. He was punctilious in financial matters, but inclined to leniency when people faced genuine hardship―as many did during the Federation Drought of 1895-1903. We are told little about J.A.’s personal life; he was a handsome fellow, happily married to fellow-Scot, Jesse Maria Turner, a well-educated woman who was able to run the vaccine laboratory when necessary. Together they had four children.
The book is beautifully produced with well-chosen illustrations. But why, oh why, are there no maps? I had great difficulty in understanding how Gunn’s vaccine could be so effective in what seemed a limited area—but have now found out that he was operating within the ‘anthrax belt’ which extended basically through central New South Wales from the Queensland border to just south of Shepparton, Victoria. I gave up attempting to trace Gunn’s movements round the Yalgogrin Range, particularly since he was prone to change the name of his various properties.
No matter, the story is a good one, indeed a great one, and magnificently researched.
Author: Peter Symes
Publisher: PJ Symes
ISBN: 9780958540384
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This book review is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
Related story: The biography of John Gunn