James Anderson was born at Logie Buchan, near Aberdeen, the son of William A. Anderson, a grain merchant and farmer who died young. He obtained his schooling at the local parish school and Robert Gordon’s Hospital. He won a bursary in arts to Aberdeen University, where he graduated as M.A, with the Murray scholarship, in 1873, and as M.B, C.M, with highest honours, three years later. He then acted as demonstrator of anatomy at Aberdeen for two years and completed his medical training with visits to Berlin, Vienna and the London Hospital. He was given junior appointments at the London Hospital, the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital and the Hospital for Skin Diseases, Blackfriars, and was elected assistant physician to the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. In 1886 he became assistant physician to the London Hospital where he was also lecturer on pathology; and he was assistant physician, too, to the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, becoming full physician shortly before his death. A bachelor, Anderson was manly and self-reliant, and an able teacher.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1893; B.M.J., 1893]