JAMES (Dr Robert), an English physician of great eminence, and particularly distinguished by the preparation of a most excellent fever-powder, was born at Kinverston in Staffordshire, A. D. 1703: his father a major in the army, his mother a sister of Sir Robert Clarke. He was of St John's-college in Oxford, where he took the degree of A. B. and afterwards practised physic at Sheffield, Lichfield, and Birmingham successively. Then he removed to London, and became a licentiate in the college of physicians; but in what years we cannot say. At London he applied himself to writing as well as practising physic; and in 1743, published a Medicinal Dictionary, 3 vols folio. Soon after he published an English translation, with a Supplement by himself, of Ramazzini de morbis artificum
cum; to which he also prefixed a piece of Frederic Hoffman upon Endemial Disempers, 8vo. In 1746, The Practice of Physic, 2 vols 8vo; in 1760, On Canine Madness, 8vo; in 1764, A Dispensatory, 8vo. June 25. 1755, when the king was at Cambridge, James was admitted by mandamus to the doctorship of physic. In 1778, were published, A Dissertation upon Fevers, and A Vindication of the Fever-Powder, 8vo; with A short Treatise on the Disorders of Children, and a very good print of Dr James. This was the 8th edition of the Dissertation, of which the first was printed in 1751; and the purpose of it was, to set forth the success of this powder, as well as to describe more particularly the manner of administering it. The Vindication was posthumous and unfinished: for he died March 23. 1776, while he was employed upon it.—Dr James was married, and left several sons and daughters.
James's Powder, a medicine prepared by the late Dr Robert James, of which the basis has been long known to chemists, though the particular receipt for making it lay concealed in Chancery till made public by Dr Monro in his Medical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry †. The following (Dr Monro informs us) is a copy of the receipt, extracted from the Records of Chancery; the inventor, when he took out a patent for selling his powder, having sworn, in the most solemn manner, that it was the true and genuine receipt for preparing it:
“Take antimony, calcine it with a continued protracted heat, in a flat, unglazed, earthen vessel, adding to it from time to time a sufficient quantity of any animal oil and salt, well dephlegmated; then boil it in melted nitre for a considerable time, and separate the powder from the nitre, by dissolving it in water.”
This extract Dr Monro accompanies with the following observations. “When the Doctor first administered his powder, he used to join one grain of the following mercurial preparation to thirty grains of his antimonial powder; but in the latter part of his life he often declared that he had long laid aside the addition of the mercurial. His mercurial, which he called a pill, appears by the records of chancery to have been made in the following manner: ‘Purify quicksilver, by distilling it nine times from an amalgam, made with martial regulus of antimony, and a proportional quantity of sal ammoniac; dissolve this purified quicksilver in spirit of nitre, evaporate to dryness, calcine the powder till it becomes of a gold colour; burn spirits of wine upon it, and keep it for use.’ Dr James, at the end of the receipt given into chancery, says, ‘The dose of these medicines is uncertain; but in general thirty grains of the antimonial and one grain of the mercurial is a moderate dose. Signed and sworn to, by Robert James.’
“I have frequently directed this powder to be given, and have often seen Dr James himself as well as other practitioners administer it, in fevers and in other complaints. Like other active preparations of antimony, it sometimes operates with great violence, even when given in small doses; at other times a large dose produces very little visible effects. I have seen three grains operate briskly, both upwards and downwards; and I was once called to a patient to whom Dr James had himself given five grains of it, and it purged and
vomited the lady for twenty-four hours, and in that time gave her between twenty and thirty stools; at other times I have seen a scruple produce little or no visible effect.
“So far as I have observed, I think that the dose of this powder to an adult, is from five to twenty grains; and that, when it is administered, one ought to begin by giving small doses.
“Where patients are strong, and a free evacuation is wanted, this is a useful remedy; and it may be given in small repeated doses as an alternative in many cases; but where patients are weakly and in low fevers, it often acts with too great violence; and I have myself seen instances, and have heard of others from other practitioners, where patients have been hurried to their graves by the use of this powder in a very short time.
“It has been called Dr James's Fever-Powder; and many have believed it to be a certain remedy for fevers, and that Dr James had cured most of the patients whom he attended, and who recovered, by the use of this powder. But the bark, and not the antimonial powder, was the remedy which Dr James almost always trusted to for the cure of fevers: he gave his powders only to clear the stomach and bowels; and after he had effected that, he poured in the bark as freely as the patient could swallow it. The Doctor believed all fevers to be more or less of the intermittent kind; and that if there was a possibility of curing a fever, the bark was the remedy to effectuate the cure; for if the fever did not yield to that, he was sure that it would yield to no other remedy whatever, as he has more than once declared to me when I have attended patients in fevers along with him.”