| Birth Name: | Phyllis Dorothy McGlew |
| Honorific Suffix: | Lady Cilento |
| Birth Date: | 13 March 1894 df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Rockdale, New South Wales, Australia |
| Death Place: | Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
| Profession: | Medical practitioner |
| Specialism: | Health of mothers and children |
| Known For: | Journalism and advocacy of health of mothers and children |
| Spouse: | Raphael Cilento |
| Children: | 6, including Margaret and Diane |
| Relations: | Jason Connery (grandson) |
Phyllis Dorothy Cilento, Lady Cilento (née McGlew; 13 March 189426 July 1987) was an Australian medical practitioner, prominent medical journalist, and pioneering advocate of family planning in Queensland.
In August 2018, about 900 staff at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane, Queensland called for the hospital to change its name. Staff at the hospital told The Guardian that their protest was due to Cilento's racism, homophobia, and a quackery.[1] A month later, Queensland health minister Steven Miles announced that the hospital would be renamed to Queensland Children's Hospital due to confusion about whether it was public or private.[2]
Cilento was born Phyllis Dorothy McGlew on 13 March 1894 in Rockdale, Sydney. She was the daughter of merchant and exporter Charles Thomas McGlew and Alice Lane (née Walker). She grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, and was educated at Tormore House School.
In 1920, she married Raphael Cilento, a medical doctor, medical administrator, and tropical medicine specialist.[3] They worked in a number of countries before settling in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1928. He was knighted in 1935 whilst holding the position of Director-General of Health and Medical Services.
The Cilentos had six children, including artist Margaret Cilento and actress Diane Cilento, and remained married until Raphael's death in 1985. Phyllis died on 26 July 1987 in Brisbane and was buried in Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery.[4]
Cilento studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1919. She was the only woman in her graduating class.[3] She worked for a short time at the Adelaide Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London and the Marylebone Medical Mission Dispensary.[5]
Following her marriage, the couple moved to the Malay States where she worked as a "lady medical officer" in the British colonial service and supervised a women's ward in a hospital.[5]
In 1922, Cilento studied a course in public health at the University of Sydney.[5]
From 1924 to 1927, she worked in private practice in New Guinea.[5]
Cilento worked in the Hospital for Sick Children in Brisbane from 1931 to 1938, after which she moved into general practice working from a surgery attached to her home in Annerley with a special interest in the health of mothers and children, including obstetrics. In 1967, she moved to Toowong, where she continued her practice until the early 1980s.[5]
Cilento became well known through her active advocacy of health issues for women and children. From 1928 onwards she wrote both occasional articles and regular columns for magazines and newspapers under the nom de plume of "Mother M.D." and "Medical Mother". She was particularly interested in promoting good nutrition and raising children. She expanded her outreach through books and radio, and was widely respected by women for her practical advice. She was a strong advocate of the benefit of vitamins. However, some of her advice was criticised by the medical community as she advocated for natural childbirth, contraception, the legalisation of abortion, and that fathers be present at the birth of their children.[5]
Dr. Cilento had used alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) to soften scar tissue in her patients, noting that vitamin E restored circulation to dead-looking toes. Concerned over the increasing death rate from coronary blockages, she surveyed the scientific literature on vitamin E, including studies showing its benefits in preventing blood clots. In the early 1970s, Cilento decided to travel the world to investigate vitamin E therapy. Her travels took her to Singapore, Germany, Britain and North America, where she interviewed doctors and veterinarians who used vitamin E in large doses. Taking detailed and voluminous notes, she published her findings in a three-part series in Woman's Day, an Australian woman's magazine, in November 1973 (starting 12 Nov.). "I am convinced that the claims made for alpha-tocopherol are fully justified", she concluded. She went on to detail 17 ways vitamin E works in the body – among them, its action in dilating capillaries, protecting the membrane envelopes of red blood cells, and regulating blood platelets.[6]
Observing that the Heart Foundation of Australia had refused to investigate the role of vitamin E in cardiovascular disease, Cilento wrote: "I am reminded of the many other occasions when life-saving innovations were delayed for years by the irrational conservatism of the medical Establishment… I myself was ridiculed and dismissed as a crank by a distinguished medical teacher when in 1919 I advocated vitamin D for cases of severe rickets. I was laughed at even though, at that time, the vitamin was curing starving babies in war-torn Vienna of this deforming disease."...Once vitamin E jumps the barriers of prejudice, it may well be instrumental in saving the lives and sparing the suffering of many thousands...who will otherwise die."[7] She expanded her findings into a book, The Versatile Vitamin: Vitamin E (1976). At the age of 82, Cilento continued writing a health column for The Courier-Mail.[8] Although she published her theories extensively in the popular press, she never formally submitted her work for medical or scientific peer review.[9]
Dr Cilento was also active in medical organisations, including the inaugural president of the Queensland Medical Women's Society in 1929. She pursued her particular passion for mothers and children through the establishment in 1931 of the Mothercraft Association of Queensland in 1931, the Family Planning Association of Queensland, and her membership of Creche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland.[5]
She was also active in women's organisations, including the National Council of Women of Queensland, the Business and Professional Women's Association and the Lyceum Club.[5]
Cilento is the subject of a number of portraits; one by John Rigby (1973) is held in the Queensland Art Gallery.
Cilento opposed people of colour in the medical profession, saying, "it would not be in the best interests of children ... to be cared for by coloured labour" and "practically all Asiatic and Melanesian races are walking reservoirs of tropical diseases".[13] She was also known to be fiercely intolerant of homosexuality, stating homosexuals were part of a "cult" and a "malignant tumour" on society.[14] For these reasons, about 900 staff at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital signed a petition for the hospital to be renamed.
Professionally, Cilento has been criticised for never subjecting her theories to peer review, instead choosing to publish under the pseudonyms Medical Mother and Mother MD in women's magazines and newspapers. It has been argued that high-dose vitamin therapy which she promoted is actually dangerous.