142 HEROES OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. 



tives in the large woollen factories in the town. They seemed 

 all specially and strikingly exempt from consumption and 

 scrofulous diseases. This led him to recommend " oil-anoint- 

 ing" in all cases of weakness and threatened consumption. 

 On ist March, 1853, he received the high honour of being elected 

 a Foreign Associate of the Academy of Medicine, Paris. 



Amusement was not altogether forgotten. At a series of 

 tableaux vivants held in his house at Queen Street, the fifth in 

 order represented the " Babes in the Wood," and was greeted 

 with roars of laughter and applause. Dr. Simpson and his 

 colleague. Dr. L. P., were 'the Babes.' They entered sucking 

 oranges, and dressed as children — short dresses, pinafores, 

 frilled drawers, white socks, and children's house-shoes. After 

 wandering about a while, they began to weep, then lay down 

 and died, to the great delight of the juveniles." 



Acupressure, a new blood-stopping process, discovered by 

 him, and founded on the temporary metallic compression 01 

 arteries, was first described to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 19th December, 1859. Its use speedily spread, and its applica- 

 tion became very general and successful. The instruments he 

 proposed to use were very sharp-pointed, slender needles or 

 pins of passive or non-oxidisable iron, headed with wax or 

 glass, and passed freely through the walls and flaps of wounds. 

 These needles would cause little disturbance or irritation in the 

 wounded part. Towards the end of 1861, he had begun, like 

 ]3r. Chalmers when writing his article on " Christianity," to 

 question himself as to the faith that was in him. The result 

 was a change of thought and feeling, and it became apparent 

 that religion was a greater power in his life. At the end of 

 this year, he entered a sick-room saying, *' My first happy 

 Christmas; my only happy one." The death of one of his 



