James Mellis
File:James Mellis MD Savignac.jpg
James Mellis MD (1781–1846) was a Scottish surgeon in the Bengal Presidency of the East India Company. He is now known as an early writer on dengue fever.
Life
He was the son of the Aberdeen brewer James Mellis and his wife Mary Stuart; his sister Mary married the Wesleyan Methodist minister George Douglas and had three children, the eldest being James Douglas (1800–1886), a medical man in Canada.{{cite book |last1=Douglas |first1=James |title=Journals and reminiscences of James Douglas, M.D. |date=1910 |publisher=Priv. print. |location=New York |page=16 |url=https://archive.org/details/journalsandremin00dougrich/page/16/mode/1up}}{{cite web |title=Douglas, James (1800-86) |url=https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/douglas_james_1800_86_11E.html |website=Dictionary of Canadian Biography}}
Mellis graduated M.A. at Marischal College in 1799.{{cite web |title=Melles, James (1781 - 1846) |url=https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ASSET$002f0$002fSD_ASSET:374887/one |website=livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk}}{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Peter John |last2=Johnstone |first2=James Fowler Kellas |title=Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis : selections from the records of the Marischal College and University, MDXCIII-MDCCCLX [1593-1860] |date=1898 |publisher=New Spalding Club |location=Aberdeen |page=141|volume=II |url=https://archive.org/details/b24748262_0001/page/141/mode/1up}} He became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1802.{{cite book |title=The London Medical Directory |date=1847 |publisher=Churchill Livingstone |page=194 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-UNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA194 |language=en}} He served as surgeon on the Indiaman Fame in 1803–4, on station at Madeira.{{cite book |last1=Hardy |first1=Charles |title=A Register of Ships, Employed in the Service of the Honorable the United East India Company, from the Year 1760 to 1819 |date=1820 |publisher=Black, Kingsbury, Parbury and Allen |page=233 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f9hoAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA233 |language=en}} In 1806 he was examined for his degree of M.D. at Marischal College, and that year joined the Bengal Army, with rank Assistant Surgeon.{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Peter John |last2=Johnstone |first2=James Fowler Kellas |title=Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis : selections from the records of the Marischal College and University, MDXCIII-MDCCCLX [1593-1860] |date=1898 |publisher=New Spalding Club |location=Aberdeen |page=141|volume=II |url=https://archive.org/details/b24748262_0001/page/141/mode/1up}}{{cite book |title=The Bengal Club 1827-1970 |date=1997 |page=63 |url=https://www.thebengalclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/BC-1827-1970.pdf}}
Mellis was ranked as Surgeon in 1818.{{cite book |title=The Bengal Directory and Annual Register |date=10 September 2024 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-368-75492-1 |page=238 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m5QgEQAAQBAJ&pg=PA238 |language=en}} He attended the missionary William Carey in 1823.{{cite book |last1=Carey |first1=Eustace |title=Memoir of William Carey, D. D.: Late Missionary to Bengal, Professor of Oriental Languages in the College of Fort William, Calculta |date=1836 |publisher=Gould, Kendall and Lincoln |page=370 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4SOo_5cMowC&pg=PA370 |language=en}} Around 1830 he was attached to the 9th Regiment Native Infantry, posted at Neemuch, and took a furlough period.{{cite book |title=The Bengal Directory and General Register Ed. 2nd(1831) |date=1831 |page=149 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.68595/page/n195/mode/1up}} In 1837 he became a Superintending Surgeon, and remained posted at Neemuch.{{cite book |title=The Bengal and Agra Annual Guide and Gazetteer |date=1842 |publisher=W. Rushton and Company |page=258 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6_bUukB-nIC&pg=RA1-PA258 |language=en}}
