Episode 4 - Ch 3 … And an Auspicious Invention

When I was growing up, we knew of Dr David Livingstone as one of the most famous African explorers. The same apparently was true in my father’s day: as a 12 year old child he read of Livingstone in a book called Missionary Heroes in Africa, dated February 14, 1928. We all knew how Henry Morton Stanley supposedly “found” the lost Livingstone in eastern Africa, greeting him with the words “Dr Livingstone I presume.” We also heard the tales of how, when he died while exploring, his African friends buried his heart in Africa, and carried his body back to England.

But one of the keys to understanding any global health worker is knowing where they came from. Livingstone was Scottish. He was part of a tradition: Scotland produced a disproportionately large number of explorers; we have already met Mungo Park. And Scotland boasted one of Europe’s premier medical schools in Edinburgh. Livingstone didn’t go there, but van der Kemp did - and we will meet other Scottish doctors later in these stories. Livingstone, though he seemed to function best when working alone, came from a distinct Scottish tradition.

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