James Murray (physician)

Sir James Murray (1788–1871) was an Irish physician, whose research into digestion led to his discovery of the stomach aid Milk of Magnesia in 1809.

He later studied in electrotherapy and led the research into the causes of cholera and other epidemics as a result of exposure to natural electricity.

He named his recipe Fluid Magnesia, and set up the company Sir James Murray & Son to successfully market it.

He was appointed as an inspector of anatomical schools in Ireland, and was a member of the central board of health, as well as the resident physician to the Netterville Dispensary and the Anglesey Lying-In Hospital, Dublin.

There, and after hearing lectures by the English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist, John Dalton, Murray undertook studies to establish the "exact proportions of heat, or electricity, naturally belonging to ... living atoms, in a state of health".

His career flourished under the hospital's patron, George Chichester, 3rd Marquess of Donegall, who owned Belfast Castle.

[2] Fluid Magnesia was later sold as a solution and recommended as a palatable laxative and as a remedy for acidity, indigestion, heartburn, and gout.

[4] He also marketed Sir James Murray's Pure Fluid Camphor, a tonic which was used to aid weak nerves, low fever, spasms, cholera, and diarrhoea.

[8] Murray graduated as a Doctor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1829, and became the resident physician to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, in 1831.

However, Murray's son, John, brought shame on his father by publishing a novel, entitled The Viceroy, which satirised "the worms and sycophants of Irish lord lieutenancy".

[2] During the cholera epidemic of 1832, he lowered the atmospheric pressure on the external surface of sufferers' bodies using an air pump based on his own design.