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The face of Bathgate bairn Dr James Young Simpson is painted on the “pioneering spirit” First buses. What is not painted there is a patient strapped into a chair screaming while the surgeon cut, because Simpson put an end to that with his discovery of an effective anaesthetic. The full story is extraordinary and features a Linlithgow-born chemist who was pivotal to Simpson’s success.
Before anaesthetic, the quicker a surgeon (“a savage armed with a knife”) worked the better the patient's chance survival. One doctor wrote to Simpson “a patient preparing for an operation was like a condemned criminal preparing for execution.” Many died from the shock of pain, and exploratory surgery was out of the question. Patients' desperate attempts to anaesthetise themselves with drugs and alcohol was fraught with danger. Surgeons were often traumatised themselves, and like many aspiring doctors James Simpson almost abandoned medicine altogether after witnessing his first operation. But he was so deeply affected by the suffering he saw that his driving motivation became “Can nothing be done to prevent this suffering?”
James was the youngest child of Mary Jarvey of Balbardie Mains, descended from refugees who fled to Scotland during the French Huguenot persecution; and of David Simpson, who ran a struggling bakery in Main Street, Bathgate.
A few days after baby James was born on 7th June 1811, Mary found out how bad things were in the business and took it in hand. She must have been a remarkable woman - having just given birth to her eighth child, she took on the failing business and turned it into a success, so James' early days were spent helping out with the bakery. A sweet-natured child, he was fondly called “the bonnie callant” at Balbardie House where he delivered hot breakfast rolls.
Bathgate was a weaving village, and James used to hang around a group of weavers who were experts in natural sciences and absorb their conversations about geological finds and biological specimens. He had a thirst for knowledge and an extraordinary memory. His grand uncle Jarvey (who ran a brewery in Bathgate) was a keen historian and also shared his knowledge and interests with young James. (Jarvey Street is named after him).
James' mother, who had a huge impact on his formative years, died when he was just nine. Simpson's daughter writes in her biography, “His mother gave him freely of the treasures of her mind, and her earnestness, her contentment, her firm God-fearing faith, ever lived in his memory.” Mary's dream was for her youngest to get a university education – an ambition that her husband and all their older children shared, realising that he had the best prospects of all his siblings. His eldest brother Sandy once warned him against the temptation to drink like most boys in Bathgate which was a village of hard-drinkers, “Others may do this, Jamie, but it would break all our hearts and blast all your prospects were you to do it.”
Bathgate parish school education concluded at the age of 14. Whereas most left for work or an apprenticeship locally, it was a foregone conclusion that James would go to university. He described later in life his bewilderment at finding himself in Edinburgh “very, very young and very solitary, very poor and almost friendless.” He lived frugally so as not to be too great a burden on his family, sharing lodgings with two Bathgate men, John Reid and Mr McArthur, both older than him, who were studying medicine. Sometimes as a treat John Reid would take him to one of Dr Knox's (of Burke and Hare fame) lectures in the evening.
He spent all his holidays back home in Bathgate helping out with the business. And despite the stress of nursing then losing his beloved father just before his final exams, James passed and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons before he was out of his teens.
Too young to become a medical doctor immediately, he lodged with his brother in Stockbridge and took a couple of jobs including assistant to a Professor Thomson, who was the first person to suggest the field of obstetrics to him. It was at that time the lowest of medical arts, still somewhat shrouded in mystery, but James took it up with his customary thoroughness and obstetrics went on to became his professional speciality. Finally, before settling down to open his own medical practice, his brothers funded him for a three-month tour of Europe. He sent regular letters home to Bathgate recounting and commenting on all he saw.
He opened his first practice in Edinburgh, living frugally, conscious as always of the burden he placed on his family in Bathgate. His sister Mary sent him boots, as he said “Bathgate ones last the longest”, walking many miles to see patients day and night. When he wasn't seeing patients his insatiably curious mind was reading, learning, and writing papers on medical and other topics. His early patients were too poor to pay him, but in time, better-heeled, paying patients were attracted by his growing reputation. He never discriminated – he treated the paying and non-paying patients alike.
His career flourished as his reputation grew, and he became a popular lecturer in archaeology, religion, medicine, geology and more. A Professor at the shockingly young age of 29, he was appointed to the Midwifery Chair at Edinburgh University (first getting married, apparently an essential requirement!) Papers from his prolific output include a history of leprosy in Scotland; ideas on hospital reform; an improved design of forceps – still called the Simpson Forceps today – and other things. With nobility and aristocracy among his patients he often travelled to London, but preferred being near his beloved family in Bathgate, taking refuge there from his hectic professional life.
