JAMES, M.D., was born May 31, 1756, at Kirkpatrick-Fleming, near Moffat, Dumfriesshire, where his father was minister of the parish. He was the only son in a family of seven children, and by his mother's side was descended from the ancient family of Kilmarnock.

He began his education at the parish school of Middlebie, to the living of which his father had been preferred; and was afterwards sent to a seminary at Dumfries, then conducted by Dr Chapman, the author of a work on education.

During a visit to some friends in Glasgow, the spectacle of its commercial activity captivated the adventurous spirit of young Currie; and abandoning his original intention of qualifying himself for the medical profession, he was induced, with the concurrence of his father, to engage in the service of a company of merchants who were going out on a speculation to Virginia. The hopes of the speculators were disappointed by the breaking out of hostilities between America and England; and Currie, in addition to their harsh and ungenerous treatment, had to struggle with a long and dangerous illness which seized him soon after his arrival. The death of his father, at the same time, added to the complicated difficulties of his situation; but his misfortunes did not prevent him from generously dividing among his sisters the scanty inheritance which had fallen to his share. Renouncing the pursuits of commerce, with which he had been completely sickened, he turned his attention to the political topics which were then the universal subject of interest in America; and published a series of letters in defence of the English government in an American newspaper, under the signature of "An old Man." These juvenile essays procured him considerable reputation among his friends; but the hostility which they provoked from the adverse party led him to abandon the unpromising pursuit of literature and politics for the more hopeful study of medicine.

To carry his resolution into effect he quitted America; and as the war had by this time precluded all direct communication with England, he proceeded thither by way of the West Indies. After a voyage of great hardship and danger, he at length arrived at London in 1776. From thence he immediately repaired to Edinburgh, and began his academic studies, which he prosecuted with remarkable assiduity and success till the spring of 1780. He soon became conspicuous among the students by the extent of his acquirements, and by the singular acuteness of his mind; and, in particular, he distinguished himself as a member of the Medical Society. The papers which, according to custom, he contributed, bear the stamp of superior talent, and are curious, as furnishing proofs that, even at this early period, his attention had been actively directed to subjects which he afterwards illustrated by important practical discoveries.

During the prosecution of his studies, however, he was incessantly weighed down by a sense of his dependence on his aunt and sisters, which prompted him to grasp at the first opportunity of securing a comfortable maintenance. With this view he was on the eve of accepting the humble appointment of surgeon's mate in the regiment of General Sir William Erskine, when a more lucrative office presented itself abroad in the service of the British army in Jamaica. To qualify himself as a candidate for this latter appointment he hastily graduated at Glasgow; but on arriving at London he had the mortification to find it already bestowed on a young Irish physician of considerable merit. Disappointed in this quarter, Dr Currie still cherished the hope of pushing his fortunes abroad, and had taken passage in a merchant vessel bound for Jamaica, when, during the detention of the ship at London, he was induced to abandon the project and settle at Liverpool. Here, in a congenial sphere, he quickly formed a large circle of acquaintance, was elected one of the physicians to the infirmary, and rose to the highest eminence in his profession. His domestic happiness was at the same time secured by his marriage in 1783 with Miss Lucy Wallace, a lineal descendant of the Scottish patriot of that name, and daughter of a respectable merchant in Liverpool. Nor amidst the harassing duties of his profession did he allow his literary tastes to remain uncultivated. Along with Roscoe and several other gentlemen he founded a literary club, which long retained its reputation, and was the precursor of those splendid establishments of a similar kind in that town.

His career thus auspiciously begun was, however, greatly retarded by ill health. His assiduous and anxious attendance on Dr Bell, an intimate friend of his who had settled in Manchester, and who had been seized with a fatal disorder, together with the frequent journeys which he was in consequence under the necessity of taking, in the midst of winter, frequently at night, in addition to his other professional labours, and a violent periapneumonia brought on by the fatigues encountered in his assiduous attendance on Dr Bell, placed his life for some time in imminent danger. This was followed by a train of pulmonary symptoms, which at length necessitated his removal to Bristol, where, shortly after his arrival, he experienced the shock of witnessing the death of one of his sisters from the same fatal disorder. From Bristol he soon after removed to Matlock, Derbyshire; and thence, in hopes of bidding adieu to his only surviving sister, who was hastening rapidly to the grave, he set out for Scotland. On the journey his health began to improve; and when he reached Dumfriesshire his strength was so far recruited as to allow of his sitting on horseback for an hour together. But the hope which had prompted his revisiting his native land was cruelly disappointed; for, on the day on which he reached the end of his journey, the remains of his sister had been committed to the grave. Under careful treatment the progress of his own disease was arrested, and he was at length able to return on horseback to Lancashire, by the lakes of Cumberland, arriving at Liverpool Sept. 1 (1792), having rode the last day of his journey 40 miles. An interesting narrative of his case, and the means employed for his recovery, was drawn up by himself, and is given by Dr Darwin in the second volume of his Zoonomia.

