Andrew Davidson (physician)

He lived in the nearby home of the medical missionary, William Burns Thomson,[5] who had just established a busy dispensary where he and other students helped out when their study commitments allowed.

A new king, Radama II, had invited missionaries to return,[8] but when Davidson arrived in the capital, Antananarivo, the majority of Madagascar’s people had no previous exposure to European medicine or its principles.

Locals believing he could work miracles turned up a few days later outside his home with a corpse, hoping he could bring a deceased person back to life, but then realised his limitations.

In a letter to William Burns Thomson, he said that although French doctors had tried to introduce themselves to the King, he’d been appointed Court Physician, and been given the Order of Radama “for my successful treatment of his son”.

According to fellow British missionary, John Alden Houlder, the dispute apparently began because Rainilaiarivony “felt aggrieved because of some real or fancied neglect of the Queen or himself”.

The already “thoroughly angry” Prime Minister and his friends then became “furious” when Davidson backed moves to make wealthy families pay something for previously free medical services.

Rainilaiarivony called a mass meeting, told the thousands of people who attended to boycott Davidson, took away his students and assistants, and placed spies around his house, making it “positively dangerous” for any local or foreigner to go near him.

“The doctor never budged an inch, nor showed the slightest sign of bowing down to the great man.” Nevertheless, the “persecution” did eventually become unbearable and Davidson left Madagascar after securing employment in the nearby British colony of Mauritius.

As well, he would prepare a synopsis of reports and papers from Mauritius for the International Colonial Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1883,[15][16] and he would become a Professor of Chemistry at one of the island’s leading schools, Royal College.

[18] Davidson edited the book and was the sole author of two chapters on two little-understood diseases that were claiming thousands of lives each year in the tropics, malaria and dengue fever.

[19] One of Davidson’s main collaborators on the book, and the author of several chapters, was fellow Scot, Patrick Manson (1844-1922), who had recently returned to Britain after working in China and the British colony of Hong Kong for more than 20 years.

“I need hardly say I fully endorse his prescription.”[20] When the British Medical Association formed a new sub-section devoted to tropical medicine the following year, Manson was made the president and Davidson was one of three vice-presidents.

[31] The son who Andrew and Christina named after his great friend and mentor, William Burns Thomson Davidson (1864-1914), predeceased them in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he had gone to live as a tea planter.