Simpson
Subtitle: the turbulent life of a medical pioneer
By: Morrice McCrae
Publisher: John Donald
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Edinburgh [Scotland]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
ISBN-13: 9781906566173
Subjects: Medicine; Obstetricians; Biography; History
Description: "This is the story of one of the great events in the history of medicine. In 1847, challenging the firmly held convictions of the medical profession of the time, James Young Simpson demonstrated for the first time that a woman could be safely relieved of the pains of difficult and traumatic labour by the administration of a general anaesthetic. He later added to his fame when he introduced a new and better anaesthetic, chloroform, which soon became the most popular general anaesthetic for use in general surgery as well as midwifery. Its use was endorsed by Queen Victoria when she asked for it to be administered during the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853. The book also gives a history of a time of rapid change in Scottish society that allowed the seventh son of a village baker in a rural apart of Scotland to go to university and then become a successful physician, a medical professor at one of the leading university medical schools in the world and Physician to the Queen, all before he had reached the age of forty."--Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The ambition to rise; title: A sense of exclusion; title: Revival; title: Professor to midwifery; title: Physician to the Queen; title: Experimental medicine: galvanism and gynaecology; title: Library medicine: evolution of disease; title: Library medicine: on cholera; title: Ether; title: Chloroform; title: Fortune, family and fame; title: Homoeopathy, mesmerism and blackmail; title: Influence and power; title: Private practice, archaeology and Semmelweis; title: Acupressure and hospitalism; title: Triumph and decline; title: Epilogue.