Alexander Russell Simpson was born in Bathgate, West Lothian on 30 April 1835. He was the nephew of Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870). He was educated at Bathgate Academy and he studied at Edinburgh University. Simpson was apprenticed to Professor John Goodsir and while he was still a student he was elected as one of the Presidents of the Royal Medical Society. He also studied at the University of Montpelier and in Berlin. Simpson was an Assistant to his uncle for seven years and he spent five years in private practice in Glasgow. Between 1870 and 1905 he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Edinburgh University and Emeritus Professor of Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children. He edited the Lectures on diseases of women by Sir James Young Simpson, and published Contributions to obstetrics and gynaecology and with Dr. Berry Hart the Atlas of the frozen section of a cadaver in the genu-pectoral position . Sir Alexander Russell Simpson died on 6 April 1916.
From the guide to the Notes by Attendees at the Lectures of Sir Alexander Russell Simpson (1835-1916), sometimes supplemented with Notes from Tutorials and Lessons given by others, 1873-1898, (Edinburgh University Library)
