James Douglas

James Douglas may refer to:

Scottish noblemen

Lords of Angus

Lords of Douglas

Lords of Morton

James Douglas (physician)

James Douglas FRS (21 March 1675 – 2 April 1742) was a Scottish physician and anatomist, and Physician Extraordinary to Queen Caroline.

Life and works

One of the seven sons of William Douglas (died 1705) and his wife, Joan, daughter of James Mason of Park, Blantyre, he was born in West Calder, West Lothian, in 1675. His brother was the well-known lithotomist John Douglas (died 1759).

In 1694 he graduated MA from the University of Edinburgh and then took his medical doctorate at Reims before going to London in 1700.

He worked as an obstetrician, and gaining a great reputation as a physician, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1706, FCP in 1721.

One of the most respected anatomists in the country, Douglas was also a well-known man-midwife. He was asked to investigate the case of Mary Toft, an English woman from Godalming, Surrey, who in 1726 became the subject of considerable controversy when she tricked doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits. Despite his early scepticism (Douglas thought that a woman giving birth to rabbits was as likely as a rabbit giving birth to a human child), Douglas went to see Toft, and subsequently exposed her as a fraud.

James Douglas (antiquary)

James Douglas (1753–1819) was an English cleric, antiquarian and artist.

Early life

He was the third and youngest surviving son of John Douglas, an innkeeper in Hyde Park Road, London. After the death of most of the family, he went north to stay with his brother William, a cloth merchant in Manchester, and attended Manchester grammar school.

Douglas travelled on business for his brother William, but they fell out when he misused funds. He entered the Austrian Army, dropping out when on a mission to Great Britain. He entered Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1777; and in 1779 he served under Hugh Debbieg in the Leicestershire militia. In 1780 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and took holy orders.

Clergyman

The early part of Douglas's ministry was at Chiddingfold, Surrey. On 17 November 1787 he was instituted to the rectory of Litchborough, Northamptonshire, on the presentation of Sir William Addington, and towards the end of that year he was appointed one of the Prince of Wales's chaplains. He resigned Litchborough in 1799 on being presented by the lord chancellor, through the recommendation of the Earl of Egremont, to the rectory of Middleton, Sussex. In 1803 he was presented by Lord Henniker to the vicarage of Kenton, Suffolk.