After education at the
Royal Belfast Academical Institution and at the
Methodist College Belfast, James Alexander Lindsay matriculated at
Queen's College Belfast, where he graduated in 1877 B.A. and in 1878 M.A. in ancient classics. In 1882 he obtained the M.D. and M.Ch. degrees in the
Royal University of Ireland. After two years of working in clinics in London, in Paris, and in Vienna, he returned to Belfast. At the
Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, he was appointed in 1884 assistant physician and in 1888 full physician, and succeeded by William Willis Dalziel Thomson. In 1897–1898 Lindsay was president of the
Ulster Medical Society. In 1903 he was elected FRCP. His nephew, Royal Navy Captain D. C. Lindsay, was
High Sheriff of Belfast for the year 1931. J. A. Lindsay and his nephew were descendants of James Lindsay, who fled from religion persecution in Ayrshire in 1678. ==Selected publications==