The physician James Young Simpson was born on 7 June 1811 in Bathgate, West Lothian. He was educated locally and then at Edinburgh University, entering in 1825. In 1827 he began the study of medicine and graduated M.D. in 1832. By 1835 he was Senior President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh and by 1839 he was appointed to the Chair of Midwifery. Simpson first worked with sulphuric ether as a form of anaesthetic in obstetric practice, but then in 1847 he and his assistants came to understand the efficacy of chloroform. A public trial was held at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary in November 1847. The same year he was appointed one of Her Majesty's Physician in Scotland and he became a foreign Associate of the Academy of Medicine, Paris. Apart from his contribution to anaesthesia, Simpson laid the foundation of gynaecology and contributed to obstetrics. In 1866 he was given a Baronetcy, the first to be received by a doctor practicing in Scotland. Professor Sir James Young Simpson died on 6 May 1870. His family declined a grave in Westminster Abbey - though there is a bust of him there - and he was buried at Edinburgh's Warriston Cemetery.
From the guide to the Lectures of, and other material relating to Professor Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870), 1840-1868, (Edinburgh University Library)
