Dr Cecil Cook was a rare public servant, an intellectual, a student of English, Latin, Ancient and Modern History, who had a rational and accurate vision of the future and a clear way of writing about it. He had six health and medical specialties and worked in Territory, State, Military, Commonwealth, and Federal administrations and the pharmaceutical industry.
Graduating in medicine and surgery in 1920 and after 2 years of medical residencies in Queensland, mostly in its remote regions, Cook went to London to study tropical hygiene and public health. After 4 years of extensive, evidenced-based post-graduate research of diseases affecting Aboriginal people across Northern Australia, he formed the view that Aboriginal ‘protection’ was a province of health. Cook’s first appointment, in 1927 at age 29, was as Head of four departments in the Northern Territory – Medical Services, Health, Aboriginal Protection and Quarantine. He was charged with creating medical and health services that would attract settlers to the North.
Public health provided the lens through which Cook viewed his work, and the health of populations and communities influenced his research projects and policy proposals. He recognised and applied the ‘social determinants of health’ before that term first appeared. Over the 1930s he developed the perspective that the future of Australia’s Indigenous people was as adapted and accepted members of the mainstream community. During WWII he applied a new regime of hygiene discipline within military discipline that greatly reduced the previously disastrous effect of tropical diseases on troops and contributed to significant victories. In Western Australia in the late 1940s he revised the structure and scope of the State’s public health department, a model applied later in the other States.
Moving to Canberra in 1950, Cook became the conduit between Health and Native Welfare, working closely with both departments to better coordinate their policies and services. He built a bridge between public health and medical practice to inspire the former and make better use of the latter. His work with the National Health and Medical Research Council (1946–69) included many foundational projects, e.g. redefining public health; poliomyelitis vaccination; tobacco smoking and lung cancer; food additives and standards; and the reduction of infant mortality, especially from stillbirths. He became a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1935 and the recipient of the Cilento Medal in 1936.
Dr Cecil Cook was the unrecognised face of Australia’s better public health practice
in the 20th century, as revealed in his authorised biography:
A Vision for Australia’s Health: Dr Cecil Cook at work
This biography is many things:
- The story of a man at work applying many different health specialisations in various locations over 6 decades;
- The discovery and unravelling of stories concealed in a vast personal archive;
- The revelation of a life at work not known to anyone, even his family, his close professional colleagues and the author of The History of Public Health in Australia;
- The result of an extensive and substantial research and writing project;
- A heavily referenced manuscript relying on original sources;
- A unique opportunity for three people familiar with different aspects of the subject to collaborate on the project;
- The macro perspective of Cook’s work and vision of holistic public health to benefit the whole Australia’s population including its indigenous people.
Since the biography’s release:
- Reviewers have liked the story, applauded the subject’s career and commended the writing.
- … just before the COVID-19 Pandemic struck, the book was deprived of planned book releases and publicity.
- … COVID-19 celebrated a century since the subject, then a university student, assisted as a medical student volunteer with the Spanish Flu epidemic in Sydney.
- … and two years on, the biography is supplemented by a Corpus of the subject’s writings, a volume of 300,000 words over 660 pages, many referenced in the biography.
The biography A Vision for Australia’s Health: Dr Cecil Cook at work explains how Cook contributed to the development of public health in Australia over a 50 year career.
Developing public health in a time of disruption
Cook developed his career in public health in a time of great uncertainty and disruption in the twentieth century. Cook had learned in London, the 1860s Chadwick model of public health, based on sanitation to prevent the ‘filth’ diseases. He applied this model in the Northern Territory in 1927, developed it markedly in Western Australia in 1948 and applied it later in the Australian States. He contributed significantly to military health during WWII and led the national committee on poliomyelitis for 10 years to respond to that epidemic. His public health model remains relevant 75 years later.
Expanding the role of the Commonwealth of Australia
From 1927, Cook headed the protection service for Aboriginal people, which he based on public health. The Commonwealth had taken over responsibility for the Northern Territory and its Indigenous population from South Australia in 1911. The Commonwealth intended to ‘develop the North’ through white settlement, while offering ‘protection’ to the Aboriginal population. Through the 1930s, the Commonwealth decided not to act on the major elements of Cook’s policy proposals, his vision of holistic health for Australian Indigenous people.
As part of health and quarantine policies on Australia’s northern maritime border, Cook addressed the consequences of leprosy in the community. Later, he developed the States’ responsibilities for quarantine to supplement the Commonwealth’s previous, sole responsibility for it.
With the Commonwealth Department of Health
The Commonwealth had created its Department of Health in 1921 and its founder, JHL Cumpston, was Cook’s research mentor. After Cook joined the Department in 1950, he worked hard to coordinate health with welfare to complement the new ‘Assimilation’ policy for Indigenous people. In 1948 the World Health Organization (WHO) defined Health as being ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’, a standard Cook had applied for the preceding 20 years. In 1950, the National Health and Medical Research Council appointed Cook to its newly formed Public Health committee of Chief Health Officers and the Epidemiology Committee. Cook’s 1948 legacy from Western Australia, a re-focused public health authority connected to the medical profession, became the national standard all States adopted. In 1956 the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the NHMRC embraced this relationship.