Surgery: Individuals

James Young Simpson (1811-1870) In the early 19th century patients dreaded surgical operations. Anaesthetic was not discovered until 1842, so patients had to endure excruciating pain. In an amputation, the patient would be held down while the surgeon cut through all the soft tissue and bone. The horror of pain forced surgeons to work quickly, often leading to mistakes and a low survival rate. The first successful steps in the conquest of pain were taken by James Simpson. Simpson and his assistants having Who was James Simpson? inhaled chloroform Simpson was the youngest son of a Scottish village baker. He trained as a doctor and became Professor of Midwifery at Edinburgh University. Simpson wanted to cut down the suffering of his patients in childbirth. He often used ether, but disliked it because of its strong smell which made his patients cough.

How did he become well known? In 1847, Simpson and two assistants experimented with a new anaesthetic, chloroform, which had none of the side effects of ether. Within a month he had used it successfully on over 50 patients.

Was there any opposition to Simpson's ideas? Unfortunately, the use of chloroform was not without risks. Some doctors did not know how to use it properly and in 1848, Hannah Green, aged 15, died from an overdose of chloroform. There was opposition from those who saw chloroform as unnatural and members of the Calvinist Church of Scotland claimed its use was forbidden in the bible.

Why was chloroform accepted? In 1853 Queen Victoria was successfully anaesthetised during the birth of her eight child. This turned the tide and from then on chloroform became widely accepted. However, its effects sometimes meant that surgeons spent too long on operations and patients could still die from blood loss and infection.

What was Simpson's legacy to medicine? Although his name is always mentioned in books as the developer of anaesthetics, chloroform was only used until around 1900 when it was discovered that it could damage the liver. From then on surgeons returned to using ether. Today, surgeons use a complex mix of drugs administered by a qualified anaesthetist. Simpson's use of chloroform helped to gain popular support for the use of anaesthetics.