On his return, his esteem for Dr Bell led him to undertake a translation of an inaugural dissertation "De Physiologia Plantarum," delivered by his friend before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; to which he added valuable notes, and prefixed a memoir of the author's life. These were published by the society in the second volume of their Transactions. The biographical sketch which he has there given, and which was the first acknowledged production of his pen, is executed with a bold and masterly hand, and evinces a profound knowledge of the human heart—the feelings as well as the merits of his friend being traced with a delicate yet faithful pencil.

On being elected a member of the London Medical Society in 1790, he communicated to it an essay on Tetanus and Convulsive Disorders, which was published in the third volume of its Transactions. In 1791 he presented to the Royal Society a paper containing An account of the remarkable effects of a shipwreck on the mariners; with experiments and observations on the influence of immersion in fresh and salt water, hot and cold, on the powers of the living body, which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the same year; and soon afterwards he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. The inquiries which form the subject of this memoir were but a part of a long series of investigations in which he had been engaged even when a student at the university, and which he continued to prosecute in the genuine spirit of the inductive philosophy. The more mature results of his experience and reflections were given to the world in 1797, under the title of Medical Reports on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in Fever and other Diseases, whether applied to the surface of the body or used internally; a work by which his reputation as a physician was widely extended, and which has effected a considerable revolution in the mode of treating febrile disorders. The limits of the present article will not admit of our entering into any exposition of the contents of this valuable work, the fruit of so much experience and profound reflection. It may be sufficient to observe that the healing art is eminently indebted to Dr Currie, for establishing on solid grounds the salutary agency of cold applied to the surface of the body, under certain circumstances, and in certain modes, both in fevers and in many convulsive diseases. Although this mode of treatment had already been suggested, and even tried, by Dr Wright, it was reserved for Dr Currie to determine the circumstances which render its employment safe and salutary, and to point out the nature of its operation, on clear and rational principles.

We have already seen the interest he took in the party discussions which agitated the public in America at the commencement of its alienation from England. He did not again obtrude his sentiments on the public till the occurrence of the "No Popery" riots in St George's Fields, excited by Lord George Gordon. On this occasion he wrote three letters on the subject in the Public Advertiser, under the signature of Caius; and these were afterwards republished in a collection of political tracts. These, as well as his writings in America, show that his earlier views of politics were in favour of those Conservative principles to which his education had given him an early bias. But in proportion as his judgment acquired strength and maturity, his solicitude for preserving the authority of those intrusted with power gave place to a deeper feeling of anxiety for the interests of the community at large, on whom that power is exercised; and which appeared to him, from the prejudices and passions excited during the American war, to be exposed to much greater danger. These sentiments were strongly expressed in his Letter, Commercial and Political, addressed to the Right Honourable William Pitt, which he published under the assumed name of Jasper Wilson. The mass of important information contained in this pamphlet, the enlarged and profound views of political economy which it presented, and the nervous and manly strain of eloquence in which they were enforced, attracted much attention; it was read with avidity, and quickly went through several editions. Although unacknowledged by himself, the name of its real author could not long remain concealed; and the reputation which accrued to Dr Currie from this publication, in a limited circle of enlightened men, was gained at the expense of much odium, which it entailed upon him from the opposite and more numerous party. But Dr Currie bore all the violence and malignity of their attacks with perfect evenness of temper, and abstained from gratifying his enemies by engaging in a controversy which he knew could add but little to the force of what he had already published.

During his excursion into Scotland in 1792 he had become personally acquainted with Robert Burns, and deeply fascinated by the social powers of that brilliant and extraordinary genius. The family of the poet having been left nearly destitute at his death, a subscription was set on foot in Scotland for their relief, and Dr Currie was requested to edit a complete edition of his works for their exclusive benefit. Accordingly, in 1800, appeared, in four vols, Svo, his edition of The Works of Robert Burns, with an Account of his Life, and Criticisms on his Writings; to which are prefixed some Observations on the Character and Condition of the Scottish Peasantry. It is sufficient to say that the preliminary observations from the pen of Dr Currie are marked with his usual felicity of manner, and exhibit the same sagacity of remark and liberality of sentiment which pervade all his writings; and that he had the satisfaction of securing by his labours a comfortable provision for the widow and children of the poet.

His constitution had never completely recovered from the shock of the severe illness which he had suffered in 1784. He was seldom long free from threatenings of a relapse; but it was not till the year 1804 that his health began evidently to decline. In the autumn of that year he retired from Liverpool, and spent the winter months alternately at Clifton and Bath. After practising for a short time in Bath, his returning illness compelled him to retire, as a last resource, to Sidmouth, where, after much suffering, he expired, Aug. 31, in the fiftieth year of his age. His disease was ascertained to be an enlargement and flaccidity of the heart, accompanied with a remarkable wasting of the left lung, without either tubercle or ulceration. Few men have possessed a more amiable or estimable character, or a more enlarged and cultivated mind, than Dr Currie. Most of the public institutions, literary and benevolent, of which Liverpool can boast, were suggested, improved, or perfected by his advice and assistance. His political views were guided always by a pure, and latterly by an enlightened patriotism. His professional labours and discoveries are such as entitle him to an elevated rank among medical philosophers; whilst the important improvement that has resulted from them in the healing art justifies us in enrolling his name amongst the distinguished benefactors of mankind.