British residents who were lucky enough to have lived in what
was still an enchanting Orotava Valley on the Atlantic island of Tenerife in
the early 20th century knew him affectionately as Jimmy Pills. He
was one of only a handful of doctors attending to a local population of just a
few thousand. It was a time when the one or two little hospitals in the valley were
in the hands of local ladies’ committees and run by nuns. The sisters, in their
white and black habits, acted as nurses and were believed to be quite efficient.
However, by tradition, they were not permitted to touch a male invalid.
Doctor Ingram was born in Edinburgh in 1860. His father was the Reverend Gordon Ingram, Minister of Urquhart and he
was one of eleven brothers and sisters. When he arrived in Tenerife after a
spell in Africa in about 1903 he initially worked with Doctor Tomás Zerolo, a well-known
local practitioner based in La Orotava. Eventually he took over a surgery from a
fellow Scot, Doctor Frederick Lisham, in Puerto de la Cruz. Jimmy Pills became
a very popular figure in the town and was well liked by both British and Canary
Islanders. He rented San Antonio, the huge mansion just beside the British Games
Club where he lived with his wife, Leticia McAndish.
It might have been a personal decision taken by a grumpy councillor
at the time but when he first applied to open his own surgery in Puerto, Doctor
Ingram was not granted permission to do so for one of those simple,
bureaucratic reasons minor politicians so enjoy to find. He couldn’t provide acceptable proof in Spanish that he was a qualified doctor, even though his medical
knowledge had already been put to the test with considerable merit under Doctor
Zerolo in La Orotava. In other words, he might have been highly trained in
Edinburgh but without a Spanish title obtained at a Spanish University there
was nothing to do. Like most British residents who decide to settle in the
Canary Islands, Jimmy Pills was by no means a linguist and never quite got to
grips with the Spanish language, and his accent was often made fun of. Nevertheless
James Ingram refused to give up. After studying at Madrid University he got his
Spanish title and with it permission to treat local patients.
In those days privileged folk in the Canaries seem to have
suffered quite a lot from rheumatism, gout and diseases of the kidney. Jimmy
Pills was always one for healthy, natural remedies and would advocate
patients, especially those with gout and kidney complaints, to indulge
themselves with a constant supply of green vegetables, tomatoes and fresh
fruit, all of which were in abundance locally.
Nevertheless, he was anxious to advise newly arrived
visitors that they should wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly before eating
them, to refrain from taking exercise in the heat of the summer and to be extremely
wary of the local wine. Canary wines today are first class, of course, the
whites and rosés being highly acclaimed for their quality and variety, but unwary
foreigners do still suffer bouts of what, in the early 1900s, was known as climatic diarrhoea. This was commonly
blamed upon some kind of unsympathetic
matter in the stomach and the cure would generally be commenced by a very Anglo-Saxon strong dose of castor oil. Much more pleasant was a retreat,
by mule, up into the dry atmosphere on Mount Teide, which apparently did wonders for
lung complaints. However, Jimmy Pills was a great believer in sea bathing all
the year round, which he strongly recommended to keep bugs at bay. This was something
local islanders tended to avoid doing and many, even a century later, still believe
one should only step onto the beach from May until October…when the magnificent
black sand beaches are almost too hot to walk upon.
English ladies on the Martianez Beach in Puerto de la Cruz in the early 20th century
James Ingram was a likeable gentleman and he became
one of the great characters in the valley. He was driven around the dusty roads
in a little Ford by his local chauffeur called Tamajón, and most of the wealthy
families were treated by him at one stage or another. The Scottish doctor was
also generous with the poor. There was no health service, of course, and he is
known to have never asked for a penny from anyone who didn’t have the means to pay.
Jimmy Pills took on a young apprentice, Doctor Isidoro Luz
Carpenter, and an English nurse called Miss Stevens. The apprentice went on to
become one of the finest doctors in the valley and he must have learnt a thing
or two from his Scottish mentor because queues of working class
patients would be seen waiting for free medical treatment outside the surgery in the middle
of banana plantations on his estate, El
Llano del Pavo.
A Memorial sculpture of Isidoro Luz on the Matianez seafront in Puerto
Doorway to the Protestant Cemetery in Puerto de la Cruz
By John Reid Young
Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales
