THE ROMANCE OF MEDICINE. 429 



such petty considerations. As a matter of fact, no physician ever at- 

 tracted such a number of visitors ; the invalids came in shoals. Simp- 

 son once, told his pupils that many of his best papers were written by 

 the bedsides of his patients. His great principle, when he met with 

 any apparently hopeless case, was to interrogate what Nature did in 

 the rare instances in which she effected cures. Simpson's great dis- 

 coveries may be here enumerated ; they form the most thrilling page 

 of modern medical history. His first great achievement was that he 

 procured chloroform undiluted, and discovered the effects of the vapor. 

 This great discovery alone would suffice to associate his name with 

 that of Harvey. That night of the 2Sth of November, 1847, is much 

 to be remembered, when this great discovery was made. He then 

 demonstrated the possibility of banishing pain and subjecting it to 

 human control. There are noAV a great many manufactories of chloro- 

 form in Edinburgh alone one that makes several million doses a year. 

 His great surgical invention is acupressure stopping blood from cut 

 arteries by the use of metallic needles. His third great achievement 

 was his contributions to that great work in which Dr. William Budd 

 has preeminently labored. This is to endeavor to stamp out contagious 

 diseases as completely as the poleaxe could exterminate the rinderpest. 

 His last great work was in the direction of hospital reform. How was 

 it, he asked, that, in the hospital, the mortality in cases of amputation 

 was one in 30, and elsewhere one in 180? Hospitalism has its special 

 evils, that are fatal in these palaces of human suffering. Sir James 

 Simpson's final suggestion goes to the root of the matter that all stair- 

 cases, etc., should be outside the building, and that no one ward should 

 ever have even the slightest chink of communication with another. 



This last reform of Sir James Simpson's is especially important. It 

 is not too much to say that all the great triumphs of surgery, such as 

 those in lithotrity and ovariotomy, have been practically neutralized 

 by foul hospital air, to which is due one-half of the deaths in our great 

 metropolitan hospitals. In surgical wards there is a condensation of 

 foul air, and, in addition, the specific poisonous effluvia given off by 

 foul air. Mr. Spencer Wells is famous for that wonderful operation 

 by which the lingering agony of years is prevented by the knife being 

 used under anaesthetics. He generally uses the new anaesthetic methy- 

 lene, which, in many cases, is preferable to chloroform. He found that 

 there was a large mortality in hospitals, which was reduced to one- 

 eighth in private practice. St. George's Hospital has now a small 

 institution for ovai-iotomy at Wimbledon, an example which may be 

 extensively followed. It is to be hoped that in the magnificent sea-side 

 institutions that are so much increasing among: us there will be a con- 

 spicuous adherence to the principle of the cottage hospital. The Na- 

 tional Hospital at Ventnor is constructed on the cottage principle, and 

 we have before had occasion in these pages to testify to its wonderfid 

 efficiency. 



