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James Coxe

Fellow

Sir James Coxe was born in Gorgie in 1811, the son of Robert Coxe. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, Gottingen, Heidelberg and Paris and graduated MD from Edinburgh in 1835 before beginning practice in the city. Coxe was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1837. In 1855 he was appointed Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland and his work led directly to the Lunacy Act of 1857, for which he was knighted in 1863. Coxe authored the first fifteen Annual Reports of the Scottish Lunacy Commissioners and published 'Lunacy in its Relations to the State' in 1877. He died in Folkestone on 9 May 1878.