Sir Raphael West Cilento (2 December 1893 – 15 April 1985), often known as "Ray", was an Australian medical practitioner and public health administrator.

Early life and education

Cilento was born in Jamestown, South Australia, in 1893, son of Raphael Ambrose Cilento, a stationmaster (whose father Salvatore had emigrated from Naples, Italy in 1855), and Frances Ellen Elizabeth (née West). His younger brother, Alan Watson West Cilento (b. 1908), became General Manager of the Savings Bank of South Australia from 1961 to 1968. He was educated at Prince Alfred College, but although he was determined from an early age to study medicine, he was initially thwarted in doing so due to lack of money. Therefore, he trained first as a school teacher, sponsored by the Education Department, from 1908 and taught at Port Pirie in 1910 and 1911. He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide.

Early career

For the earlier part of his working life, Cilento's interests were mainly in public health and, specifically, tropical medicine. He served with the Australian Army's Tropical Force in New Guinea which superseded the German administration after the First World War. Later he joined the British colonial service in Malaya. On his return to Australia he was Director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville, Queensland, from 1922 to 1924.

Middle career

Following a further term in New Guinea, Cilento became Director of the Commonwealth Government's Division of Tropical Hygiene in Brisbane. He held that role from 1928 to 1934. In 1934, Queensland's Forgan Smith Government set out to create one of the world's first universally free public health systems. Minister for Health Ned Hanlon recruited Cilento to achieve this goal as Director-General of Health and Medical Services. Cilento, despite his subsequent identification with the political right wing, never lost his belief in government-funded health care. To assist in his policy-making objectives, he studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1939. As Director-General (a position he held till 1945), and combined with the presidency of the state's Medical Board (as well as with the medicine professorship at the University of Queensland), he firmly opposed the anti-polio methods of Elizabeth Kenny, although at first he had spoken politely enough of her work to give the impression that he favoured it. Cilento was knighted by King George V in 1935 (when only 42 years old) for his contributions to public service and tropical medicine. He achieved international fame after World War II for his work in aiding refugees with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In July 1945 he was the first civilian doctor to enter Belsen concentration camp, after doing considerable work on malaria control in The Balkans. He was Director for Refugees and Displaced Persons from 1946 to 1947. In August 1948, as Director of the Division of Social Activities of the United Nations, Cilento toured the areas affected by the fighting in Palestine with Count Folke Bernadotte, the U.N. mediator. He viewed the Arab refugee problem as a disaster comparable to an earthquake, flood or tidal wave. He resigned in 1950 after expressing sympathy with dispossessed Palestinian refugees. He returned to Australia in 1951.

Later life

Cilento's later life in his native land was characterised by frustration at being unable to find appropriate employment in government service or academia. This failure was at least partly the consequence of his increasingly racist and ultra-conservative views, exemplified by his involvement with the Australian League of Rights during the 1950s and 1960s in particular, and his continued public support for the White Australia Policy long after this doctrine had ceased to be part of the Australian party-political mainstream. Professor Mark Finnane of Griffith University has written in the journal Queensland Review that "[m]uch of his brilliance, energetically applied to the development of sound research and policy in the control and eradication of tropical diseases, was directed also to applying the developing techniques of epidemiology and tropical medicine in the service of ideas about racial hierarchies which had a firm basis in the nineteenth century. These ideas eventually would be discredited by the history as well as science unfolding from the 1920s, but even so Cilento hung on to them well past their waning. Into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, he was still writing about the white man in the tropics and racial vitality in ways that ensured his reputation for good work in other domains would struggle to survive his own monomania." In a letter in The Courier-Mail (18 May 1965) on Australian clergy's attitude to the Vietnam War he said 'I am not a practising Christian – I am sorry for it ... I regret that I have not the gift of faith'. Cilento died on 15 April 1985 in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley and was survived by his wife and six children. Although he had been married in a Church of England service, he was brought up Catholic and was buried with Catholic rites at Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery.

Family

In 1918, whilst they were both studying medicine at the University of Adelaide, Cilento became engaged to, and on 18 March 1920 at St Columba's Church of England, Hawthorn he married Phyllis McGlew, who also became a well-known medical practitioner and medical writer. They briefly set up in general practice in Tranmere before departing for Malaya in October. Together they had three sons and three daughters. The three sons and Ruth became medical practitioners, Margaret became an artist, and Diane became an actress. Photo circa 1950 from Angus Trumble's blog. Caption: ''On the way back to England by way of the Riviera, the party went on another boat trip to see the Calanques at Cassis, not far from Marseilles. Left to right, André, Margaret Cilento [the artist; daughter of Sir Raphael and Lady Cilento, and older sister of the actress Diane Cilento], Boatman, and Nipper.'' Pictures of 69 of Margaret's works can be found on The National Library of Australia website Run away to paint the circus, 15 June 2005, Sydney Morning Herald Breaking New Ground, 27 July to 30 September 2007, QUT Art Museum. "Education kit"

Other interests

Publications

Sir Raphael Cilento's publications include:

Sources