James Adair

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For the Irish lawyer, see James Adair (serjeant). For the historian, see James Adair (historian).

James Makittrick Adair, M.D. (1728—1802), a native of Inverness, and youngest son of James Makittrick, an officer in the army (who, having wasted his own fortune and that of his wife, a descendant of the Adair family, ultimately became an officer in the revenue department at Edinburgh, was educated at the grammar school and university of Edinburgh. He was appointed surgeon's mate of the Porcupine sloop of war, bound to the Leeward Islands.

He remained, however, but a short time in this capacity, returned to England, and shortly after determined to proceed to Antigua, where he became assistant to a relative, at whose desire he had been raised to the medical profession. He also undertook the management of na estate in this island, and made himself familiar with the condition of the slaves, for whose improvement he was exceedingly anxious, but to whose emancipation he was most decidedly opposed. On the subject of the abolition of slavery, he published a tract in 1789, in which he endeavoured to depict the real state of slavery in the West Indies, and the probably consequences of the abolition of the slave trade; to point out also some grievances of the slave, which required to be redressed, the means by which they might be relieved, and, he added, the necessary regulations of the hospital for the management of the sick. Humanity to slaves, and religious instruction, he held to be the only securities upon which the West India planter could safely rely. His own conduct towards them was very kind. He protected and nurtured them as his own children, and they were friendly in return.

He was examined on the question of abolition before the privy council. In a few years, he left the West Indies, took a voyage to America, and made the acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin. After a tour in the United States, he returned to Edinburgh, took his degree of M.D., and then settled as a physician at Andover, in Hampshire.

On a short notice, and in obedience to a call of friendship, he returned to the West Indies. This was after the war with America had commenced, and he was, upon his arrival, appointed physician to Monk's Hill and to the commander-in-chief and the troops, and also one of the assistant judges of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas. At this time, he adopted the name of Adair, having become the next male heir to the estate of his mother's family.

In 1783, he left the West Indies, returned to England, and settled at Bath, where he became in volved in many disputes with his professional brethren and others. These arose partly from his determined opposition to quacks and quackery—his attempts to expose and suppress quackery may be seen as quixotic, but they were no less laudable. His temper was, however, altogether unnfit for the warfare which he brought about; for he was naturally querulous, hot, and irascible, and his disposition had been soured by disappointments in domestic life. He was, however, a man of an affectionate nature, and endowed with lively sensibility. He was generous to the poor, and the profits of the work he published were all given to support the Bath hospital. His professional acquirements were of no mean description, and he appears to have been a close and rational observer.

He became hypochondriacal, and died at Harrowgate in 1802.

[edit] Works

He published the following works.

Medical Cautions for the consideration of Invalids, Bath, 1786, 8vo. second edition, 1787. These specially relate to diet and regimen, and there is a table of the relative digestibility of foods; also essays on fashionable diseases; the dangerous effects of hot and crowded rooms; an inquiry into the use of medicine during a course of mineral waters; and on quacks, quack medicines, and lady doctors.
A Philosophical and Medical Sketch of the Natural History of the Human Body and Mind, Bath, 1787, 8vo. To this work is subjointed an Essay on the Difficulties of attaining Medical Knowledge.
Unanswerable Arguments against the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Bath, 1789, 8vo.
Essays on Fashionable Diseases, Bath, 1790, 8vo.
Essay on a Nondescript, or Newly-invented Disease, 1790, 8vo. He published some papers in the Medical Commentaries, especially one in vol. viii on smallpox in the West Indies, and in vol. xvii on the successful use of cuprum vitriolatum and conium, in two cases of tuberculosis; some strange memoirs relative to himself, etc., under the title of P. Paragraph and R. Goosequill; and also some remarks on Philip Thicknesse, under the same title; and two sermons addressed to sailors and slaves in the West Indies.