Sir James Coxe MD

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(1811 – 1878) was a Scottish physician and expert on psychiatry. Controversially (though not at the time) he linked mental illness with a distancing from religion and with a parallel deterioration of the body. Rather more productively, he was an early campaigner against restraint in asylums, and he advocated greater training of women in the field of medicine.

Life

The grave of Sir James Coxe, Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh

James Coxe is said to have been born in

Gorgie Gorgie ( ) is a densely populated area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located in the west of the city and borders Murrayfield, Ardmillan and Dalry. Name The name is thought to be Brythonic in origin. Early forms suggest it derives from ''gor g ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

the son of Robert Coxe, but the family name does not appear in any Edinburgh Post Office Directory for that period. Coxe studied medicine at

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

and

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

universities, and then returned to

for his medical degree (MD) which was granted in 1835. From 1857 until his death he was a Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland; and he sat on a Royal Commission on the Management of the Insane. This led to the rebuilding of

Craig House, Edinburgh Craig House is a historic house and estate located on Easter Craiglockhart Hill, between the Craiglockhart and Morningside areas of Edinburgh, Scotland. Old Craig House dates from the 16th century, and succeeded an earlier building. In the late ...

under the direction of Dr

Thomas Clouston Sir Thomas Smith Clouston (22 April 1840 – 19 April 1915) was a Scottish psychiatrist. Life Clouston was the youngest of four sons of Robert Clouston (1786–1857) 3rd of Nisthouse, in the Birsay parish of Orkney, and his wife Janet (né ...

and Sir Arthur Mitchell. Coxe was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 1854, his proposer being Robert Chambers. Coxe was knighted by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

in 1863. In 1872 he was elected President of the Psychological Association in Great Britain. In 1877 he co-chaired an inquiry into "The Care and Cure of the Insane" jointly with Dr

Joseph Mortimer Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

at the request of ''

The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...

''. In his final years in Edinburgh he lived in Kinellan House in

Murrayfield Murrayfield is an affluent area to the west of Edinburgh city centre in Scotland. It is to the east of Corstorphine and north of Balgreen and Roseburn. The A8 road runs east–west through the south of the area. Murrayfield is often conside ...

. Coxe died in

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

on 9 May 1878. He is buried in

Dean Cemetery The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and on ...

in western

with his wife, May Anne Cumming. The distinctive granite monument stands on the corner of one of the small southern sections.

Publications

*''On the Causes of Insanity and the Means of Checking its Growth'' (1872)Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era, by Andrew Scull *''Lunacy in its Relations to the State'' (1878)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coxe, James 1811 births 1878 deaths Scottish psychiatrists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh