He was born to missionary parents (Jesse and Evelyn "Granny" Brand) and grew up in the Kolli Hills of Tamil Nadu, India, until he was sent to the United Kingdom in 1923 for education.
In his books he gives vivid descriptions of his time as a boy in India with regular bouts of dysentery and malaria in the area known as "Kolli Malai".
[1] Brand trained carpentry and then studied medicine at University College Hospital during the Second World War, later gaining his surgical qualifications whilst working as a casualty surgeon in the London Blitz.
After a visit to the Leprosy Sanatorium at Chingleput, a government institution that was at the time under church management, Brand was motivated to explore the reasons for the deformities developed in those with Hansen's disease.
In 1964 the Brands returned to London where he worked with the Leprosy Mission;[1] two years later they moved to the USA on invitation to take up the position of Chief of Rehabilitation Branch at the National Hansen's Disease Center at Carville, Louisiana.
He worked there for 20 years and established a well-equipped and well-staffed research unit to study the complications of insensitive hands and feet, their prevention and management.
His methods for prevention and management of plantar ulcers are now extensively used for treatment of patients with diabetes mellitus who have similar problems.
When he retired in 1986 from the US Public Health Service, he moved to Seattle and continued his teaching work as emeritus professor of Orthopedics in the University of Washington.