DR. COOK.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 221, 4 January 1909, Page 2

DR. COOK.

The following story of Dr Cook'-s life is taken from a London paper: —"His father was a German, a Dr. Koch, who emigrated to the United States when a young man and practised in a rural district in the State of New York. He changed bis name to 'Cook,' doing what many thousand others have done when tbey found that an Anglo-Saxon name was an advantage in America. "It seems fairly certain that Dr. Koch was a Jew —a member of a wellknown family of Frankfoft-on-Maine. This information was given to the Jewish World newspaper, and we understand that it came from a quite trustworthy source. Dr. Koch, or Cook, died when his son, the explorer, was nix years old, leaving a tiny farm for the support of a widow and four children. Obviously they must have iiaH a hard time, and it seems that it was a very hard time. At length tbey moved to Brooklyn, part of the great city of New York. "Here young Cook's fortunes were at tbei- lowest ebb. He bad to earn money and sold vegetables in the market. In what little spare time he bad he read. He saved all that he conld, and with bis savings started a milk business. He himself delivered the milk to his customers, beginning work at one o'clock in the morning, and working until seven. "Then, at nine o'clock, he went to Columbia University, attending classes until four in the afternoon, when he returned to Brooklyn and read until night time. Think of the life! The tiresome journeys from Brooklyn to the university and back alone took a considerabla slice out of each day, and yet the boy was up an hour after midnight in order to obtain money for bis education. Only on Saturdays and Sundays, when there were no classes, did he get an opportunity for proper sleep. "This life went on for six years, and then the young man received his physician's diploma. This was in 1891, and immediately afterward 1 Dr. Cook succeeded in obtaining an appointment as surgeon with the Peary Expedition to North Greenland, being chosen out of the entire Columbia graduating class. When he returned to America he practised as a physician in Brooklyn for six years, and then when be beard a rumour that a surgeon was wanted on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition he cabled to the promoters offering himself as a volunteer. His offer was accepted by cable, and be joined the expedition at Bio de Janeiro. Ever since then be seems to have engaged in one hazardous exploit after another " The same authority states that Peary's book of the expedition which Dr. Cook accompanied as surgeon contains many references to Dr Cook, to whom were given some of the most arduous duties connected with the expedition. The author says in Volume I.; —"To Dr. Cook's care may be attributed the almost complete exemption of the party from even the mildest indispositions, and personally I owe much to bis professional skill and unruffled patience and coolness in an emergency."