His advice was taken on an international level, and he played a significant role in disease control in Africa and the Middle East.
However, once complete in 1939, his preferred field of animal reproduction offered no employment opportunities and instead he joined the Foot-and-Mouth Research Institute at Pirbright.
He prepared the UK for an epidemic of swine vesicular disease, stemming from Italy and Hong Kong and halted it in its tracks in 1972 due to appropriate immunisation.
[2] He was born on 25 December 1914 to Elizabeth Brodie Burns and George B. Brooksby, an organ-builder in Hyndland, Glasgow.
His mother was from a family of Renfrewshire farmers and he visited his uncles' farms who engendered in him, a love of animals.