made governor of the whole of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories. In 1836, when the company was about to apply to parliament for a renewal of their charter, they began for the first time to fulfil its obligations, and the directors instructed Mr. Simpson to fit out an expedition to connect the discoveries of Captains Ross and Back. The requisite preparations were made by the governor, and his nephew, the late Thomas Simpson, headed the expedition, which, amid great difficulties traced the arctic coast of America from the mouth of the Mackenzie river to Point Barrow, and from the mouth of the Coppermine river to the Gulf of Boothia. Simpson was knighted in 1841.—J. T.
* SIMPSON, Sir James, General, G.C.B., a distinguished British officer, was born in Roxburghshire, Scotland, in 1792. He entered the army in 1811, took part in the Peninsular war in 1812-13, fought in the campaign in the Netherlands in 1815, and was severely wounded at Quatre Bras. He afterwards served on the staff in Ireland, and held an important command in the Mauritius, where his activity and assiduity in the discharge of his duties gained him a high reputation as a regimental officer. In 1845 Colonel Simpson acted as second in command in India under Sir Charles Napier, who held him in high esteem. When the war broke out between Russia and France and England, Lieutenant-general Simpson was sent out to the Crimea as chief of the staff, and on the death of Lord Raglan was induced very reluctantly to become his successor. But he had to contend with almost insuperable difficulties; his health, too, was infirm, and grew still worse by his unwearied zeal and anxiety; and shortly after the failure of the attack on the Redan on the 8th of September, 1855, he resigned his command to Sir William Codrington. He was promoted to the rank of general, and decorated with the grand cross of the order of the bath. He has since received the Turkish order of the medjidie, the grand cross of the military order of Savoy, and the grand cross of the legion of honour. Sir James is colonel of the 87th regiment of foot.—J. T.
SIMPSON, James Young, M.D., F.R.S.E., the discoverer of the anæsthetic properties of chloroform, and the distinguished professor of obstetric medicine in the university of Edinburgh, was born at Bathgate, Linlithgowshire, in 1811. He graduated in medicine at the university of Edinburgh in 1832, and after his graduation became assistant to Professor J. Thompson, who at that time held the chair of general pathology. In 1840 he succeeded Professor Hamilton in the chair of midwifery in the university, which he has ever since occupied. In 1849 he was elected president of the Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians, and in 1852 president of the Medico-Chirurgical Society. In the following year he was chosen foreign associate of the French Academy of Medicine. Dr. Simpson's discovery of chloroform as an anæsthetic agent, and his introduction of anæsthesia in the practice of midwifery, mark an era in surgical and obstetric practice. Morton, an American dentist, had previously discovered that patients could be rendered insensible to the pain of surgical operations by the inhalation of the vapour of sulphuric ether, and his discovery had been applied in numerous cases of surgical operation both in America and Europe. But Professor Simpson was the first who ventured to use the new anæsthetic agent to remove the pangs of childbirth. On the 19th of January, 1847, his first patient was delivered under the influence of ether. But before the expiration of the same year Dr. Simpson had discovered that the vapour of another volatile substance was more certain and efficacious as an anæsthetic. He found that the action of the new fluid chloroform was more rapid, perfect, and persistent than that of ether, that a less quantity of the agent was required to produce the effect, and that its odour was evanescent, whilst that of ether was persistent. After numerous experiments with chloroform on himself, he ventured to use it in practice. Its introduction dates from the 8th November, 1847. From that time to the present it has been used in nearly every hospital at home and abroad. Its value has been tested in the enormous surgical practice which the great wars of the last decade have afforded; and it has likewise proved an invaluable boon in the lying-in chamber. The introduction of anæsthesia in midwifery brought Dr. Simpson into controversy with certain religionists on the question of the propriety of abrogating the original curse. It need scarcely be said that he gave a triumphant refutation to their objections. His answer will be found in the second volume of his collected works. The French