_SIR JAMES SIMPSON AND ANÆSTHETICS._
Future ages will perceive in the history of medicine and surgery in
the nineteenth century no more remarkable event than the discovery
and the introduction of means for relieving and temporarily
abolishing pain. And although the name of Simpson is by no means the
only one honourably associated with this discovery, his achievement
in the introduction of chloroform places him on an enviable pinnacle
of greatness.
JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON, the seventh son and eighth child of a small
baker, was born at Bathgate, Linlithgowshire, on the 7th of June
1811. His birth took place when his father’s circumstances were
at the lowest ebb. Several of the family, including his mother,
had but just recovered from fever. The mother had to rise from her
maternal pain to take an active part in business, which she did most
energetically and successfully. Her religious character and her
thrifty habits deeply impressed the little boy, and he pleasingly
recalled in after years her injunction, when she had just darned a
big hole in his stocking, “My Jamie, when your mother’s away, you
will mind that she was a grand darner.” She died when James was but
nine years old, leaving him in the care of his only sister Mary,
eleven years older, who proved a tender foster mother. Already as
a child James Simpson became known as “the wise wean,” “the young
philosopher,” and his voice was sweet and silvery. His industry and
retentiveness of memory early gave promise of distinction, which
all the family were persuaded would fall to his lot. And he would
readily, book in hand, keep the shop for a time, or run with rolls
to the laird’s house. “I remember,” says his brother Alexander,[5]
“finding him sitting in the street on a very dusty day, sobbing
bitterly, the tears running down his cheeks covered with dust. ‘What
ails you, Jamie?’ I said, and he answered, sobbing as if his heart
would break, ‘I’ve broken the pony’s knees.’” It turned out that
Alexander himself had overridden the pony, so that it could not help
stumbling.
The father of the family trusted his children in a peculiar way. All
were regarded as equally concerned in the family prosperity, and the
shop till was unfastened, and free to all; each habitually thought
of the general good first. In this way the household prospered ever
after James’s birth, and he personally received unremitting attention.
At the age of fourteen James Simpson entered
Edinburgh University, “a very very young and very solitary, very poor
and almost friendless student,” as he himself said forty years after.
For two years he pursued classical and mathematical studies, gaining
a small bursary before his second session. One of his earliest
purchases was a little book on “The Economy of Human Life,” for which
he gave ninepence. An extract from it which he wrote in his cash-book
is significant of his temper of mind: “Let not thy recreations be
expensive, lest the pain of purchasing them exceed the pleasure thou
hast in their enjoyment.” Though an economical student, however,
his literary tastes were wide, as he early bought Byron’s Giaour
and Childe Harold, and Paley’s Natural Theology. He lodged with Dr.
Macarthur, a former usher in the Bathgate School, together with John
Reid, an old schoolfellow, afterwards Professor of Anatomy at St.
Andrews, in the upper flat of a tall house in Adam Street. Reid’s
enthusiasm for anatomy seem to have first inspired Simpson to choose
medicine as a profession.
In the winter of 1827 James Simpson entered as a medical student
in the University, and, attending Liston’s class on surgery, soon
became conspicuous. He took full notes of lectures, and was freely
critical of his teachers. He became a dresser under Liston, and
received excellent testimonials from him. But he shrank from surgery,
having an exquisite tenderness of heart which almost drove him from
the profession. After witnessing on one occasion a poor woman’s
agony under amputation of the breast, he started off directly to
seek employment as a writer’s (or lawyer’s) clerk. He soon returned,
however, deeply imbued with the desire to do something to render
operations less painful. Simpson’s summer vacations were passed at
Bathgate, natural history and antiquarian pursuits occupying his
spare time. In January 1830, just before he was going up for his
license to practise, his father died after some weeks’ illness,
during which James constantly watched at his bedside. Such an
interruption to study at a critical moment might have upset so
sensitive a mind. But Simpson went in for his examination in April,
and became a member of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons before he
was nineteen years of age. His brother Alexander, who, with the
rest of the family, furnished faithful and persevering help to the
young brother of whom so much was expected, gave him a home while
he looked out for some post to occupy him while waiting for his
Edinburgh degree, which his youth prevented him from taking as yet.
One of the situations which he sought was that of parish surgeon in
a little village named Inverkip, on the Clyde. “When not selected,”
he writes long after, “I felt perhaps a deeper amount of chagrin
and disappointment than I have ever experienced since that date. If
chosen, I would probably have been working there as a village doctor
still.”
