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. Life in Mauritius Over the next few years, Davidson’s positions in the Mauritian Civil Medical Service would include Visiting and Superintending Surgeon of the Civil Hospital, and Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum. He would assist inquiries and then publish reports on leprosy, malaria, “acute anaemic dropsy”, epizootic diseases, and public sanitation. As well, he would prepare a synopsis of reports and papers from Mauritius for the International Colonial Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1883, and he would become a Professor of Chemistry at one of the island’s leading schools, Royal College. As an author, editor, and lecturer When he returned to Britain with Christina in about 1892, Davidson produced his first major work: Geographical pathology: an inquiry into the geographical distribution of infective and climatic diseases, covering Europe and large parts of Asia. In 1893, he produced another major text: Hygiene and diseases of warm climates. 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. However, most chapters were contributed by other senior medical figures in Europe, Africa and the USA. A review in the British Medical Journal criticised aspects of the book, but said it was still the best work on the subject so far published in any language, and should be “the daily companion of every medical man in warm countries”. 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. For the next few years the professional paths of the pair would overlap as they both sought to lift the profile of tropical medicine in Britain. In an address in 1897, Manson told his audience he was in part drawing on notes provided by Davidson, who he described as having judgement and knowledge that matched “very great” experience in tropical medicine. He quoted Davidson as having said that every British medical school should have “lectures on the hygiene and diseases of warm climates”, and that appointments of government medical officers in tropical and