James Ranald Martin

Sir James Ranald Martin (12 May 1796 – 27 November 1874) was a surgeon in India who worked in the service of the Honourable East India Company and was instrumental in publicising the effects of deforestation, and finding links between human and environmental health.

Born in the Isle of Skye in one of the oldest families living on the island, his father was Rev. Donald Martin and his mother was the daughter of Norman Macdonald and sister of Lieut-Gn. Sir John Macdonald. Martin was educated at St. George's and Windmill Street School. He became a C.C.S. in 1811 and entered the Bengal Medical Service on 5 September 1817. He obtained commission of assistant-surgeon through the interest of his uncle, Sir John MacDonald.

He reached India at the port of Calcutta in June 1817 by ship, the Lord Hungerford, and reported for duty with the Bengal service on 2 December 1817.

In 1818 he served in his Majesty's 17th and 59th Regiments forming the garrison of Fort William. Here he came to see the effect of Cholera. He was then sent to Orissa where a malignant fever had prevailed and destroyed more than half the inhabitants of Ganjam. He saw action in a number of military engagements during the 1820s. The most notable of these was the First Burmese War from 1823–26. His war experiences, especially the fact that diseases affected the natives and the Europeans differently, led him to believe that mapping of the medical features of the empire in much the same way as topography was critical for military and economic development. His notes on the medical topography of Calcutta pioneered a genre of works that explored linkages between climate, public health and development. He was made the President of the East India Company's medical board in 1843. In 1856, he substantially re-wrote and extended the then well-known treatise on diseases in the tropics, Influence of Tropical Climates originally authored by James Johnson. He was also appointed as a member of the Sanitary Commission and contributed to the report of the Commission published in 1863.

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