Arthur Rook

Arthur James Rook FRCP (15 May 1918 – 30 July 1991) was a leading British dermatologist and the principal author of Rook's Textbook of Dermatology (1968), known as "Rook's", which reached its ninth edition in 2016. Rook was closely associated with Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, as a consultant dermatologist and later wrote the history of that hospital. He was the editor of the British Journal of Dermatology, president of the British Association of Dermatologists, and of the International Society of Tropical Dermatology, was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and became the president of the British Society for the History of Medicine. Together with Ian Whimster, he wrote important articles on keratoacanthoma and blistering skin diseases. Early life Arthur Rook was born on 15 May 1918, in Cobham, Surrey, the eldest child of Sir William Rook, who was knighted for his services as director of the sugar division at the Ministry of Food during the Second World War. Arthur Rook was educated at Charterhouse School, and then Trinity College, Cambridge, changing his mind at the last minute from studying languages to the study of medicine.