| Administrative history | Sir James Mackenzie Davidson (1856-1919) was a pioneer in the development of radiographic technique, particularly that of stereoscopic radiography, and in the introduction of the method of the localisation of foreign bodies to the UK. His localization method was used extensively in the Boer Wars and the First World War.
Mackenzie Davidson graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery from Aberdeen University in 1882. The same year Mackenzie Davidson started an eye clinic in Aberdeen; and in 1886 he became ophthalmic surgeon at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and acting ophthalmic surgeon to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. In 1897 he moved to London where he acted as consulting surgeon to the X-ray Department of the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital and to Charing Cross Hospital, and became President of the Rongten Society. The Rongten Society (now the British Society of Radiology) still holds a yearly lecture called the Mackenzie Davidson Memorial lecture, the first of which was given by Sir Ernest Rutherford. |