The Northern Territory Medical Service was established in 1928 to provide effectual machinery to control and eliminate endemic tropical disease from Northern Australia and to ensure that the area might be maintained as one suitable for permanent occupation by a healthy and prosperous white community. Fundamental to its organisation were two basic principles of policy, […]
A proposal to form a national Medical Council – 1952 [EN 9/18]
THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL: The control and prevention of disease other than quarantinable disease and the provision of hospital and ancillary services for the people have traditionally been the responsibility of State Departments. As at present constituted these are largely the unplanned growth of bodies originally formed to control morbidity and mortality during the last century following […]
A proposal for the National Health and Medical Research Council [EN 9/17]
The Director-General The Royal Commission on Health 1925 recorded a number of comments and conclusions pertinent to the current discussions on a proposed Medical Council and the complex problems of the relation of such a Council to the N.H. & M.R.C. Available material on the subject of morbidity now not used might be made available. […]
Public Health – Co-ordination by Commonwealth
THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL: The concentration of revenue collection in the Commonwealth Treasury under the Commonwealth/States Financial Agreement Act imposed upon the Commonwealth an implicit responsibility for the allocation of funds to the States, for, amongst other purposes health administration. Simultaneously, expansion of State and Local Authority Health activity calls for progressively greater annual expenditure, the funds […]
General Practitioners in Medical Research and Preventive Medicine [EN 9/24] – a history to 1954
A paper Dr Cook delivered to a medical conference in 1954 In order to correct any misapprehension and to prevent any subsequent sense of disillusionment let me say at the outset that my talk today will have no clinical interest or value, will announce no new achievement of medical research and will have no pretension […]
Notes for the Minister’s address on Immunisation [EN 9/24]
Minister for HealthParliament House,CANBERRA, A.C.T. 12th May, 1955. Dear Dr Cook, Thank you very much for your most interesting article on immunization. I did not expect it to be so full and extensive, but it will give me material for half a dozen speeches. Many thanks once again. Yours sincerely,Earl Page To: Dr. C.E. CookSenior […]
Health Problems of the Northern Territory
A paper read by Dr. C.E. Cook before the Australian Academy of Science, Brisbane, 25th May, 1956. In general, the health problems of the Northern Territory are those of the rest of northern Australia, but her they acquire special features owing to the unusual structure of the population. The problems themselves derive from: The tropical […]
Tropical diseases in Northern Australia a history to 1962
A paper to an AMA conference in 1962 Tropical diseases in Northern Australia, individually and collectively, have been discussed by a number of authorities in much greater detail and far more ably than I can presume to attempt today, but I thought that in this year of my retirement, without too strict a definition of […]
Notable changes in the incidence of disease in Northern Territory Aborigines
by C.E. COOK (1963) Abstract Few of the diseases which in the past century have scourged the native population of the Northern Territory were indigenous. Exotic infections introduced into areas where native society was intact disappeared under the inhibitory conditions created by the environment and native habit. Only when natives were concentrated into settlements without […]
Aboriginal Protection – Aid or Hindrance to Integration?
A paper given by Dr Cook to the A.N.Z.A.A.S Conference in Adelaide 1969, extracted from Berndt’s edited proceedings of the conference From the time of Phillip it has been the acknowledged policy and objective of Australian governments to foster the friendship and co-operation of the indigenous inhabitants, and to extend the protection of the law […]
Problems obstructing the adaptation of the Aboriginal into white society
A paper Dr Cook presented at the A.N.Z.A.A.S conference held in Brisbane – 1971 What I am about to say will, I am afraid, make no scientific contribution to the symposium we have enjoyed during the past few days, yet I venture to hope my message may prove as important as any other to scientists […]
Submission to Inquiry into the Health Services in the Northern Territory 1972
PREFATORY My purpose in tendering this submission is to draw the attention of the Board of Inquiry to what I believe to be certain fundamental requirements of the Medical and Hospital Service in the Northern Territory with which members may not be familiar, and the importance of which may not otherwise be brought to their […]