In 1831 Simpson returned to his university studies, his brother
David having commenced business in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, and being
able to accommodate the young doctor. He assisted in maintaining
himself by becoming assistant to Dr. Gairdner. Thus he was enabled
to complete his university course and take his M.D. degree in 1832,
giving as his inaugural thesis an essay on “Death from Inflammation.”
This attracted much attention, especially from Dr. John Thomson,
Professor of Pathology, who at once requested him to act as his
assistant with a salary of £50, which the young man made sufficient
for all his necessities. In this capacity he prepared a catalogue
of the museum of the pathological department. His first experience
of obstetric study in attending Professor Hamilton’s lectures had
not left his mind under a compulsion to pursue the subject deeply,
but Dr. Thomson saw that his assistant, soft-mannered but full of
decisive activity, was the very man to succeed in midwifery practice,
and he therefore advised him to devote himself specially to it.
Another great characteristic was his power of winning the confidence
of others, and especially of getting his patients to tell him what it
was most important that he should know. But he went immediately to
work to become learned in his subject, and then to turn over in his
mind everything that he had learnt, until it assumed a new aspect. He
always sought new and better ways, and if any department of practice
or theory appeared to him defective, he restlessly applied his mind
to invent or imagine some improvement. And he had an absorbing
desire to gratify his family by achieving success. When his sister
Mary told him in 1834 he was injuring his health by overwork, he
replied, seriously, “Well, I am sure it’s just to please you all.”
Simpson’s first important paper, on the Diseases of the Placenta,
delivered before the Royal Medical Society in 1835, at once showed a
master hand. It was translated into French, German, and Italian. He
began by exhaustively studying the previous history of every subject
he took up, and then tested others’ opinions and facts by his own
observation. One of his earliest papers includes nearly one hundred
references to previous literature, including many authorities,
showing an unusual range of reading. If he could not read the
language of an author he got some one who could to do so, and give
him the material bearing on his point of inquiry. But while no man
regarded more highly than he the patient achievements of the past, no
man sat more loosely to tradition and convention.
In 1833 Simpson became a member of the Royal Medical and Physical
Societies of Edinburgh. Of the former he was soon President. A writer
in the _Scotsman_ for May 10, 1870, thus described his appearance
in that capacity. After speaking of his long tangled hair, and very
large head, he says: “A poet has since described him as one of
‘leonine aspect.’ Not such do we remember him. A pale, large, rather
flattish face, massive, brent brows, from under which shone eyes
now piercing as it were to your inmost soul, now melting into almost
feminine tenderness, and coarsish nose, with dilated nostrils, a
finely-chiselled mouth, which seemed the most expressive feature of
the face, and capable of being made at will the exponent of every
passion and emotion. Who could describe that smile? When even the sun
has tried it he has failed, and yet who can recall those features and
not realise it as it played round the delicate lines of the upper
lip, where firmness was strangely blended with other and apparently
opposing qualities? Then his peculiar, rounded, soft body and limbs,
as if he had retained the infantile form in adolescence, presented
a _tout ensemble_ which even had we never seen it again would have
remained indelibly impressed on our memory.”
In 1832 Alexander and Mary Simpson both married. Alexander’s wife,
however, became as attached as his sister to James, and there was
no interruption to the family helpfulness. When cholera appeared
in Bathgate, Alexander made a will securing a provision for James
if he died. “I trust,” wrote this true brother, “every one of you
will look to him. But I dare say every one of you has a pleasure
in doing him good by stealth, as I have had myself.” The brothers
Alexander and John enabled James to visit London and the Continent
in 1835 to see a variety of practice; his travelling companion was
Dr. Douglas Maclagan, afterwards Professor of Medical Jurisprudence
at Edinburgh. On his return Simpson gained some practice, but
chiefly among those who could pay him little or nothing. In May
1836 he obtained the situation of house-surgeon to the Lying-in
Hospital, which he held for a year. This soon led to an increase of
practice among better-paying patients. He now gave some courses of
lectures on Midwifery in the Extra-Academical School, which were well
received, besides being appointed interim lecturer on Pathology, when
his friend Dr. Thomson had resigned. He gave great labour to the
preparation of his lectures, besides continuing to publish original
papers on Midwifery. At this time he rose repeatedly at three in the
morning, when he did not sit up all night. But with all his work he
found time for social enjoyment, for family interests, for messages
to old schoolfellows in humble life.
