Alexander James trained at the University of Edinburgh, graduating MB CM in 1872 and MD in 1876. A member and sometime president of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and a member of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society, he began his career as Resident Physician and Resident Surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, before serving as House Surgeon at the Liverpool Infirmary for Children. He later lectured at the University of Edinburgh and returned to the Royal Infirmary as Consulting Physician, a post he held until his retirement in 1930.
