Undercurrents on the Nile: the life of Dr John B Christopherson (1868-1955).

In the early 1900s, Dr J B Christopherson was one of a small number of British physicians who found their way to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The city had been laid waste by the battles of the legendary Mahdi and the armies of the British. Sudan was now considered part of an Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. Christopherson became, partly by force of circumstance, a specialist in tropical medicine. His principal claim to fame, briefly contested for priority, was the treatment of bilharzia (schistosomiasis) by injections of antimonium tartaratum (tartar emetic). The paper sketches Christopherson's turbulent life in Africa and identifies some important events in the life of this man whose energies were directed not only to treating patients and building a medical department in the desert, but also to fighting a rearguard action to preserve his reputation.