This expression is sometimes used when two people meet (often after a long absence) as a kind of comic greeting (although perhaps not as often as it once was).
But this is a detailed history behind this expression, that I suspect has been long forgotten these days.
The ‘Dr Livingstone’ referred was Scottish Christian missionary and explorer Dr David Livingstone who journeyed through much of central African in the later years of the 1800s.
His exploits were quite famous at the time, and during one long journey through central Africa he was not heard from for a long time, so there arose the question of whether he was still alive or not.
So, the New York Herald newspaper commissioned British journalist and explorer Sir Stanley Morton to mount an expedition to track him down.
Morton finally encountered Livingstone, surrounded by a large number of his native friends, on 10 November 1871.
In his book How I Found Livingstone (1872) Morton said: ‘I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob—would have embraced him, only, he being and Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing—walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” “Yes,” he said with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.’
So, there you are, a bit of history behind was once a very famous phrase in the English language.
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