Cecil Cook (physician)

For other people named Cecil Cook, see Cecil Cook (disambiguation).

Cecil Cook
CBE
Born( 1897-09-23)23 September 1897
Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England
Died4 July 1985(1985-07-04) (aged 87)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Education
  • MB, ChM (1920)
  • MD (1929)
  • DPH (1931)
  • all from University of Sydney
Occupation(s)Medical practitioner and administrator
Known forEstablishing health system in northern Australia
Medical career
ProfessionChief Protector of Aborigines (1927–39)
FieldTropical diseases and public health

Cecil Evelyn Aufrere (Mick) Cook CBE (23 September 1897 – 4 July 1985) was an Australian physician and medical administrator, who specialised in tropical diseases and public health. He was appointed as Chief Medical Officer and Protector of Aborigines for the Northern Territory in 1927. He established much of the infrastructure of the public health system there, including four hospitals, a tuberculosis clinic, a nursing school and the Nurses’ Board of North Australia. He started the Northern Territory Aerial Medical Service together with Dr Clyde Fenton, and he was founding chairman of the Northern Territory Medical Board.

Cook served in the Army Medical Service from 1940 to 1945 where he increased the level of hygiene within the troops through education.[1] He became the Commissioner of Public Health in Western Australia in 1946 and then joined the National Health and Medical Research Committee in Canberra in 1950 where he was able to contribute to public health.[2]

He was controversial for his attempts to "uplift the morality" of Aboriginal people by "breeding out the colour".[3] For later writers he has "come to personify ideologies, policies and practices of government that seem at best misguided and at worst cruel and racist".[4]

  1. ^ Pearn, John; Cobcroft, Mervyn D., eds. (1990). Fevers and Frontiers. Brisbane, Queensland: Amphion Press. ISBN 0-86776-381-7. OCLC 25554383.
  2. ^ Leithhead, Barry (2019). A vision for Australia's health: Dr Cecil Cook at work. North Melbourne, Victoria: Australian Scholarly Publishing. ISBN 9781925984149.
  3. ^ Rowse, Tim. "Cook, Cecil Evelyn (Mick) (1897–1985)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University – via Australian Dictionary of Biography.
  4. ^ Rowse & Leithhead 2019, p. 118.