James Mellis departed from Bombay on 1 April 1845 for Suez on the Cleopatra with his wife and a child.{{cite book |title=Allen's Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence for British & Foreign India, China, & All Parts of the East |date=1845 |publisher=William H. Allen |page=256 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wbUOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA256 |language=en}} He died on 17 March 1846 at 169 Prospect Place, Maida Hill, London.{{cite web |title=Mellis, James: Allen's Indian Mail, Home Deaths 1846 |url=https://search.fibis.org/bin/aps_detail.php?id=1078682 |website=search.fibis.org}}
1824 Calcutta dengue epidemic
In 1824 Calcutta suffered an epidemic of an infectious fever of wide prevalence, on which Mellis wrote a paper for the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta. It was noticed in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal in 1826, in an anonymous review of the initial Transactions volume of 1825.{{cite book |title=Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal |date=1826 |publisher=A. and C. Black |page=398 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rKTXiEMli5UC&pg=PA398 |language=en}} James Macadam Hare was President of the Society, with Mellis as Vice-President.{{cite journal |last1=Sinha |first1=Savitri Das |title=Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta: The first English language medical journal in India |url=https://nmji.in/transactions-of-the-medical-and-physical-society-of-calcutta-the-first-english-language-medical-journal-in-india/ |journal=The National Medical Journal of India |pages=41–46 |language=en |doi=10.25259/NMJI_436_21 |date=23 August 2022|volume=35 |issue=1 |pmid=36039627 |doi-access=free }}
Others who presented papers on the 1824 Calcutta epidemic were William Twining and Henry Cavell (1797–1827); Mellis had priority of publication, in the first Transactions volume, with "Remarks on the Inflammatory Fever or Epidemic lately prevalent in Calcutta and its Environs". Further, Richard Kennedy at Baroda and the army surgeon James Mouat (died 1848) wrote in 1825, all these papers appearing in the Transactions.{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=Sir John Russell |title=A System of Medicine|volume=I |date=1879 |publisher=H.C. Lea |page=98 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CeoRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA98 |language=en}}{{cite book |title=Transactions of the Epidemiological Society of London|volume=IV |date=1882 |publisher=John W. Davies. |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ryoFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA59 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Cunha |first1=José Gerson Da |title=Dengue, its history, symptons, and treatment: with observations on the epidemic ... in Bombay, 1871-72 |date=1872 |publisher=Thacker, Vining & Company |page=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AgRbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA7 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Crawford |first1=Lieutenant-Colonel D. G. |title=Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930 - Volume 1 |date=8 February 2012 |publisher=Andrews UK Limited |isbn=978-1-78150-229-7 |page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DlK-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA81 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Gintrac |first1=Elie |title=Cours théorique et clinique de pathologie interne et de thérapie médicale. v. 3, 1853 |date=1853 |publisher=Baillière |page=500 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QO3bN0aXNs0C&pg=PA500 |language=fr}}{{cite book |title=London Journal of Medicine: A Monthly Record of the Medical Sciences. V. 1-4 (no. 1-46); Jan. 1849-Oct. 1852 |date=1849 |publisher=Taylor, Walton, & Maberly |page=408 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nUf9Jnc5LBEC&pg=PA408 |language=en}} William Aitken attributed to this group "the earliest accounts of this disease".{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=Sir John Russell |title=A System of Medicine |date=1879 |publisher=H.C. Lea |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CeoRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA98 |language=en}}
Mellis and others traced the epidemic back to Aden.{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=James Gray |title=Dengue |date=1881 |publisher=Rand, Avery & Company |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SvKBNN2XOaQC&pg=PA5 |language=en}} His name for the disease was "epidemic inflammatory fever".
