James Currie

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This article refers to the Scottish physician; for the Canadian politician, see James Currie (politician).

James Currie (born May 31, 1756 in Dumfriesshire, Scotland; died August 31, 1805 in Sidmouth) was a Scottish physician and editor of Robert Burns.

He was a son of the minister of Kirkpatrick-Fleming. Attracted by the stories of prosperity in America he went in 1771 to Virginia, where he spent five hard years, much of the time ill and always in unprofitable commercial business. The outbreak of the American Revolution ended any further chance of success. He sailed for home in the spring of 1776, and after many delays he reached England a year later. He then proceeded to study medicine at Edinburgh, and after taking his degree at Glasgow he settled at Liverpool in 1780, where three years later he became physician to the infirmary.

Among other pamphlets Currie was the author of Medical Reports on the Effects of Water, Cold and Warm, as a Remedy in Fevers and Febrile Diseases (1797), which had some influence in promoting the use of cold water affusion, and contains the first systematic record in English of clinical observations with the thermometer. But he is best known for his edition (1800), long regarded as the standard, of Robert Burns, which he undertook in behalf of the family of the poet. It contained an introductory criticism and an essay on the character and condition of the Scottish peasantry.