268 Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
he started next morning with two friends for Devizes, from 
whence he went on to Avebury to see “ the standing stones,” not 
getting back till midnight. On the following morning at five 
o’clock, he started for Stonehenge, and the same afternoon went 
to Bath to visit the Boman remains in that neighbourhood. On 
getting back at midnight, he found a telegram summoning him to 
a patient in Northumberland. He lay down for a few hours to 
sleep, and then went by the 4 a.m. train to London, and caught the 
Scotch “ Express,” which took him to Northumberland, from 
which place he went on to Edinburgh to resume his usual pro- 
fessional work. 
What constitution could stand such incessant wear and tear ? 
A severe attack of rheumatism followed the fatiguing journeys 
I have been describing, and this complaint continued frequently 
to torture him during the last two years of his life. Eventually 
the action of the heart became impaired, and angina pectoris super- 
vened, — causing occasionally intense agony. 
The fatigue and cold endured last February, in journeys made 
to London on the occasion of Lady Mordaunt’s trial, brought 
on the illness which proved fatal. For two months he was con- 
fined to the house, and chiefly to bed, though even then he was 
able to write a letter on the subject of chloroform for publication 
in an American Medical Journal, the object of which was to 
refute some one who, in the previous number, had been endeavour- 
ing to dispute that he was the first to apply chloroform to anaes- 
thetic purposes. 
■ My sketch of Simpson’s life, imperfect as it is, would be still 
more so, were I to omit notice of the distinctions which were 
showered upon him from almost every quarter of the globe. I 
cannot recount all the Academies, Universities, and Societies which 
bestowed their honours upon him. There was not one nation in 
Europe from which these honours did not come, and America joined 
in the general acclaim. Simpson was created a baronet of the 
United Kingdom. He received the knighthood of the Swedish 
Koyal Order of St Olaf. He was made a laureate of the Imperial 
Institute of France ; and the French Academy of Science bestowed 
on him what is called the “ Mon thy on Prize ” of 2000 francs, given 
for any great discovery beneficial to humanity. 
