SIR JAMES V. SIMPSON. 125 



;;^5o a-year. This sum he made to suffice for all his wants. 

 " Professor Thomson," he wrote, " engaged me as his assistant, 

 and hence, in brief, I came to settle down a citizen of Edin- 

 burgh, and fight amongst you a hard and uphill battle of life 

 for bread, and name, and fame." Between the years 1831-36, 

 at Dr. Thomson's request, he turned his attention to the study 

 of obstetric medicine. Already he had shown marked powers 

 of concentration of mind, and in commendation of work and 

 diligence he once said : " Sir Isaac Newton, whose gigantic 

 genius and intellectual strength have fixed upon him the admira- 

 tion of his race, modestly averred that his mental superiority, 

 if any, consisted, in his own opinion, only of unusual powers of 

 patient thought and industry. The unparalleled greatness in 

 the results of his thoughts was owing, according to his own 

 interpretation, merely to his habit of unparalleled endurance 

 and assiduity in the exercise of thinking." When he was 

 cautioned by his sister Mary in 1834 for working too hard, he 

 said: "Well, I'm sure, it's just to please you all." In 1833 

 he became a member of the Royal Medical Society of Edin- 

 burgh, and in 1835, in company with Dr. Douglas Maclagan, 

 and by the ever-ready Hberality of his brothers, Alexander and 

 John, he was enabled to visit the chief schools of medicine, 

 and the hospitals of England and France. In session 1835-36 

 he was elected senior president of the Royal Medical Society. 

 His appearance, when presiding at one of the meetings of the 

 society, has been thus described : — " As we entered the room 

 his head was bent down, to enable him, in his elevated position 

 to converse with some one on the floor of the apartment, and 

 little was seen but a mass of long, tangled hair, partially con- 

 cealing what appeared to be a head of very large size. He 

 raised his head, and his countenance at once impressed us. 



