James Lind

Dr James Lind FRS FRSE FRCPE (1736–1812) was a Scottish physician and co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Born in Edinburgh on 17 May 1736, he was the son of Alexander Lind of Gorgie, and nephew of George Lind the Edinburgh Member of Parliament, the sons of George Lind of Gorgie. He was the first cousin of James Lind (1716–1794) the naval physician, whose father James Lind was the brother of George Lind of Gorgie. He was also first cousin to James Keir. His mother Helen was daughter of George Allardice, Member of Parliament.

He studied Medicine at Edinburgh University and graduated in 1765. In 1766, he then joined the East India Company as surgeon and sailed to China. In 1768 he received his doctorate (MD). On 6 November 1770 he was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians, Edinburgh.

Lind accompanied Joseph Banks on his voyage to Iceland, the expedition setting sail 12 July 1772. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London 18 December 1777. Around the same time he seems to have settled at Windsor, where he later became physician to the royal household. When the coffin of Edward IV was opened and examined at Windsor in 1789, he made an analysis of the liquid found in it. He kept up a correspondence with Banks, and with Tiberio Cavallo. He corresponded with Patrick Wilson about William Herschel's work.

Charles Burney described Lind as extremely thin, and in her Diary Fanny Burney mentioned his wife as "about six times as big". She also cast doubt whether he obtained much of a private practice: "people were afraid of his trying experiments with their constitutions, and thought him a better conjuror than a physician".

Lind died at the house of his son-in-law, William Burnie, in Russell Square, London, on 17 October 1812.

Lind was alluded to by Percy Bysshe Shelley in two poems from 1817, the Revolt of Islam, and Prince Athanase, where he appears as the magus Zonoras. Shelley, in his final two years at Eton College, had Lind as a mentor, around 1809. He is also thought to be Mary Shelley's source for the galvanism in her novel Frankenstein, as applied by the eponymous Dr. Victor Frankenstein.

Lind's inaugural dissertation, De Febre Remittente Putrida Paludum quæ grassabatur in Bengalia A.D. 1762, was published at Edinburgh in 1768. In 1772 he produced a translaton, Treatise on the Fever of 1762 at Bengal.

In three papers for the Royal Society, Lind discussed: the 1769 transit of Venus observed at Hawkhill, near Edinburgh; an eclipse of the moon, same place and year, with remarks by Nevil Maskelyne; and in 1775 a portable wind gauge. He gave Thomas Pennant a map of Islay, and a measurement of its longitude.

At his private press at Windsor, Lind printed The Genealogy of the Families of Lind and the Montgomeries of Smithson, by Sir Robert Douglas, 6th Baronet. He produced pamphlets, and experimented with typography.

Lind's wife was Ann Elizabeth Mealy. Their daughter Dorothy Sophia Banks Lind married Isaac Gosset (1782–1855); and was mother of Helen Dorothea or Dorothy Gosset, who married William Driscoll Gosset. Their daughter Anne Lind married William Burnie in 1806. There was a third daughter, Lucy Maria, and a son Alexander. Lucy, the eldest, married Markham Eeles Sherwill, and they had three sons (Markham Eeles, Walter Stanhope and James) and five daughters (Ariana Maria, Julia Sophia, Lucy Maria, Anne Elizabeth and Helen Matilda). As Lucy Maria Sherwill, she was known as a profilist.