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surgeons. The gratitude of society is due to him j
for his earnest advocacy of a proposal to stamp out '
small-pox and similar contagious diseases by the
isolation of patients (Proposal to Stamp out Small-
pox, 1868), although his suggestions have not as
yet been carried into effect. The Medical Reform
Bill owed its success in parliament to some extent to
the influence of Sir James, who from first to last
showed the deepest interest in, and made the most
active exertions in behalf of the measure. He wrote
numberless papers on his own peculiar branch of
practice, and added much that was new in elucida-
tion of the obscure subjects of fetal malformations
and intra-uterine diseases; although he is to be re-
membered rather for the impulse he gave, than for
the results obtained by his own investigations in a
field that was considered ignoble when he entered
on its cultivation. He lectured here and there on
archaeological and other subjects of general interest,
�finding time also to pay attention to such subjects as
improved dwellings for the poor, village flower-
shows, and Sabbath-schools. Nor is it to be passed
over that in his later years, when his heart was
touched by repeated family losses�above all, by
the death of his eldest surviving son, David, a youth
of great promise�his religious feelings became deeply
moved; and with the usual impulsiveness of his nature
he appeared at "revival" meetings as a plain and
earnest preacher of evangelical doctrine. In spite
of all assertions that he had gone mad, his work
went on as before. Latterly, however, he refrained
from speaking in public on religious matters, although
his simple piety underwent no change.
But the arduous labours, carried on for more than
thirty years, allowing him little repose, at last began
to tell seriously on his constitution. In consequence
of a severe attack of rheumatism in the winter of
1866 he was compelled to rest for some time, and
in the following spring he visited the Continent. Yet
during the last three years of his life he remained at
heart as fresh and energetic as ever. In September
of the year 1867 he attended the meetings of the Social
Science Association at Belfast, where, as chairman
of the department of public health, he delivered an
address on the sanitary movement. In 1868 came
the last "sensation" of his somewhat stormy life,
when he announced himself as a candidate for the
principalship of the university. Mainly through the
determined opposition of his academic colleagues,
he was defeated, and the honour was bestowed on
the well-known educationist and philosopher, Sir
Alexander Grant. He visited Rome in the spring
of 1869, inspecting the ruins and antiquities, the
hospitals and sanitary arrangements of the city; and
at the same time gave orders for the clearing of the
grave of his illustrious countrymen, John Bell the
anatomist, who had died at Rome in 1820, and of
John Keats the unhappy English poet. His own
end, too, was near. Two hurried visits to London
in February of 1870, during a severely cold season,
told on his strength; and a few days after his return
he went to bed, thoroughly exhausted, never again
to resume the busy labours of his life. He suffered
much, but with Christian resignation; and in the
intervals of freedom from pain he even wrote a long
and vigorous reply to the "unjust and unjustifiable"
attack of an American professor, Dr. Bigelow, who
had endeavoured to deprive him of the honour univer-
sally accorded him for the introduction of chloroform.
After a long period of intense agony he died in his
well-known residence in Queen Street, Edinburgh,
on the 6th of May, 1870. Never was there such a
concourse of spectators in the capital as on the day
of his funeral; never perhaps such an immense funeral
train, or such wide and genuine mourning. It is
perhaps to be regretted that his relations did not
accept the offer of a resting-place for him in West-
minster Abbey among the poets, philosophers, and
heroes of his country.
The discovery of the anaesthetic properties of
chloroform, and likewise the invention of acupres-
sure, are due in the first instance to the tenderness
of Simpson's nature. When a student of medicine
he had been so shocked by the cruelty of an opera-
tion as to resolve on the abandonment of medical
studies. From that time the question continued to
haunt him�What can be done to mitigate such suf-
fering? Anaesthesia, or a state of unconsciousness
produced by artificial means, had during the middle
ages been spoken of and employed in surgical opera-
tions; but in these early times its effects appear to
have been very uncertain or equivocal. In 1800 Sir
Humphry Davy suggested the use of nitrous oxide
gas; in 1844 Dr. Wells at Hartford in the United
States made the first anaesthetic experiments in
modern times, with this gas; in 1846 Dr. Morton
employed sulphuric ether successfully in dentistry,
at Boston. The use of sulphuric ether at once be-
came general, and in the winter of 1846-47 many
operations were performed on patients under the
influence of this vapour. Simpson, who had long
been desiring some such agent to relieve human
suffering, at once hailed the discovery of Morton,
and early, as well as eloquently, advocated the
necessity of its adoption. To him belongs the honour
of first applying ether in obstetric practice. His paper
on this subject, written for a British journal, was
read with the highest interest at a meeting of the
Obstetric Society of Berlin, which thereupon elected
him an honorary and corresponding member.�But
sulphuric ether had its defects and bad effects, which
were soon observed. Simpson set about experiment-
ing with other vapours, and at last fell on chloroform.
He thus relates the story of the discovery:�"On
the first occasion on which I detected the anaesthetic
effects of chloroform the scene was an odd one. I
had had the chloroform beside me for several days,
but it seemed so unlikely a liquid to produce results
of any kind that it was laid aside; and on searching
for another object among some loose paper, after
coming home very late one night, my hand chanced
to fall upon it, and I poured some of the fluid into
tumblers before my assistants, Dr. Keith and Dr.
Duncan, and myself. Before sitting down to supper,
we all inhaled the fluid, and were all under the
mahogany in a trice, to my wife's consternation and
alarm. In pursuing the inquiry, thus rashly, perhaps,
begun, I became every day more and more convinced
of the superior anaesthetic effects of chloroform as
compared with ether." Such is the simple story of
one of the most beneficial discoveries in the history
of science. His first paper on chloroform, written
immediately after this occurrence, was read before
the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, on
the 10th of March, 1847. The storm of opposition
that arose against the introduction of chloroform
very quickly passed away; and the arguments of its
opponents are not worthy of record. Honours were
showered upon him from numerous scientific societies
on the continents of Europe and America. In March,
1853, he was elected, amid great enthusiasm, a
Foreign Associate of the Academy of Medicine of
Paris, an honour at that time held by no other in
Great Britain; and in 1856 hereceived thelaureateship
and gold medal of the French Academy of Sciences,
with the Monthyon prize of 2000 francs awarded for
'' most important services done to humanity." Hun-
dreds of thousands of wounded patriots have already