James Carson

James Carson M.D. FRS (1772–1843) was a Scottish physician.

Life Carson was originally educated for the ministry, but attended medical classes at the University of Edinburgh, and graduated doctor of medicine there in the autumn of 1799. He then moved to Liverpool, where he remained for most of his professional career.

In 1808 Carson came prominently before the public with the case of Charles Angus, a Liverpool chemist, charged with the murder of Margaret Burns, an alleged poisoning. At the trial held at Lancaster assizes on 2 September that year Carson on Angus's behalf maintained his own opinion as to the cause of death, against that of the four medical witnesses called for the Crown, among whom was John Bostock the younger. A verdict of not guilty was returned.

Some angry pamphleteering followed the Angus case, and Carson defended himself in Remarks on a late Publication entitled "A Vindication of the Opinions delivered in Evidence by the Medical Witnesses for the Crown on a late Trial at Lancaster," Liverpool, 1808. Other writings were:

Reasons for colonizing the Island of Newfoundland, 1813. A Letter to the Members of Parliament on the Address of the Inhabitants of Newfoundland to the Prince Regent, 1813. An Enquiry into the Causes of the Motion of the Blood, Liverpool, 1815 (second and enlarged edition under the title of An Inquiry into the Causes of Respiration, London, 1833). A New Method of slaughtering Animals for Human Food, London, 1839.