Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/James, Robert
JAMES, ROBERT, M.D. (1705–1776), physician, son of Edward James, a major in the army, was born at Kinvaston, Staffordshire, in 1705. He was educated at the grammar school of Lichfield, and at St. John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1722 (aged 17), and graduated B.A. on 5 July 1726 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. ii. 741). He studied medicine, and was admitted an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, 12 Jan. 1728. In the same year (8 May) he was created M.D. in the university of Cambridge by royal mandate. After practising at Sheffield, Lichfield, and Birmingham, he settled in London, where he lived first in Southampton Street, Covent Garden, and afterwards in Craven Street, Strand, having also rooms in Craig's Court, Charing Cross. On 25 June 1745 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians, but never attained any higher degree in the college. In 1743 he published ‘A Medical Dictionary, with a History of Drugs,’ in three volumes, folio. The dedication to Dr. Richard Mead [q. v.] was written by Dr. Johnson (Boswell, i. 85, ed. 1790), who also made some contributions to the work, and wrote the proposals for it. The articles are well written, and contain much information compiled from books, but very little original information. In 1745 he published ‘A Treatise on the Gout and Rheumatism,’ and in 1748 a ‘Dissertation on Fevers.’ In both works the chief object is to draw attention to his own method of cure, which is praised, without being clearly described. It consisted in the administration of a powder and of a pill, for which James took out a patent on 13 Nov. 1746. On 11 Feb. 1747 he deposited in the court of chancery a description of the components and method of manufacture of these prescriptions. It was asserted at the time that both had been learnt from a German named William Schwanberg, and it was clearly proved afterwards that the receipt sworn to in the patent would not produce the powder patented by James and sold by him and by F. Newbery (Dr. G. Pearson, Philosophical Transactions, 1791). The chief constituents of James's powder were phosphate of lime and oxide of antimony, and it resembled closely the present pulvis antimonialis of the British Pharmacopœia (Garrod, Materia Medica, 1874, p. 60). It had a strong diaphoretic action, and was frequently prescribed in cases of raised temperature of all kinds, and of inflammatory pain. Goldsmith took a dose of the powder, which his servant bought at Newbery's, early in the attack of fever from which he died (letter of his laundress, Mary Ginger, in the Morning Post, 7 April 1774), and Hawes, the apothecary who attended him, attributed bad results to this dose (W. Hawes, An Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's Illness as far as relates to the exhibition of Dr. James's Powders, 1774). Newbery wrote to the papers in defence of his nostrum (Morning Post, 27 April 1774), and the controversy which arose does not seem to have injured its reputation, for it was prescribed for George III early in his attack of mania in November 1788 (Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, i. 231). Since the depressant treatment of fever has fallen into disrepute, James's powder has almost ceased to be used by physicians. The way in which the powder was patented and sold diminished the reputation of James as a physician, but Johnson never gave up his early friendship for him, and once observed of him, ‘No man brings more mind to his profession’ (Boswell, Johnson, i. 85). In the life of Edmund Smith (Lives of the Poets, ed. 1781, ii. 259), Johnson says that at Gilbert Walmsley's table in Lichfield ‘I enjoyed many chearful and instructive hours, with companions such as are not often found with one who has lengthened and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James, whose skill in physick will long be remembered, and with David Garrick.’ The remainder of James's works are only original in so far as they praise his powder. He translated ‘Ramazzini de Morbis Artificum;’ Simon Pauli's ‘Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate;’ Prosper Alpinus's ‘The Presages of Life and Death in Diseases,’ 2 vols., all in 1746. In 1752 he published ‘Pharmacopeia Universalis, or a New Universal English Dispensatory.’ His ‘Practice of Physic,’ 2 vols., published in 1760, is a mere abstract of Boerhaave, and his ‘Treatise on Canine Madness’ (1760) recommends mercury for hydrophobia on very slight grounds of observation. He died on 23 March 1776, and after his death was printed his ‘Vindication of the Fever Powder,’ and a short treatise by him on the disorders of children, London, 1778. His son, Pinkstan, was father of George Payne Rainsford James [q. v.]
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 269; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. 1791; Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ed. 1781, ii. 259; Affidavits and Proceedings of Walter Baker upon his Petition to the King in Council to vacate the Patent obtained for Dr. Robert James for Schwanberg's Powder, London, 1753; Morning Post, April 1774; William Hawes's Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's Illness, London, 1774, copy, with additions, in library of Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society of London; Dr. John Miller's Observations on Antimony, 1774; Dr. George Pearson's Experiments and Observations to investigate the Composition of James's Powder, London, 1791.]