James Makittrick Adair

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

James Makittrick Adair
FRCPE
Born
James Makittrick

1728
Scotland
Died1801 (aged 72–73)
Ayr, Scotland
Resting placeAlloway Auld Kirk
EducationUniversity of Edinburgh
Occupation(s)Physician, Pamphleteer, Anti-Abolitionist
Known forMedical ethics and treatment of slaves

James Makittrick Adair MD FRCPE (1728–1802) was a Scottish Physician, Pamphleteer, and Anti-abolitionist

Early life[edit]

Born in 1728 in either Inverness or Ayr, to James Makittrick and his wife, the daughter of Robert Adair of Kirkmaiden, Mull of Galloway.[1][2] Adair adopted his mother's maiden name in 1783.[2] Sources differ as to the occupation of Adair's father. Hugh James Rose's New General Biographical Dictionary suggests he was an officer in the Inland Revenue at Edinburgh.[3] However the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests he was a Doctor living in Ayr.[2]

Career[edit]

Adair was educated at the University of Edinburgh, earning his MD in 1766 with a dissertation on the subject of Yellow Fever.[4] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1767.[5] Upon graduation was appointed surgeon's mate of the sloop-of-war HMS Porcupine (1746), bound to the Leeward Islands.[3] Shortly after, he relocated to Antigua, where assisting a relative in management of a plantation.[1] After several years in the West Indies, he visited America where he made the acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin, before returning to Britain and settling in Andover, in Hampshire.[3] Following the outbreak of American Revolutionary War, he returned to Antigua where he was appointed physician to Monk's Hill, and as one of the assistant judges of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas.[3] In 1783 Adair left the West Indies for the final time, and settled in Bath, where he resumed his medical practice.[3]

Writing[edit]

Adair was also widely published author, with a primary focus on medical texts. Works include, Medical Cautions for the consideration of Invalids, which espoused the health benefits of Spa towns such as Bath, An essay on diet and regimen, and Essays on fashionable diseases [...[ and on Quacks and Quackery. [6][7][8] Adair's irascible personality led to multiple disputes with his both his professional colleagues and those outside the medical community. These arose partly from a determined opposition to quackery, but was also attributed to his hot temper, as evidenced by his time served in Winchester Gaol for issuing a challenge to a duel.[2] He was most famously involved in a long running dispute with Phillip Thicknesse, which began after the latter took exception to a presumed insult in Medical Cautions. After a number of back and forths, including a dedication in which Adair referred to his rival as “Censor-General of Great-Britain, Professor of Empiricism, and Nostrum, Rape, and Murder-Monger to the St. James's Chronicle“, Adair published a book containing so-called errata to Thicknesse's memoirs, presumably fabricated, accompanied by satiricial woodcut frontispiece.[9][10]

In addition to his medical work, he published a number of spiritual and satirical works including The Methodist and the Mimick, under nom de plume of Peter Paragraph.[11] Most controversially however, was his 1790 anti-abolitionist pamphlet Unanswerable Arguments against the Abolition of the Slave Trade, where Adair presented an argument that drew from his own experience on the plantations of Antigua, presenting chattel slavery as a paternalistic system that provided a better quality of life for the enslaved people than freedom would.[12]

Family[edit]

Adair married several times, and had a daughter, Anne Adair, and a son, James Makittrick Adair.[2] The younger James was a friend of Robert Burns, and married Charlotte Hamilton, the half-sister of Gavin Hamilton. He also followed his father into the medical profession, and was also elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1793.[13]

Death and Burial[edit]

Adair died in Ayr in 1801, and was buried in the churchyard of Alloway Auld Kirk.[2] Earlier versions of the Dictionary of National Biography erroneously stated that he died in Harrogate in 1802, which are in fact the details for his son of the same name.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Courtney, William Prideaux (1885). "Adair, James Makittrick" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 01. p. 70.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Courtney, W. P. (2004). "Adair, James Makittrick (1728–1801), physician". In Bevan, Michael (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/81. Retrieved 21 August 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ a b c d e Rose, Hugh James (1857). A New General Biographical Dictionary. London: T. Fellowes. pp. 83–4. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
  4. ^ "Dissertatio medica inauguralis, de febre Indiae Occidentalis maligna flava: quam, annuente summo numine, Ex auctoritate Reverendi admodum Viri, Gulielmi Robertson, S.S.T.P. Academiae Edinburgenae praefecti; nec non Amplissimi Senatus Academici consensu, Et Nobilissimae Facultatis Medicae decreto; pro gradu doctoratus, summisque in medicina honoribus et privilegiis rite ac legitime consequendis, eruditorum examini subjicit Jacobus Makittrick, britannus. Ad diem hora locoque solitis". Wellcome Collection. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
  5. ^ Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1882). Historical sketch and laws of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from its institution to August 1882. Edinburgh: Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. p. 4.
  6. ^ Adair, James Makittrick (1786). Medical cautions for the consideration of invalids, those especially who resort to Bath : containing essays. Bath: R Crutwell.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  7. ^ Adair, James Makittrick (1812). An essay on diet and regimen, as indispensable to the recovery and enjoyment of firm health, especially to the indolent, studious, delicate, and invalid. With appropriate cases (2nd ed.). London: Ridgway.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  8. ^ Adair, James Makittrick (1790). Essays on fashionable diseases. The dangerous effects of hot and crouded rooms. The clothing of invalids. Lady and gentlemen doctors. And on quacks and quackery ... With a dedication to Philip Thicknesse ... To which is added a dramatic dialogue ... London: T. P. Bateman.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  9. ^ Thicknesse, Philip (1787). A Letter ... to Dr. J. M. Adair [in reply to an attack contained in the second edition of Adair's "Medical Cautions"].
  10. ^ "print; satirical print; frontispiece | British Museum". The British Museum. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
  11. ^ Adair, James Makittrick (1766). The Methodist and Mimick: A Tale, in Hudibrastick Verse. By Peter Paragraph. Inscribed to Samuel Foot, Esq. London: C. Moran.
  12. ^ Adair, James Makittrick (1790). Unanswerable Arguments Against the Abolition of the Slave Trade: With a Defence of the Proprietors of the British Sugar Colonies ... : Remarks on the Dispositions and Characters of the African Slaves : and Means Suggested for the Distribution of Their Labour : the Regulation of Their Habitations ... : the Accomodation of the Sick ... J.P. Bateman.
  13. ^ Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1882). Historical sketch and laws of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from its institution to August 1882. Edinburgh: Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. p. 6.
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