From "CSIRO research for Australia" (1962):

" In the Division of Animal Health the study of bacterial diseases at the Parkville laboratory has followed an established pattern study of the diseased animal, isolation and identification of the responsible micro-organism, preparation of a vaccine. Pleuropneumonia of cattle was one of the first diseases to be tackled, and the laboratories have for many years supplied vaccine for use in the endemic areas in Australia and overseas. Some 1,300,000 doses are now prepared each year. Another disease successfully tackled was black disease of sheep, which was estimated to cost the industry £4,000,000 a year in pre-war days. Enterotoxaemia of sheep, or "pulpy kidney", was the next to be studied. The vaccines for black disease and pulpy kidney are now manufactured by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, and their use is standard throughout large pastoral areas of Australia. Bovine mastitis was studied intensively, and control methods based on milking shed hygiene were worked out. A successful line of work developed at Parkville has been chemical pathology, particularly of the liver, due to alkaloids and the excessive uptake of the mineral elements, copper and molybdenum. This has led to means for the prevention of toxaemic jaundice and the notorious Kimberley horse disease.

Recently a virology unit has been established with the idea of anticipating future trouble from virus-borne diseases.

At the McMaster Laboratory, and at Armidale, the parasites of sheep have been studied in the laboratory and within the environment of the pasture. Research has been concentrated on both internal parasites (particularly stomach worms) and external parasites such as the blowfly, the tick, the louse, and the itch mite. At Yeerongpilly, the internal parasites of cattle, and "tick fever" in cattle infested with ticks, have been the principal topics of research."