A surgeon’s years in India
Oldham was born in 1832 and trained at St George’s Hospital in London. He gained medical qualifications in 1858 and 1859 and entered the Indian Medical Service as an assistant surgeon in July 1859. His early appointments included the Aligarh Levy and the 39th Bengal Native Infantry. During the 1860s he also worked in civil medicine in the Punjab, serving at Gurdaspur and Dalhousie and as medical officer in Bahawalpur.
In 1875 he joined the 1st Gurkhas at Dharmsala and remained with the regiment for the rest of his active career. He served in the Perak and Afghan campaigns, rose to brigade surgeon and retired in 1890. His professional writing included What Is Malaria? And Why Is It Most Intense in Hot Climates?, published in 1871. He died at Great Bealings in Suffolk in March 1913.
Alongside medicine, Oldham pursued questions about India’s historical landscape and religious traditions. His 1893 paper on the Sarasvati and the lost river of the Indian desert addressed the difference between ancient descriptions of a major river and the diminished stream known in his own time. In The Sun and the Serpent he similarly attempted to connect written traditions with places and practices he had encountered. His publications provide more detail about these investigations than about his private life.
The Sun and the Serpent
The held volume was published in London by Archibald Constable in 1905. Oldham says that it developed from papers read before the Royal Asiatic Society in 1901. His original subject was serpent worship in India, but he expanded the inquiry into a proposed relationship between sun and serpent worship across many countries. He acknowledged disagreement with prominent scholars and thanked A. H. Sayce for advice. Most of the photographs, he explains, were his own.
