page_title: James Young Simpson
section_title: Death and memorials
hierarchical_section_title: James Young Simpson / Death and memorials
caption_attribution_description: English: A sentiment that must have echoed in the minds of thousands of Victorian women who were finally spared the worst pains and terrors of childbirth.
context_page_description: Sir James Young Simpson, 1st Baronet, FRCPE was a Scottish obstetrician and a significant figure in the history of medicine. He was the first physician to demonstrate the anaesthetic properties of chloroform on humans and helped to popularise its use in medicine.
  Simpson's intellectual interests ranged from archaeology to an almost taboo subject at the time: hermaphroditism. He was an early advocate of the use of midwives in the hospital environment. Many prominent women also consulted him for their gynaecological problems. Simpson wrote Homœopathy, its Tenets and Tendencies refuting the ideas put forward by Hahnemann.
  Simpson was a close friend of Sir David Brewster, and was present at his deathbed. His contribution to the understanding of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform had a major impact on surgery.
context_section_description: Simpson was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1850 and created a Baronet of Strathavon in the County of Linlithgow, and of the City of Edinburgh, in 1866. He died at his home in Edinburgh in May 1870 at the age of 58. A burial spot in Westminster Abbey was offered to his family, but they declined and instead buried him closer to home in Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh. However, a memorial bust can be found in a niche at Westminster Abbey in London. On the day of Simpson's funeral, a Scottish holiday was declared, including the banks and stock markets, with over 100,000 citizens lining the funeral cortege on its way to the cemetery, while over 1,700 colleagues and business leaders took part in the procession itself.
  Dr Alexander Russell Simpson, his nephew, inherited his town house at 52 Queen Street and lived there until his death in 1916, when it was then bequeathed to the Church of Scotland. Since then the building has been through many uses including being requisitioned by the army during the Second World War and being used as a centre for training Sunday School teachers in the 1950s. Today, the town house is the premises of a charity called Simpson House, which provides a counselling service for adults and children affected by alcohol and drug use. There is a plaque on the wall outside to mark the house as having been the home of James Young Simpson from 1845 to 1870.
  In 1879 the Edinburgh Royal Maternity and Simpson Memorial Hospital and in 1939 the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion were named in his honour, as is the current Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
  The Quartermile development, which consists of the Old Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, named its main residential street Simpson Loan in his honour.
caption: Memorial plaque in St. Giles, Edinburgh
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