Raphael Cilento

Sir Raphael West Cilento (2 December, 1893 - 14 April, 1985), an important Australian medical doctor and administrator, was born in Jamestown, South Australia. Although he was determined from an early age to study medicine, it seemed at first that he would be thwarted in doing so, because of sheer lack of money. Therefore he trained first as a school teacher sponsored by the Education Department. He eventually entered the University of Adelaide Medical School on borrowed funds, but while there he won so many scholarships, and other prizes, that he ended his course with a respectable bank balance.

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 He served with the Australian Army's Tropical Force in New Guinea which superseded the German administration after the First World War.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, from 1922 to 1924. Following a further term in New Guinea, he became Director of the Commonwealth Government's Division of Tropical Hygiene in Brisbane. He held that role from 1928 to 1934, whereupon he worked as the Queensland Health Department's Director-General. In this position (which 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.

Knighted in 1935 (when only 42 years old), Cilento briefly achieved international fame after the Second World War for his work in aiding refugees; at the United Nations, he was Director for Refugees and Displaced Persons from 1946 to 1947. He returned to Australia in 1951.

His later life was characterised by frustration at being unable to find appropriate employment in government service or academia. This was at least partly due to his strongly held extreme right-wing views exemplified by his involvement with the Australian League of Rights.

His wife, Phyllis, Lady Cilento, was also a well-known medical practitioner, and his daughter Diane Cilento became a famous actress, who for eleven years was married to Sean Connery.

Publications

 * The White Man In The Tropics, 1925