Academy of Sciences in 1856 awarded to Dr. Simpson the Montyon prize of two thousand francs for the benefits which he had conferred on humanity by the introduction of anæsthesia by chloroform into the practice of surgery and midwifery. He also received from King Oscar of Sweden the knighthood of the royal order of St. Olaf. On the representations of Dr. Simpson, her majesty Queen Victoria availed herself of the benefits of chloroform on the occasion of the birth of her two last children. From the queen he received the appointment of physician accoucheur to her majesty in Scotland. Dr. Simpson's memoirs and contributions to obstetric science have been collected and published in two volumes, under the editorship of Dr. W. O. Priestley and Dr. Horatio R. Storer. It will be sufficient here to notice with regard to this collection that, amongst other most original and valuable papers it contains those—"On turning as a substitute for Craniotomy and Long Forceps;" "On the separation of the Placenta before the Birth of the Child in Placenta Prævia;" "On the Sex of the Child as a cause of difficulty in Parturition;" and "On the use of the Intra-uterine Sound and Pessaries." Besides his obstetrical writings. Dr. Simpson has distinguished himself as a medical antiquary, and in other branches of medical science. The following is a list of some of his writings, which do not immediately refer to obstetric medicine—"The Contagiousness of Cholera," Edin. Medical and Surgical Journal., April, 1838; " Antiquarian Notices of Leprosy and Leper Hospitals in Scotland and England," read before the Med. Chir. Soc, March, 1841; graduation address "On the Conduct and Duties of Young Physicians," 1842; "Description of the Bones of the Distorted Foot of a Chinese Woman," read before the Med. Chir. Soc., June, 1845; "Solutions of Gun Cotton, Gutta Percha, and Caoutchouc as Dressings for Wounds," read before the Med. Chir. Soc, May, 1848; "Ancient Roman Medicine Stamps," Edin. Monthly Jour. of Med. Science, 1851; "Repudiation of Mesmerism," Ib. and Lancet, 1851; "Was the Roman Army provided with Medical Officers?" Edin., 1851; "Notes on some Ancient Greek Medical Vases for containing 'Lykion;'" and "On the modern use of the same drug in India," Edin. Month. Jour. Med. Science, Jan., 1853; "Inaugural Address on the Modern Advancement of Medicine and Surgery," read before the Edin. Med. Chir. Soc, 1853: "Homoeopathy its Tenets and Tendencies," Edin., 1853; "On the use of Metallic Sutures and Metallic Ligatures in Surgery," Medical Times and Gazette, June 5, 1858. In the same journal he has also published a series of clinical lectures on the diseases of women.—F. C. W.
SIMPSON, Thomas, an English mathematician, was born at Market-Bosworth in Leicestershire on the 20th of August, 1710, and died there on the 14th of May, 1761. His father was a cloth manufacturer, and he was brought up to the same trade, but he was induced to abandon that business and his father's house by his love for scientific study. After maintaining himself for a short time as a fortune-teller, he married his landlady, a tailor's widow somewhat stricken in years, and established himself at Derby as a teacher of mathematics. Having removed to London, his abilities in the same capacity soon gained him a high reputation, which was augmented by a series of treatises that he published on various branches of mathematics, and especially on the method of fluxions, then almost new to the scientific world. In 1743 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Military academy of Woolwich, and in 1745 a fellow of the Royal Society.—W. J. M. R.
* SIMROCK, Karl, a distinguished German poet and litterateur, was born at Bonn, 28th August, 1802. He studied the law at Bonn and Berlin, and was just preparing for the bench, when a poem which he had written in honour of the revolution of 1830, gave so much displeasure to the government that he was declared incapable of holding office in Prussia. He therefore concentrated his energy in a literary career, and it was only in 1850, that in recognition of his literary merits he was appointed professor of the German language and literature at Bonn. Simrock's labours have chiefly been placed in translating and elucidating the immortal productions of old and middle German poetry, as the Lay of the Nibelungen, the Heldenbuch, Gudrun, the songs of Walther von der Vogelweide, the Parcival and Titurel by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Arme Heinrich by Hartmann von Aue and others. These translations unite an admirable fluency to great accuracy, and prove that Simrock combines in his person both the philologist and poet. Among his original poems "Wieland the Smith," 1835, takes the highest rank.
