James Ramsay Hunt was born in 1872 in Philadelphia and qualified as a Medical Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania in 1893. He soon left America to study in Paris, Vienna and Berlin until he returned to New York as a practising neurologist, working at Cornell University Medical School from 1900-1910 with Charles Loomis Dana (1852-1935).

Hunt was on the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1911-13 and again from 1924 until his death. He was Consulting Neurologist and Senior Attending Neurologist at the Neurological Institute of New York from c.1914 to 1937.

Besides his work as a consultant he carried out major research on the anatomy and disorders of the corpus striatum and the extra-pyramidal system.