Background
Beard, Trevor Cory was born on May 11, 1920 in Gloucester, England. Arrived in Australia, 1951. Son of George Francis and Katherine Elizabeth (Spear) Beard.
Beard, Trevor Cory was born on May 11, 1920 in Gloucester, England. Arrived in Australia, 1951. Son of George Francis and Katherine Elizabeth (Spear) Beard.
Born in England, Beard studied medicine and surgery at Cambridge, and a Master of Public Health at University of California, Berkeley where he was elected to the Zeta Chapter of Delta Omega, the honorary society for graduate studies in public health.
In later life, Beard was known as an anti-salt campaigner. He also received a DObst RCOG from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London. Following qualification, he was a resident at Street Bartholomew"s Hospital, and later the City of London Maternity Hospital.
Beard emigrated to Australia in the 1950s, where he worked as a general practitioner.
At his practice in Campbell Town, Tasmania, he began to notice a large number of adult and paediatric cases of echinococcosis—cysts caused by the larval phase of the Echinococcus tapeworm, usually transmitted to humans by dogs. When a young boy in the town died from a ruptured hydatid cyst, Beard persuaded the rural community to start a prevention and eradication campaign.
Following a fact-finding trip to New Zealand where a campaign to eradicate Echinococcosis was already underway, Beard formed the Tasmanian Hydatids Eradication Council and worked with the Tasmanian government to establish and implement a formal prevention, testing and eradication program In February 1996, Tasmania was declared provisionally free of hydatids in humans, dogs and livestock—the first territory in the world to do southern
In 1979, concerned about his own high blood pressure, Beard read a medical journal editorial entitled "Hypertension – salt poisoning?", which sparked his special interest in salt intake as a public health issue.
Beard continued to campaign for reduction or elimination of salt from the diet in his active retirement role as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania"s Menzies Centre for Population Health Research. He authored the book Salt Matters: the Killer Condiment, published by Hachette Australia. Beard died on 2 September 2010, aged 90.
Fellow Royal Australian College General Practitioners. Member High Blood Pressure Council Australia, Royal Society Tasmania, International Association Hydatidosis.
Married Joan Emilie Frankau, November 2, 1946. Children: Anthony, Jane, Simon, Ruth.