Neither now nor at any time did Simpson lose his habit of plain
speech. He did not always conciliate others by his outspoken
expressions, and he did not care to wrap up unpleasant truths in
honeyed words. In 1839 some hasty words which passed between Simpson
and Dr. Lewins of Leith in reference to an anonymous letter written
by the latter, nearly led to a duel; but, fortunately, friends were
able to persuade them that both were to blame, and an amicable
reconciliation was effected. In the same year, that in which also
he had commenced housekeeping on his own account, Simpson became
a candidate for the Chair of Midwifery, vacated by Dr. Hamilton’s
resignation. The contest was a very severe one, Dr. Evory Kennedy of
Dublin having strong claims. Simpson strained every nerve to secure
testimonials and to influence electors, publishing an octavo volume
of testimonials, extending to more than 200 pages. He was finally
elected Professor on the 4th February 1840 by a majority of one
vote only, at the age of twenty-eight, with no advantages of social
position or long experience to back him. A few weeks previously
(December 26, 1839) he had married his second cousin, Miss Jessie
Grindlay, of Liverpool, to whom he had long been attached.
But difficulties were not over when the election had taken place. The
pecuniary cost of the canvass was about £500, chiefly in printing
and postage; and Simpson had less than no money; he was considerably
in debt to his relatives. His new colleagues had to a large extent
opposed him, preferring Dr. Kennedy; they continued to oppose him,
not fancying their association with a small baker’s son. Practice
began to flow in, but it necessitated taking a larger house, keeping
a carriage, and much greater expenditure; and it was some time before
the young couple could make both ends meet. Demands from old friends
or from poor people for help, crowded on Simpson faster than fees;
and his kindly heart did more for them than sober judgment would
warrant. He frequently sat up all night writing for the press. He was
beset remarkably early by philanthropic projectors, self-interested
promoters, young aspirants to fame, and men anxious to bring forward
a pill calculated to make people live to the age of Methusaleh, or
desirous of the Doctor’s interest to get them permission to fish in
one of his patients’ streams. Nervous headaches and acute pains began
to cast their horrible shadows over his life; but work was scarcely
ever remitted. His lectures were immediately a great success; he
had the largest class in the University. Additional seats had to be
supplied, and then there was not room for all to sit. His cares had
meanwhile been increased by the birth of a daughter, a fortnight
before the session began.
Simpson’s untiring activity could not content itself, however, with
strictly professional subjects. Before the end of his first session
of professional lectures, he began to work at a memoir which received
the title of “Antiquarian Notices of Leprosy and Leper-Houses in
Scotland and England.” In it he makes nearly five hundred references
to out-of-the-way authorities, and in the appendix is a list and
notices of one hundred and nineteen leper-houses which he had traced
in Britain. The memoir is a mine of valuable antiquarian information.
By the end of 1842 his pecuniary position was assured beyond all
doubt, although his benevolence would have made this difficult
had not his skill become so famed. His success when little over
thirty years of age was marvellous; the hotels were filled with his
patients, and his practice was said to be worth many thousands of
pounds a year to these establishments. His house had to be enlarged
to receive some who insisted on remaining in the closest proximity
to the great doctor. But in the whirl of practice one fault became
prominent. Methodical and exhaustive in his literary researches, and
possessed of a powerful memory, he could not be persuaded to make
systematic notes of his appointments, and seemed to be incapable of
so planning out his time as to spend it to the greatest advantage
for his patients. He not unfrequently forgot a definite appointment,
and was sometimes overpersuaded by pushing people or by professional
friends to attend to cases out of their proper turn. That he ever
consciously did any one an injustice either for pay or without it
is quite untrue. But he was blamed as if he had. He was indeed only
too careless about money, and frequently too regardless of his own
interest to demand a proper fee. His receipts were stuffed at once
into his pockets, which were emptied at night, he knowing nothing
of their contents before. Sometimes a fee was received in a letter,
and neither taken out nor acknowledged. Once he received £10 thus,
when a much larger fee might have been expected, and several notes
of expostulation followed on his neglect to acknowledge its receipt.
One stormy night Simpson was much disturbed in sleep by the rattling
of a window. He got up, felt in his pocket for a bit of paper, and
lighted on the £10 note, which was devoted to the tightening of the
window-frame. On Mrs. Simpson discovering the nature of the bit of
paper in the morning, he merely replied, “Oh, it’s _that_ £10.”
A sample of ridiculous expostulations is the case where repeated
letters asked Dr. Simpson’s opinion whether three leeches should not
be applied to a hip-joint, instead of two, which the family medical
man recommended.
