John Thomson Gunther was born in Sydney, the first son of Cyril Gunther, and analytical chemist then employed by Colonial Sugar Refineries but who died while he was still at university. His mother, Jean Thomson, was an early woman graduate in medicine of the University of Sydney. Gunther came from a family with physicians in each generation including his grandfather, John Thomson, who was a visiting surgeon to the Brisbane Hospital, and great-grandfather, also John Thomson, who was chief surgeon with Owen Stanley on HMS Rattlesnake off the Papuan coast in 1840. He was educated at King's School, Parramatta, and Sydney University.

After residency at Sydney Hospital he took a position with Levers Pacific Plantations for three years and in 1938 he joined the Mount Isa Medical Board. He served in the RAAF from 1941, first as a malariologist and, after obtaining his tropical medicine diploma, commanded the 1st Tropical Research Field Unit where he led out in research into the Bat Island scrub typhus epidemic. In 1946 while still in uniform he was invited to become director of public health of Papua and New Guinea.

He came to Papua and New Guinea with wide experience in medicine in the tropics matched with innate administrative ability and the opportunity to apply the knowledge and experience he had obtained during his twelve years since graduation. The Australian government indicated its good faith to and in him in guaranteeing the necessary money for an effective health service and the war had provided life saving medicines at a reasonable price and improved means of communication.

Gunther set down plans for the future health services in the public health section of the 1945/46 annual report for Papua. With a clear understanding of the urgency of the situation he included the education of men and women of the country to fill the top positions in the medical service and defined an aid post system to serve the needs of the rural majority. At that time there was no secondary education in Papua New Guinea but he knew the tasks undertaken by Papua New Guineans in wartime activities and considered their intellect sufficient to encompass the complex needs of any medical or health career. Later, Gunther set out a complex design for the establishment of education in medicine, nursing and all the necessary associated professions through to 1984. It encompassed the eventual replacement of foreign health workers by nationals at every level and saw independence as a necessary corollary of education.

Gunther used his assessment of the relative safety of the essential new medicines for acute infections and placed sulphonamides, penicillin and effective antimalarials in aidposts in the hands of orderlies with little training and less education. To achieve his objectives he made decisions that were against the accepted views of the profession at that time. One of the most significant was the mass employment of migrant European doctors to provide an interim medical force while Papua New Guineans were being trained.

He set out his credo in the first article in the first issue of the Papua and New Guinea Medical Journal in 1955. It has been proven true by time and primed Papua New Guinea independence. Abbreviated it reads:

Control malaria - and double the expectation of life; halve the infant mortality rate; double the population in fifteen to twenty years; add 15 per cent to the efficiency of the individual labourer; and improve the aptitude of the pupil or the student by up to 25 per cent.

Within this statement he saw the medical, educational, economic and political future of the country.

Through the health system designed by Gunther, the expectation of life in many areas of Papua New Guinea increased through mainly curative measures from about twenty-three years to forty-four years by 1960 and through the preventive programmed to near sixty years by 1980. The pre-eminence of Gunther as an administrator resulted in his appointment as the assistant administrator of Papua and New Guinea bringing his intelligence and foresight into the wider scene of government. For nine years he was leader of the government in both the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly and on select committees on constitutional change. He was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea in 1966. This gave him the opportunity to further pursue what had become his life interest - the education as a whole of Papua New Guinea from a tribal society to a nation.

The University both behind the scenes and openly became one of the instigators of change and Gunther was able to be a progressive member of the public and add his support to early independence. He had sown ideas within the government in what was many times infertile soil. Now in the University the soil was at times too fertile with ideas arising that were well beyond the willingness of Gunther to accept them. His administrative ploy of making his desires known and hoping someone would take them up worked for him and for the University and for the country. The many achievements of John Gunther are indicative of a mind that could range widely, quickly recording and analysing information from many disciplines. He was able to discuss many issues. What he spoke and wrote made sense to most and, as time went on, most of it became the accepted opinion of his peers whether they were bureaucrats or politicians and whether they were Papua New Guineans or Australians. He wrote a great deal, but his publications were not large in the academic sense. From the above it is self evident why Sir Paul Hasluck, writing in A time for building in 1976, said that

Gunther was easily the strongest single driving force in the administration as well as being one of the very few senior men with a trained intelligence and a practical political sense.

Gunther received many honours: OBE in 1954 for his contribution to the Mt Lamington volcano disaster; CMG in 1965; a knighthood in 1975 from the Papua New Guinea Government; the Cilento Medal for achievement in tropical health in 1965. He also gave six endowed public lectures in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Unfortunately, John Gunther developed emphysema during the 1950s and had some relief from surgery but his surgeon gave him only ten years to live in 1956. In due course he saw the need to retire to Australia in 1972. His physical strength slowly declined but he maintained his intellectual interest in all things to do with Papua New Guinea and his home was a mecca for his Australian colleagues and Papua New Guinea politicians and administrators. He was the first to acknowledge the personal contributions of the thousands who worked with him to help him achieve his objectives. As an administrator it was not so easy to lead but as time went on he had a charisma that pervaded the minds of the developing national leaders.

His fundamental beliefs about malaria applied broadly to the wider health problem, were behind the success of John Gunther as a physician, an administrator and an educator. The developments in health initiated by John Gunther were a necessary precursor to any other development of Papua New Guinea - educational, economic or political. With their achievement came the rapid progression of Papua New Guinea from a physically sick, illiterate and impoverished community to a healthy, literate and economically advancing country. Without his catalytic administrative abilities, Papua New Guinea would have taken fifty years from the war to independence rather than the thirty in which it was achieved.

John Thomson Gunther knew where he was going and he believed absolutely in what he was doing. He was a giant among men who persevered against physical adversity to leave as an enduring personal memorial the achievement in his lifetime of a healthy independent Papua New Guinea. A great physician, a great Australian and though he would certainly deny it, possibly the greatest Papua New Guinean of his time.