I found the account of Cecil Cook’s career very readable and interesting, with Barry’s writing style both accessible and engaging. The detail and cross-references, which in part reflects the source material, is woven into the story without being distracting. The stories on his approach to public health issues reveals a great deal about the decision-making process of the day, (and perhaps more recently), and the extent to which public servants have to ride with the wins and losses.
I read Stephen Gray’s book “The Protectors”, in which he tried to understand the approach to Aboriginal policy from the perspective of the person responsible, that is each protector. I couldn’t help but conclude that Cecil Cook’s experience of family life and boarding school from age 10 years influenced both his attitude to his own family and also to his approach to half-caste children which would later be known as the stolen generation. I wondered whether or not this had occurred to the author as well, until I read at the end of the book the condition imposed by Robin that the book must focus on his work.
The NT is renowned as a place where there are long-held, rarely released, grudges, and that is a reflection of the personalities which are attracted to work there. I am aware of a number of the persons in the book who worked with Ellen Kettle, and have also read her “Gone Bush” account of her early work in the NT, as well as several of her survey papers in the NT Medical Library. The struggle that Dr Hargrave experienced in trying to move from a policy of incarceration of leprosy patients to one of curative treatment close to their homes was monumental. I worked with Dr Hargrave and his team in the early 90s and even then, it was a raw nerve to touch. I suspect that Ellen Kettle’s relationship with Cecil Cook was in part informed by the struggle of two diametrically opposed intransigent forces, as embodied by Drs Cook and Hargrave.
(On that note John Hargrave was an equally remarkable and successful pioneer whose remarkable achievements have never been documented, but I digress)
The scientific information included is drawn from the source documents reflecting knowledge at the time. There are of course considerable advances in a number of areas and so some of the scientific ideas included are now regarded as incorrect. In most cases this is clear from the way it is presented. Ascaris lumbricoides, to my knowledge, has never been a major issue in remote NT or WA communities, whereas Ancylostoma duodenale, Necator americanus and Strongyloides stercoralis have been major sources of illness, morbidity and occasional mortality. The chapter dealing with polio is very interesting particularly after the experience of the last few months.
I regard this work as an extremely readable account of the work of a dedicated, driven and successful public health professional, which I found inspiring, and I am sure will interest many public health and public service professionals. But it is also much more than that, as it sets the man and his career in his time, describing the society and its challenges, the use of available resources, the best use of the available knowledge and that hard work and dedication sometimes, but not always, pays off in the end. So it is a very useful documentation of life in Australia at the time as well as the career of a brilliant man.
Dr Jo Wright began in Remote Health with the Northern Territory Department of Health in 1990, and has extensive experience in primary health care service delivery, management, reform, evaluation and teaching. Jo is a Board Director – Skills based of the Northern Territory General Practice Education and is now the Director of Activity Based Funding, being responsible for the implementation of the hospital funding side of the national health reforms in the Northern Territory. 6/06/2020