But he believed it was his duty as a physician to alleviate pain. In pursuit of this he was to meet many people but perhaps the most important was David Waldie, born in 1813 in the building that is now the Four Marys, 67 High Street, Linlithgow. David attended the local grammar school then graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1831. He returned to Linlithgow and ran a surgery and apothecary at 67 High Street. In 1839 or 1840 he moved to Liverpool to work for the Liverpool Apothecaries Company.
On hearing about ether trials in America Simpson enthusiastically adopted it, delivering the first baby with ether for the mother in January 1847. At the same time he was appointed Queen Victoria's physician.
However ether was not a viable solution for various reasons. David Waldie, who had also been experimenting with anaesthetics in Liverpool, had worked out why it was problematic and had perfected a way of separating pure chloroform from chloric ether. Meanwhile in Edinburgh, Simpson and two friends were sampling various narcotic drugs most evenings to see what worked. A neighbour came in every morning to “see if the experimenters had survived!”
In October 1847, on a trip back to Scotland, Waldie visited his old acquaintance Simpson who spoke of his trials with various vapours. He told Simpson in detail about chloroform and suggested it would work well, promising to prepare some and send it up when he returned to his laboratory.
Waldie was delayed in sending the sample, but Simpson didn’t wait; he’d learnt enough to be able to get some pure chloroform prepared locally.
On 4th November 1847 they were trying various drugs at Queen Street in the usual manner. Simpson pulled out a phial of chloroform he had ordered some time previously but not been inclined to try. The three took it simultaneously, and were “all under the table in a minute or two.” Simpson's wife and three other family members who were in the room at the time were pretty used to these experiments, but were alarmed by this – the speed they passed out and how thoroughly unconscious they were.
When Simpson came to on the floor he noted that Dr Keith was under the table, kicking confusedly as he came to; and Dr Duncan was still out to it. He realised straightaway that he had found something “far stronger and better than ether.” The night turned into quite a party as they took chloroform to knock themselves again and again until 3am! Simpson wrote to Waldie informing him of the “good results of our hasty conversation.”
Many people welcomed the discovery, but it was also met with opposition and prejudice. While abhorring the pain of surgery, people were suspicious of pain relief, believing that to avoid pain was in some way unnatural and wrong. And pain-relief for childbirth was definitely contrary to the God-ordained course of nature! But chloroform gradually won over. Friends in high places helped - Queen Victoria used it for delivery of her eighth child in 1853, and again for her ninth.
It revolutionised the operating theatre where it reigned for nearly 100 years. By the time it was eventually replaced by safer anaesthetics, massive advances had been made in surgery as a result and many lives saved.
Waldie’s family and friends felt he should have been better acknowledged. Waldie himself, although a modest personality, gently expressed his disappointment. A brief footnote in Simpson’s account of the discovery stated, “Waldie had mentioned the perchloride of formyle (chloroform) among others as worthy of a trial.” Waldie’s point was, “I had not merely mentioned it, but distinctly recommended him to try it.” Waldie’s career took him to Calcutta in 1853 (his diary of the Overland route is a unique record of daily life on ship and visits on shore at that time). He ended up setting up his own factory and was a successful analytical and manufacturing chemist in India until his death in1889. His company is still going there (www.waldies.com)
Simpson never forgot his Bathgate roots, or how much he owed to the help of his loving family. He instigated a prize for the best darner in Bathgate school – in memory of his mother who had once taken him on her lap to darn a torn sock, and said to him “My Jamie, mind when your mither's awa' that she was a grand darner.”
Bathgate's public library is called the “Simpson Library.” With his ceaseless reading and love of learning, I think James would approve.
Chloroform - not a good choice for criminals...
The chloroform-soaked rag is the weapon of choice of vintage crime fiction anti-heroes. But in reality.. it takes around five minutes of inhalation before it knocks you out. Do not try this at home! Chloroform is dangerous. Its use was eventually discontinued when it was proven to cause respiratory and cardiac failure.
The commemorative plaque above the entrance to the Four Marys was arranged for the centenary of Waldie’s birth (1913) by the Spence family, local chemists, who owned 67 High Street after the Waldies.
A memorial cup was arranged by Waldie’s friends in 1922, and is carried each year at the Linlithgow Marches.
Annett House Museum in Linithgow has a display on Waldie’s life, “From chloroform to Calcutta” See annethousemuseum.org.uk
First published in Konect February 2016
Author: Helen-Jane Shearer
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