Jonathan Davidson
Durham, North Carolina, United States

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…
…If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
…Yours is the Earth and everything’s that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”
—“If” by Rudyard Kipling

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a bitter rivalry developed between the established Dutch (Boer) settlers in South Africa and later-arriving British settlers whom the Dutch called Uitlanders. The causes of this rivalry, which ultimately lead to the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), were multiple, but the desire to monopolize the gold and diamond-rich lands in Boer territory was perhaps uppermost. Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) is perhaps the person most responsible for expanding British control in South Africa, but he received ardent support from many acolytes, including a British medical doctor, Leander Starr Jameson, whose unusual career is described in this article (Figure 1).

Jameson was born in Scotland, the youngest of eleven children, and moved with his large family to London, where he attended medical school at University College Hospital (UCH) between 1870 and 1875, graduating MRCS, and in 1877 obtained his MD. As a student he showed much promise, winning several silver medals and a gold medal for medical jurisprudence; he also earned a scholarship in surgery. Following graduation, he was appointed as house physician and house surgeon to leading UCH consultants and then became Resident Medical Officer to UCH.¹ Poor health due to bronchitis resulted in Jameson leaving England for the better climate of South Africa, where in 1878, he joined a general practice partnership in Kimberley. A year later, in recognition of his surgical skills, Jameson was offered a position as consultant at the Kimberley Hospital.

Jameson flourished in his new life and was quickly accepted by the local community and professional colleagues, who affectionately called him “Dr. Jim.” Many have commented on Jameson’s energy, hard-work, personal charm, wit, persuasiveness, excellent social skills, capacity to make friendships, along with propensities for recklessness and risk-taking, and sometimes brusqueness of manner.^2,3,4 Among his recreations, Jameson enjoyed gambling at cards and was known to wager substantial bets.

Jameson’s medical practice continued for about ten years, until he devoted himself increasingly to Cecil Rhodes’ empire-building and later a career in politics after Rhodes’ death. His medical skills have already been referred to, and it was said that he was one of the best-respected doctors in South Africa. Shee, for example, noted that Jameson was “far and away the best trained doctor in the town, he was a competent physician and a deft surgeon.”⁴ However, not all was well with Jameson’s practice of medicine, and he became embroiled in a serious ethical scandal surrounding a smallpox epidemic in 1883. An outbreak of the disease was suspected in the Kimberley area, the effects of which could be devastating on the mining business, with resulting quarantine, cutting of food and fuel supplies, and loss of labor force. Jameson and other colleagues therefore chose to sweep this under the carpet, with Jameson resorting to the seemingly deliberate misdiagnosis of pemphigus. Despite this charade, the anti-smallpox doctors, led by Jameson, recommended smallpox vaccination as a “precautionary measure.” The dispute over the real diagnosis resulted in much strife within the medical community, including libel suits.

Among his patients, Jameson provided medical care to Cecil Rhodes. Jameson had known Rhodes since 1878 and in 1886 offered to share his home with Rhodes after the latter lost a close friend. Thereafter he continued to provide medical care until Rhodes’ death from a lengthy illness in 1902. Another patient of Jameson was Lobengula (1845–1894), King of the Ndebele. Although Lobengula thought he was well-served by Jameson, this can be easily disputed, as Jameson’s main treatment for the pain caused by Lobengula’s gout consisted of liberal doses of morphine, which resulted in opium dependency. Lobengula was fascinated by the fearless and outspoken Jameson and bestowed on Jameson the rank of Induna, or advisor and great leader. To accept this honor, Jameson underwent the traditional Ndebele initiation ceremony.

Other prominent individuals who sought medical care from Jameson included the Boer Presidents Paul Kruger (1825–1904) and Johannes Brand (1823–1888) of the Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State respectively. Shee noted that Jameson failed to recognize Kruger suffered from hypothyroidism.

Jameson himself did not enjoy the best of health. The respiratory troubles that drove him to leave his homeland were the beginning of a litany of conditions, to include malaria, typhoid, broken ribs, hemorrhoids, gout, eczema, painful neuritis, and kidney stones, the consequences of the last-mentioned being considered responsible for his death in 1917. Among his treating doctors was Bertrand Dawson (1864–1945), who later became Lord Dawson of Penn for his services as physician to the British royal family.

The Jameson Raid and Kipling’s “If Man”

In 1889, Jameson gave up the practice of medicine to serve Cecil Rhodes. This decision was not without regret, but he was too restless to settle down to medical practice, as he wrote to his brother Midge. In 1895, he led an armed raid with the aim of fomenting unrest by disenfranchised British settlers in Boer territory and taking control of the Transvaal. The failure of this poorly-planned raid was an embarrassing fiasco to the British government, and resulted in the surrender of the principals to President Kruger, who handed Jameson over to British authorities, who in turn sentenced him to fifteen months in prison in England. Following his release, Jameson returned to South Africa, where he pursued a generally successful career, including time as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. In recognition for his work to unite the South African colonies, Jameson was made a baronet by King George V in 1911. He retired from politics in 1912 and returned to England, where he remained for the rest of his life. During those years, Jameson served as chairman of the Prisoners of War committee. He died after a long illness, and was initially buried in London, but his body was removed to the Matobos Hills in the then-named Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where it lies next to his friend and patron Cecil Rhodes.

As to the raid, while it was a complete failure and sowed the seeds for the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), it also inspired a poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), lines from which now grace the entrance to Wimbledon’s famed center tennis court.⁶ This poem, called “If,” was a tribute to Jameson written shortly after the raid, and extolled the virtues of balance in dealing with all that life that brings—good and bad. It was meant as fatherly advice, and was dedicated to his only son, Jack, who was later killed in World War 1.

Conclusions

Leander Starr Jameson was known for his contributions to British imperialism during his life and in the decades thereafter. There were many facets to his character, which was described variously as “unathletic, pale and undistinguished” in medical school, yet “daring, lucky and possessed of administrative skills” later in life.¹He is now mainly remembered for leading the disastrous 1895 raid, an enterprise from which he escaped lightly, since some countries would view his actions as treasonable. But reluctant to make a martyr of Jameson, Kruger turned him over to the British who punished Jameson leniently. Furthermore, as noted, out of this fiasco, Kipling found reason to celebrate Jameson’s conduct in his poem “If.” Most would now find this tribute completely undeserved and would use quite different descriptors. As far as his medical skills were concerned, in today’s world he would, if found guilty over the smallpox epidemic, suffer severe censorship, likely have lost his license to practice, and possibly faced fine or imprisonment. The iatrogenic creation of opiate addiction in one of his more famous patients could also have brought more trouble.

References

1. Merrington WR. University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History. London: Heinemann, 1976.
2. Popkin RJ. “Doctors Afield. Leander Starr Jameson, M.D.” New Eng J Medicine 1958;239;34-5.
3. Shee JC. “Rhodes and the Doctors (2). Leander Starr Jameson. Part I.” Central Afr J Medicine 1963;9:183-6.
4. Thomas A. Rhodes: The Race for Africa. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
5. Shee JC. “Rhodes and the Doctors (3). Leander Starr Jameson. Part II.” Central Afr J Medicine 1963;9:225-8.
6. Kipling R. “If.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed September 10, 2024. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if—