In the midst of practice and lectures, he found time to write or
dictate many a brief or lengthy article on obstetric practice or
diseases of women, always practical, always exhausting previous
authorities. It was in this direction especially that his mind was
ever at work. Then when he had come to a conclusion, he withheld no
item of it. “Keen to perceive the truth,” says the _Scotsman_,[6]
he was equally vigorous in his announcement of it, and cared little
to what cherished opinion his statements might run counter. Hence
came contests where little quarter was given or received. He was a
dangerous antagonist to meet at a joust, and though he could use the
keen edge of steel, he oftener despatched his antagonist with a heavy
mace of facts or figures, which those who had neither his industry
nor his powers of memory could neither refute nor set aside. Hence
he made many enemies, for he had run counter to many prejudices, and
the old spirit which had opposed his election to the professorial
chair cropped out ever and anon, showing that it was smothered, not
extinguished.
It should ever be remembered that Simpson’s greatness was established
before he had introduced chloroform, and depended on his unsurpassed
skill in obstetrics and diseases of women, while yet he was a most
accomplished general physician. Already, in January 1847, when he
was only just beginning to study anæsthetics, he was made one of the
Queen’s Physicians for Scotland. We cannot here attempt a history
of previous efforts to secure immunity or relief from pain, but it
is evident Simpson was in this respect not a man marvellously in
advance of his age; the subject was in the air; unceasing efforts
at improvement were being made. Before the end of the last century
the brilliant chemical discoveries of Priestley had led to his
suggestion that drugs might be administered in definite quantities by
inhalation through the lungs. Oxygen was the first gas inhaled for
medicinal purposes; and in 1795 Dr. Pearson of Birmingham prescribed
the inhalation of ether in cases of consumption, being followed ten
years later by Dr. Warren of Boston, U.S.A. In 1800 Sir Humphry
Davy, when superintending Beddoes’ Pneumatic Institution at Bristol,
founded principally for the medicinal inhalation of oxygen, began to
study the effects of nitrous oxide, which he employed, after he had
become familiar with its intoxicating effects, to relieve the pain of
a severe inflammation of his own gums. In publishing his account of
its successful inhalation he said, “As nitrous oxide in its extensive
operation seems capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably
be used with advantage during surgical operations in which no great
effusion of blood takes place.”[7] Thus we must credit Sir Humphry
Davy with the most original observation and experiment on the subject
of anæsthetics: another instance in which the investigator seeking
to advance science has made an observation and suggestion bearing
on the welfare of the whole of mankind. His pupil and successor,
Faraday, in 1818 announced that sulphuric ether vapour, when inhaled,
produced similar effects to nitrous oxide. Here closes the record of
anæsthetics for many years, practically we believe because medicine
and surgery had not yet become sufficiently scientific to discern
their value.
In 1835 Robert Collyer, an American medical student, inhaled ether at
a chemical lecture by Professor Turner at University College, London,
being himself made insensible, in company with other students; he
noted that his fellow-students under its influence became insensible
to pain. In December 1839, Collyer, near New Orleans, reduced a
dislocation of the hip for one of his father’s negroes who had fallen
down in insensibility on inhaling the fumes of rum. The negro showed
no sign of pain. Collyer soon after identified this narcotic state
with that produced by mesmerism, under which also some operations
were painlessly performed. Collyer lectured on these subjects in 1840
and subsequent years in Philadelphia, Boston, Liverpool, and other
places. He made mesmeric and narcotising experiments, the latter
with a mixture in which the vapour of alcohol with poppy seeds and
coriander steeped in it was inhaled, and in 1842 he states that he
administered his alcoholic mixture to a patient in Philadelphia,
during tooth-drawing, with a painless result. In 1844 an American
chemical lecturer named Coulton exhibited the properties of nitrous
oxide at a lecture given at Hartford, Connecticut, at which Horace
Wells, a dentist practising there, was present. Having a tooth
which he himself wished to get extracted, Wells invited Coulton to
administer nitrous oxide to him. This was successfully done, and
during Wells’ insensibility his tooth was removed by a friend, Dr.
