Presuming Dr. Livingstone

In the 1860s, while on an African expedition to settle a dispute about the source of the

Nile (Europeans weren’t sure where the river started), British explorer, medical doctor,

missionary, and popular author Dr. David Livingstone disappeared.

Famous for his earlier African explorations, Livingstone intrigued British and American

newspaper readers, who eagerly devoured any report about him. Lacking anything to

report on the missing doctor, the The New York Herald hired another explorer, Henry

Morton Stanley, to go after Livingstone. (Stanley had made his reputation writing

dispatches from the American West and the Middle East.)

After two rough years of searching, Stanley sent back a story reporting what he said

when he found the man: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Maybe because the public waited so long for news of Livingstone, or because Stanley’s

greeting was such an understated, civilized conclusion to such a long, difficult search,

the phrase struck a nerve. As the only other white man for hundreds of miles, of course

it was Dr. Livingstone. “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” became a catchphrase quoted over

and over well into the twentieth century.

Livingstone was seriously ill when Stanley came across him and died before he could

return to Britain. After finding Dr. Livingstone, Stanley led another expedition into

Africa, and his 1878 book about the trip, Through the Dark Continent, was a bestseller.