Raphael Ernest Grail Armattoe (12 August 1913 – 22 December 1953) was a Ghanaian medical doctor, author, poet and politician. He was nominated for the 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology and was a campaigner for unification of British and French Togoland. He was called by the New York Post "the ‘Irishman' from West Africa", and the BBC producer Henry Swanzy referred to him as the "African Paracelsus". Biography Early life and education Armattoe was born at Keta in the Gold Coast (in what is now the Volta Region of Ghana). As Togoland changed from German to British and French hands, Armattoe ended up being fluent in German, French and English. He also spoke his native Ewe language. After his basic education in the Gold Coast, he left for Germany in 1930 for further studies. Most of his tertiary education was in Germany and France. He apparently left Germany for France due to rising Nazism. He continued his studies in anthropology, literature and Medicine at the Sorbonne. Medicine Armattoe moved to Edinburgh, where he qualified to practice Medicine. He got a locum job in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and following that worked at the Civil Defence first-aid post in Brooke Park, Derry, between 1939 and 1945. After the Second World War, he opened a medical practice at his home on Northland Road in Derry. He later became the director of a research institute. His research into the use of the abochi drug against human parasites led to his nomination for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1948. At this stage, he started being more involved with writing and giving talks, especially relating to anthropology. He was described by some who knew him as a marvellous doctor and a good speaker. Writing and research Armattoe started devoting more time to writing. He established the Lomeshie Research Centre, named after his mother. In 1947, he attended the Nobel Prize laureation ceremonies with his friend Erwin Schrödinger, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. Schrödinger later wrote the foreword for Armattoe's book The Golden Age of West African Civilization. Armattoe later successfully applied for an anthropological research grant worth £3,000 at the time from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. In 1948 he returned to West Africa, where he conducted his research mainly on Ewe physical anthropology. He presented his findings in 1949 and was nominated for the Nobel