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Sir James Young Simpson and Chloroform (1811-1870). H. Laing Gordon
reached one of its highest points during the years that Simpson was a student, it is remarkable that with one, or perhaps two, exceptions, the University professors were men of no marked eminence in their various subjects. On the other hand, the extra-mural teachers included men of such wide reputation as Knox, Lizars, and Liston. Syme, who reached the height of his fame as a surgeon about the same time that Simpson became renowned, had just resigned the teaching of anatomy to take up 27 surgery; shut out at first from the wards of the Royal Infirmary by jealous colleagues, he was boldly establishing for himself the little Minto House Hospital, which became the successful nursery of his own unsurpassed system of clinical teaching, and remains in the recollection to this day as the principal scene of Dr. John Brown’s pathetic story, “Rab and his Friends.” It was chiefly these extra-academical teachers who at that time made the medical school famous, and were raising for it a reputation in surgery such as it had acquired in physic in the days of Cullen. In certain subjects the students would, according to the regulations for the degree, take out their tickets of attendance on the professor’s course of lectures, but would put in only a sufficient number of appearances to entitle them to the necessary certificates; the real study of the subject being made under the more accomplished teacher outside the University walls.
Edinburgh was at this period much more than the scene of the foremost medical and surgical teaching of the day in the world. It was a striking centre of intellectual activity. Sir Walter Scott, Cockburn, and Jeffrey were famous in literature and politics; Chalmers and Moncrieff in Church affairs; and Aytoun, John Wilson, Sir William Hamilton, and Sir David Brewster were names that attracted men from far and wide to the modern Athens. English and foreign advocates, scholars, artists, squires, and noblemen mingled together to hear or see some of 28 these men. Lord John Russell, Henry Temple—subsequently Lord Palmerston—and Lord Melbourne were amongst the young Englishmen who attended university classes for a session or two; and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and his brother the Duke of Edinburgh, each matriculated in later days. When Simpson began his studies Knox was the great lion, without a visit to whose class-room no sojourn in Edinburgh was complete; just as in later years Simpson’s house in Queen Street was the resort of all sorts and conditions of distinguished people.
The University had little control over her students once they were outside the gates of the quadrangle. There were no residential colleges; each youth found lodgings for himself suitable to his means, and led a perfectly independent life. So long as he conducted himself with propriety within her walls his Alma Mater cared little how he conducted himself or how he fared outside. Before 1858, when the Town Council controlled University affairs, there were sometimes attempts to order the comings and goings of students. It is recorded that in 1635 the Town Council discovered that the scholars of the College were much withdrawn from their studies by “invitations to burials,” which “prejudiced their advancement in learning,” and they enacted that no student was to be permitted to attend burials except those of University or city worthies. This was at a time when some of the students were provided with residences 29 inside the University, but by the beginning of the eighteenth century College residence had ceased. From time to time attempts have been made to render the students conspicuous in the city by the wearing of red gowns, but without success; and those of all faculties continue to be their own masters, in marked contrast to the mode of government in force at Oxford and Cambridge. Recently, in the eighties, a batch of students who had figured in the police-court after a riot in the gallery of a theatre were surprised to find themselves summoned before the Senatus Academicus and rusticated for varying periods; this, however, was but a spasmodic exercise of power. The chief advantage claimed for this custom of leaving the student to his own devices is that it encourages independence and develops each man’s individuality better than a system of discipline and control. In men of Simpson’s calibre it certainly has had a good effect.
Although the family in Bathgate strained every nerve to keep James well supplied with the necessary funds as a student, they were not able to place him in such a pecuniary position as to make it unnecessary for him to exercise economy: He appears to have been very careful indeed of the money which he had; much more careful than when he reckoned his income by thousands. He kept methodical accounts of his expenses down to the most trivial items, and regularly submitted them to his family. His cash-book opened with the following quotation 30 from a small book called the “Economy of Life,” which figures at a cost of ninepence:—“Let not thy recreations be expensive lest the pain of purchasing them exceed the pleasure thou hast in their enjoyment”; and to this he added:—
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