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.
His father, James Whiteford Murray Cook, moved to Australia soon after Cecil was born after being advised to relocate to a warmer climate due to a serious ear infection,[2]: 1 and the family followed in 1900 to live in Barcaldine, Queensland.
Dr James Cook became the Lodge doctor in Barcaldine and he was medical superintendent of the Victoria Hospital, positions he held for thirty years.
[2]: 2–3 Cook was permanently blinded in his left eye at age 17 after an accident whilst playing with an air rifle slug.
He briefly practised at Barcaldine with his father in 1919 to help deal with an epidemic of pneumonic influenza, then he worked in hospitals at Mount Morgan and Longreach before starting as a general practitioner in Hughenden.
He began his study at Sydney's Prince Henry Hospital and researched leprosy and granuloma venereum over three years.
[2]: 72–73 In 1930 Aboriginal employees were given additional rations for relatives who were residents on pastoral properties and money was transferred into personal trust accounts.
[10] These areas were designed to help non tribal Aborigines assimilate into society by having proper accommodation, education, sanitation and trained skills for employment opportunities.
[2]: 66 He advocated for the standard of education to be increased to the same quality found in the public schools in Northern Australia and he began to train some girls at the Kahlin Compound in nursing.
[9] Cook publicly supported Chief Censor Walter Cresswell O'Reilly of the Commonwealth Censorship Board.
In addition to their restricted access, Cook further organised for a permit and identification system for Aborigines and "half-castes" to present when attending the cinema.
There were also films that were not banned such as the 1929 ‘The Pagan’ depicting a heroic coloured man throwing a white villain overboard, which Cook believed should have been censored.
[9] Before the end of his role as Chief Protector Cook had begun plans for a cinema that featured only censored films near the Kahlin Compound but this was never completed.
However its aims of protecting Aboriginal people were not realised: overcrowding, inadequate provisions and housing led to mortality rates which peaked at 13 per cent annually.
The rise of the eugenics movement and "social Darwinism" about this time resulted in a good deal of pseudo-scientific commentary about the place of people of "mixed blood".
The problem of our half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white.
[2]: 135 In 1943 he became the Deputy Assistant Director of Hygiene with 2 Australian Corps where he gave lectures in a comprehensive training program for the troops at a base in Cairns.
[2]: 143–144 In this role he travelled to Papua New Guinea where he treated an outbreak of scrub typhus in the army troops,[1] whilst also researching its cause and concluding it was the result of sleeping on the floor and neglecting to wear repellent clothing.
[2]: 147 Cook became the Deputy Assistant Director HQ of Hygiene for 1 Australian Corps in August 1944 where he was soon promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
[2]: 154 In 1946 Cecil Cook became the Commissioner of Public Health in Western Australia and in 1947 the state's Principle Medical Officer.
[2]: 156 Early on into his role, Cook published his correspondence to the Minister of Mines and Health in the West Australian newspaper to publicise the lack of trained nurses and medical funding in Western Australia.
In addition to this work he joined Abbott Laboratories in 1962 to help create Erythrocin to the standards of the Nation Health and Medical Research Committee.
Whilst there Cook assisted the Bangkok Municipal Council and recommended a development plan for public health.