James Anderson (botanist)
James Anderson was a Scottish physician and botanist who worked in India as an employee of the East India Company. During his career in India, he was involved in establishing a botanical garden at Mambalam, Madras, originating from a nopalry or Opuntia garden where he made attempts to introduce the cultivation of cochineal insects. He then attempted to introduce various other economically valuable plants, and examined silk and lac production. He maintained a steady communication with his friend from youth, James Anderson LLD who published some of his notes in The Bee, or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, which has led to the use of the distinguishing form James Anderson MD or James Anderson of Madras.
Life
Anderson was born on 17 January 1738 in Long Hermiston, west of Edinburgh, the son of surgeon Andrew Anderson and Magdalen Sandilands, daughter of Walter 6th Lord Torphichen. He was educated at Ratho school, where his friend James Anderson who founded the journal, The Bee, also went to, before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh where his teachers included Professor William Cullen.Anderson became an East India Company naval surgeon in 1759, and was present during the Siege of Manila in 1763. He settled in the Madras Presidency in 1765 living mainly in Vellore until 1771 and became Surgeon at Madras in 1772 following the death of Samuel Scott. In 1780 he became Surgeon Major, surgeon-general of Madras in 1781, and served as the president of the Madras Medical Board founded in 1786, and ultimately held the position of physician-general with a pay of £2500 a year.
Interested in medicinal plants and horticulture, he set up a botanical garden at Mambalam where Anderson introduced mulberry trees, bastard cedar, and experimented with making silk and lac. He introduced apple trees also, and sought to produce local cochineal for which he established an Opuntia garden or nopalry. He wrote on the cultivation of sugarcane, coffee and cotton, with several notes published in The Bee edited by James Anderson, LLD, his childhood friend with whom he kept a lifelong correspondence. They wrote biographical notes on each other. Their names have led to confounding of some of their writings.
In his medical practice, he also examined local therapeutics and examined plants of medical importance. He found the native remedy of smoking the roots of "Datura ferox" effective in treating asthma. He however did not recommend some native remedies such as arsenic containing pills for use in snakebite. He examined the eye worm of horses and described a case of epigastric heteropagus conjoint twins which was illustrated by Thomas Reichel. While heading the Madras Medical Board, he recommended Lord Clive to abolish the system of plague-related quarantine at Ennore for ships bound to Madras. He promoted the use of vaccinations in the prevention of smallpox and for which he may have participated in a scheme to dupe Indians to believe that vaccination was an ancient Indian practice and therefore more acceptable. Scholar F.W. Ellis is thought to have created a Sanskrit verse that purportedly described the vaccine and a fake notice under an Indian pseudonym Calvi Virumbom was inserted into the Madras Courier, a local newspaper and the "discovery" was then propagated widely.He died at his garden home in Madras which was later occupied by Sir Thomas Pycroft became Pycroft Gardens. He married Maria Rheta de la Mabonay in 1766 and they had a daughter Ann Anderson who married merchant Charles Wallace Young, a cousin of Dr Andrew Berry. Ann died in 1810 and her memorial was erected by Berry. Anderson's bridge and Anderson road were named after him and a monument to him by Chantrey is installed at St George's Cathedral in Madras. His memorial in the compound of St. Mary's Church had a bust and a magnifying glass which are lost.