Riggs. Wells on recovering consciousness exclaimed, “A new era in
tooth-pulling!” and at once attempted to introduce the practice at
Hartford and at Boston; but not using the gas in purity, and not
being sufficiently skilful in its administration, his attempts often
failed, and at Boston he was hissed, and gave up his efforts in
despair. Later, when anæsthetics had become firmly established, he
again sought unsuccessfully to introduce nitrous oxide, and at last
put an end to his life. It is sad to think of this fate for a man
who, with a little more education and a little more perseverance,
might have reaped a great harvest of fame.[8]
We cannot go into the controversy as to which American has the
greatest merit in the introduction of sulphuric ether as an
anæsthetic. Suffice it to mention that Charles Jackson, a chemist
of Boston, who had been present at Wells’ demonstration in 1840,
first experimented on himself by inhaling pure sulphuric ether, and
having produced insensibility, communicated his discovery to W. T. G.
Morton, a dentist who had been present at Wells’ demonstration, and
prevailed on him to employ it. Morton afterwards alleged that this
step was taken independently on his part.
On September 30, 1846, Morton administered ether to Eben Frost
for tooth-drawing with complete success, and in October following
it was used in an important operation by Dr. J. C. Warren at the
Massachusetts General Hospital. The news arrived in England before
the end of 1846, and on December 19th, James Robinson, a dentist of
Gower Street, London, was the first to operate under ether in this
country for the removal of a tooth. On December 21 Robert Liston
employed it most successfully at University College Hospital in an
amputation of the thigh and in the removal of a great toe-nail, one
of the most exquisitely painful operations. Its general adoption
followed in the first few months of 1847. Dr. Simpson, as early as
January 9, 1847, after previously inhaling it himself, used it in
order to relieve pain in childbirth, and found that its anæsthetic
effects produced no stoppage or perceptible alteration in the
muscular contractions of the womb. This and other cases of his were
quickly published, and justify his claim to having introduced ether
in its application to midwifery practice.
The inconveniences occasioned by the smell of sulphuric ether, the
considerable doses required to be given, and its tendency to irritate
the bronchial tubes, led Simpson to inquire for and to try other
analogous liquids. He was recommended, among others by Dr. Gregory,
to try chloroform, discovered by Soubeiran in 1831 and Liebig in
1832, and accurately investigated by Dumas in 1835. He concluded
after much labour, and the expenditure of some hundreds of pounds,
that chloroform, without the unpleasant smell of ether, produced
more rapid effects with a smaller dose, and he very soon began to
use it in midwifery and to introduce it to his surgical friends for
operations. It was brought before the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical
Society on the 10th November 1847; and so well-known and favoured did
it become that in a very short time Simpson’s Edinburgh chemists were
manufacturing 7000 doses a day. Here we might almost stop in this
record, but for two things, one the controversies Simpson had as to
the impropriety and irreligiousness of removing pain, supposed to be
one of the Creator’s ordinances which ought not to be mitigated; and
the other, the deaths that began to occur under the administration of
chloroform. As to the first, a specimen of the objectors is furnished
by a clergyman, who wrote “that chloroform was a decoy of Satan,
apparently offering itself to bless woman; but in the end it will
harden society, and rob God of the deep earnest cries which arise
in time of trouble for help.” Even the relief of pain in surgical
operations was held by many to be unwarrantable. But a powerful
counter-argument was found, in the much greater ease and certainty of
success with which surgeons could now perform their operations when
the cries and writhings of the patient were removed. The controversy
that ensued, however, would fill a volume, and Simpson in it proved
himself, as ever, a hard hitter.
For many years scarcely anything but chloroform was used for
producing anæsthesia; but gradually numerous unexpected deaths under
its administration led many to think that it had too depressing an
effect on the action of the heart, in some cases at least, and led
to the trial of other agents, including bichloride of methylene, the
reintroduction of ether, and nitrous oxide. The two latter are very
largely used at present, and so also is a mixture composed of one
part by measure of alcohol to two of chloroform and three of ether,
also known as the A.C.E. mixture, from the first letters of the
three constituents. This is now considered by many to be safer than
chloroform. What will be the judgment of future experience we can
have no pretensions to decide.
We cannot give in detail the subsequent events of Dr. Simpson’s life.
