James Henderson Nicoll FRCS(G), JP (30 September 1863 – 15 August 1921) was a Scottish paediatric surgeon[1] and professor of surgery at Anderson's University.

[2] Nicoll was most notable for developing a surgical cure for pyloric stenosis and outpatient care of children with spina bifida,[3] and was known as the "father of day surgery".

[4] After Nicoll finished his apprenticeship, he toured Europe extensively, visiting a number of hospitals that provided the best paediatric surgery services.

[2] He also served as secretary to the West of Scotland Board of the British Medical Association and as vice president for the paediatric surgery section of the BMA.

[7] Nicoll was an advocate for day surgery and published a paper in the British Medical Journal about his experiences of the approximately 9000 paediatric surgical patients, most of whom he operated on, alone at the Dispensary.

Nichol believed inpatient treatment to be a waste of hospital resources, as the results obtained at the Dispensary were equally as good but at a fraction of the cost.