In March 1897, the eclectic Edinburgh-based periodical Blackwood’s Magazine published a review of Dr Robertson’s recent book on the remote and strategically sensitive region of Káfiristán – a rugged, mountainous territory spanning the modern Afghan province of Nuristan and the western margins of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. In tracing the way in which western knowledge of Káfiristán had gradually expanded over time its author, William Broadfoot (1844–1922), placed particular emphasis upon the decision to open a British agency at Gilgit in order to facilitate intelligence-gathering about the adjacent region. Broadfoot claimed that medical officers were particularly suited for such ‘pioneering work’ due to their ‘considerable scientific attainments … educated power[s] of observation and … knowledge of human nature’. Mindful, perhaps, of the incident which had forced the closure of the Gilgit agency and Dr Robertson’s subsequent forays into Káfiri territory, Broadfoot then highlighted the respect and protection that medical training brought such individuals even when travelling amongst ‘savage tribes’. The point is illustrated with a string of (modern) examples (Dr Lord, Sir John Login and others); however, pride of place goes to a (comparatively minor) figure from the Histories, Democedes ‘the physician of Crotona and son-in-law of Milo, [who] was taken prisoner with Polycrates, and sent to the court of Darius’, where he ‘cured the king and queen and received honours’. Polycrates was crucified.