It became more busy and active, more benevolent, and more distinctly
religious as years went on. He refused advantageous offers to settle
in London, and instead patients came from all parts of the world
to consult him in Edinburgh. His hospitality was unbounded. His
daily breakfasts and luncheons have been graphically described by
a well-known poet. “Assembled unceremoniously in a moderate-sized
room, with little in common save the wish to meet their host, you
found a company drawn together from every latitude and longitude,
social and geographical. Of all this motley party there is probably
hardly one who is not notable, and the grades and classes of eminence
run through the whole gamut of social distinction from duchesses,
poets, and earls, down to the author of the last successful book on
cookery, the inventor of the oddest new patent, a Greek courtier, a
Russian gentleman, or a German count. At your elbow the last survivor
of some terrible shipwreck is telling his story to the wife of that
northern ambassador, who is meeting, with the softest Scandinavian
dialect, the strong maritime Danish of the clever State secretary
opposite. Behind you a knot of American physicians, just arrived, are
discussing in a loud voice, a speech in Congress, or agreeing, _sotto
voce_, on the particular professional topic upon which they have come
to consult the great authority. Turn for a moment from this sculptor,
who is waiting to ask the opinion of the many-sided professor on the
sketches which he is now showing to that portrait-painter, and to
learn which of them shall be done in marble for the nobleman whose
attention the doctor has found time to direct to the rising young
artist, and you may catch something of yonder violent discussion
between those arrivals from Australia, who have come from the land of
gold in search of what gold cannot buy.”
But it is by no means only in connection with ether and chloroform
that Simpson introduced a new practice. Besides numberless
suggestions and novel ideas in midwifery, he brought forward (in
1859, after some years of study) a totally new method of closing
arteries after operations and in substitution for ligatures, so often
the cause of inflammation. Long before John Hunter had pointed out
that needles and pins when passed into and embedded in the living
body seldom or never produced any inflammatory action. Simpson was
struck with the idea that slender sharp-pointed needles or pins of
non-oxidisable iron, somewhat like hare-lip needles, might be used to
close together the walls or flaps of wounds, at the same time keeping
the blood-vessels closed. These pins could be withdrawn very early,
and would greatly favour healing at the earliest possible moment. The
new method, called acupressure, of course met with much opposition,
and Simpson was severely censured for meddling in a preserve strictly
limited to the surgeon. But the help of the Aberdeen surgeons, Keith
and Pirrie, was of great service in promoting the fair trial of the
practice. His attack on the prevailing hospital system in 1869 was
one of his later crusades, and he certainly accumulated a great store
of facts showing the unhealthiness of the existing conditions of
aggregation in crowded hospitals. His advocacy of a separate system
in hospital construction, and of limiting the number of patients
close together, of course drew on him further fierce opposition.
We cannot here refer to his strong exposure of the fallacies of
homœopathy, his vigorous actions in connection with the University
of Edinburgh, or the numerous antiquarian papers which his prolific
pen gave forth. Every year had crowded into it three times as much
research as a very industrious man could manage, ten times as much
controversy, and twice as much practice. Honours came thick upon him.
In 1856 he was greatly gratified by the French Academy’s award of the
Monthyon Prize of 2000 francs for “most important benefits done to
humanity.” At the beginning of 1866 he was created a baronet. In 1869
the freedom of Edinburgh was presented to him.
Heavy affliction came now and again to embitter his life. Several
children were taken from him in the prime of their life, including
his eldest son, who showed great promise of a brilliant medical
future, but was cut off within a fortnight after his father was
made a baronet. In later life he became an ardent church worker,
having joined the Free Church of Scotland when the Disruption
took place. 1870 found the vital machine much out of order. Heart
pain—_angina pectoris_—so often the scourge of medical men, came more
frequently with its terrible strain. But he never relaxed his work
in the intervals, until absolutely compelled. In one of his later
conversations he said, “How old am I? Fifty-nine. Well, I have done
some work. _I wish I had been busier._” One of his expressions showed
his distaste for theology. “I like the plain simple Gospel truth,
and don’t care to go into questions beyond that.” During almost his
last night he was inexpressibly comforted by having with him his
brother Alexander, who had watched over him with such tenderness
from childhood. He sat on the pillow with Sir James’s head on his
knee, and the sufferer again and again slowly uttered the words, “Oh,
Sandy, Sandy!” He died on May 6, 1870. He would have been buried
in Westminster Abbey but for his own express wish to be buried in
Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh. His funeral was such as Edinburgh
had, it is said, never witnessed before, business being generally
suspended. His widow survived him but a few weeks, dying on the 17th
June following. His eldest surviving son, Walter Grindlay, succeeded
him in the baronetcy.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Memoir of Sir James Y. Simpson, by J. Duns. Edinburgh, 1873.
[6] _Scotsman_, May 9, 1870.
[7] Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning
Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration. By Humphry Davy. London, 1800.
[8] _Lancet_, 1870, History of Anæsthetic Discovery.