Robert James (1703 – 23 March 1776) was an English physician who is best known as the author of A Medicinal Dictionary, as the inventor of a popular "fever powder", and as a friend of Samuel Johnson.
His early education was at Lichfield Grammar School, where he became acquainted with his fellow student Samuel Johnson.
He practised at Sheffield, Lichfield, and Birmingham before moving to London, where he was admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College on 25 June 1765.
[2] This work was immediately translated into French (as Dictionnaire universel de médecine, 1746–1748) by the team of Denis Diderot, François-Vincent Toussaint, and Marc-Antoine Eidous;[3] and it retained its popularity for so long that Mark Twain felt justified in writing a scathing critique of it nearly 150 years later, in 1890.
The use of this preparation, a compound of antimony and phosphate of lime, has been cited as a contributing factor in the death of Oliver Goldsmith.