James Christie (1829–1882), who published a book in 1876 on the epidemiology of cholera, turned in 1881 to dengue fever.{{cite book |last1=Echenberg |first1=Myron |title=Africa in the Time of Cholera: A History of Pandemics from 1817 to the Present |date=28 February 2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-49896-8 |pages=53–54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3cQoi8S-wk4C&pg=PA54 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Library of the Surgeon-General's Office (U.S.) |title=Index-catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, United States Army: Authors and Subjects. 2nd series |date=1898 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=631 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w387AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA631 |language=en}} He identified the dengue context as an 1822–3 epidemic in Africa of a fever there named "kidinga", spreading in 1824 to the Bombay Presidency, then Rangoon and so arriving in Calcutta.{{cite book |last1=International Congress of Medicine |title=Transactions of the 1st, 2nd, 4th-17th congress |date=1881 |page=436 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PBUDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA436 |language=en}} On Zanzibar in 1870, Christie had identified "kidinga" and "dengue", though the latter at that period was a dustbin category.{{cite book |last1=Cunha |first1=José Gerson Da |title=Dengue, its history, symptons, and treatment: with observations on the epidemic ... in Bombay, 1871-72 |date=1872 |publisher=Thacker, Vining & Company |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AgRbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA2 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Gwyn |last2=Knoll |first2=Eva-Maria |title=Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World |date=31 March 2020 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-36264-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=61DaDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA213 |language=en}}
Norman Chevers in A commentary on the diseases of India (1886) rehearsed the Transactions papers in historical context. By then it could be said that the 1824 dengue epidemic in the British Raj was followed by major outbreaks in 1853 and 1871–2.{{cite book |last1=Chevers |first1=Norman |title=A commentary on the diseases of India |date=1886 |publisher=J. & A. Churchill |location=London |page=80 |url=https://archive.org/details/commentaryondise00chev/page/80/mode/1up}}
Honours and awards
Mellis was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of London.{{cite book |title=The Economist: Weekly Commercial Times, Banker's Gazette and Railway Monitor |date=1846 |publisher=Economist Newspaper Limited |page=379 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MUdUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA379 |language=en}}
Family
Mellis married in 1810 Elizabeth Masterton, in Bengal.{{cite news |title=Aberdeen Wednesday - October 3 |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000031/18101003/010/0004 |work=Aberdeen Press and Journal |date=3 October 1810|page=3}} His daughter Eliza Helen married in 1836 in Calcutta Capt. Charles Dallas (1803–1840), second son of Charles Dallas, as his second wife.{{cite book |last1=Hodson |first1=V. C. P. |title=List of the officers of the Bengal army 1758-1834 |volume=D-K|date=1928 |publisher=Constable and Company, London |page=3 |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.5476/page/n7/mode/1up}} From a time when she was still young, Mellis was the guardian of his niece Ann Elizabeth Douglas.{{cite news |title=Funeral of Mrs Dale |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003401/18791227/088/0005 |work=Darlington & Richmond Herald |date=27 December 1879|page=5}} She married in 1819 David Dale (1795–1830), in Calcutta, and was mother of Sir David Dale, 1st Baronet.{{cite book |last1=Regality Club Glasgow |title=The Regality Club (third series) |date=1899 |publisher=James Maclehouse & Sons, for the Club |location=Glasgow |page=120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSp_ZQfyD7cC&pg=RA2-PA120 |language=en}}{{cite ODNB|id=32693|first=Ian|last=St John|title=Dale, Sir David, first baronet (1829–1906)}}
Mellis supported the medical career of his nephew James Douglas, by covering the costs of the latter's membership of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, around 1820 (via William Fairlie's agency).{{cite book |last1=Douglas |first1=James |title=Journals and reminiscences of James Douglas, M.D. |date=1910 |publisher=Priv. print. |location=New York |page=68 |url=https://archive.org/details/journalsandremin00dougrich/page/68/mode/1up}} On the return voyage from India in 1823 of a journey he had made, during which he had encountered his uncle and discussed medical matters at a hospital in Dum Dum, Douglas was faced with cases of cholera on board the ship after leaving Sagar Island. He followed a treatment he had learned at the hospital.{{cite book |last1=Douglas |first1=James |title=Journals and reminiscences of James Douglas, M.D. |date=1910 |publisher=Priv. print. |location=New York |page=82 |url=https://archive.org/details/journalsandremin00dougrich/page/82/mode/1up}}
Legacy
In 1826 Mellis presented to the Marischal Museum some Burmese antiquities. They had been imported on the Sir Charles Forbes by its captain Alexander Duthie.{{cite news |title=n/a |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000540/18260625/066/0007 |work=The Scotsman |date=25 June 1826|page=7}}{{cite news |title=n/a |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000045/18260619/009/0003 |work=Caledonian Mercury |date=19 June 1826|page=3}}