James Makittrick Adair M.D. (1728–1802), a native of Inverness, and youngest son of , held several occupations but is best remembered for his medical ethics and treatment of slaves and the poor. He was educated at the grammar school and University of Edinburgh. Early in life he was an officer in the army. Having wasted his own fortune and that of his wife, a descendant of the Adair family, he became an officer in the revenue department at Edinburgh and was later appointed surgeon's mate of the sloop-of-war Porcupine, bound to the Leeward Islands.