Among the many recent giants of the world, all staunch vegetarians, may be mentioned Edison, Annie Besant, Bernard Shaw, and Tolstoy, of whom it may be said in their respective spheres there were no greater.
We are told, both as teetotallers and vegetarians, that these are medical questions; and if we find that either meat or alcohol does not agree with us, it is best to abstain, but to make it a matter of principle is silly. Teetotallers will not admit this for a moment with regard to the drink question, and those who are not vegetarians should be equally charitable in the matter of meat, for we have not turned it into a question of principle; but rather it has become to us a great living energizing principle, through force of circumstances, and in spite of our old inclination to cling to the fleshpots of the past.
Flesh meat, like alcohol, as has already been said, is a stimulant; it therefore stirs up both in men and animals all that is pugnacious, selfish and cruel, when partaken of. This fact must be patent to all. Sum up in your minds all the different kinds of animals you can think of that are vegetarians, and you will find that cruelty is the exception. Then put the carnivorous ones together those who prey on each other and you find cruelty to be the rule; and whether in man or animal, these qualities are developed in like proportion to the carnivorous food partaken of.
And mark the difference in the two extremes, viz. the gentle herbivorous also to note that from the vegetarian animals we get all the workers, while from the flesh eaters we get practically none. It is remarkable also what a preference there is for eating the flesh of animals that have been fed on vegetarian diet. Of the pit that lives on a mixed diet, meat eaters much prefer the “farm” or “home-fed” that has been fed on barley meal, rather than one that has been kept at the back of a slaughter-house.
Henry followed in his father's footsteps, obtaining his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from Durham in 1891. At the age of 27 he arrived in Melbourne in April 1894 aboard the Port Albert. He was registered as a medical practitioner in Victoria on 4 May 1894.
It appears that Dr Cook already believed in homœopathy, possibly because of his father's influence, as in 1895 Dr Cook took the position of Resident Surgeon of the Melbourne Homœopathic Hospital . (This position was previously held by Dr James Cook, unrelated, who resigned in March 1895). He was listed in the 1896 & 1897 editions of the Melbourne Post Office Directory as being Resident Medical Officer at the Melbourne Homœopathic Hospital, but not in the 1898 edition.
In 1901 he moved to Sale in Eastern Victoria, where he ran a practice in York Street. By 1909 his practice was at Wyndham Street, Shepparton.
By 1919 he had moved to 2 Studley Park Road, Kew, where he died on 7 May, 1923.