of Edinburgh, Session 1870 - 71 . 
253 
and it has in this country almost superseded every other anaesthetic, 
both for aiding parturition and for numberless surgical operations. 
In these operations, especially, it has been of incalculable service, 
not only by relieving from suffering, but by saving life. I observe 
a statement by an American army physician made lately at a public 
meeting in Washington that —* 
“ In the Crimea and Italian campaigns, chloroform was employed without 
a single disaster. A similar result attended its use during the seven weeks’ 
Austro-Prussian "war. In our own unhappy struggle [he alludes to the 
American Civil War] chloroform was administered in more than 120,000 
cases, and I am unable to learn of more than eight cases in which a fatal 
result can be fairly traceable to its use.” 
The immense quantity of chloroform manufactured, is a suffi¬ 
cient proof of the trust universally placed in it, and of the 
immense amount of human suffering relieved by it. In October 
1869, when the freedom of this city was bestowed on Simpson, 
he mentioned that the distinguished firm of apothecaries in Edin¬ 
burgh, who manufacture chloroform, were making it in such quan¬ 
tities as to yield about 8000 doses daily. On inquiry last week, 
I learnt from Mr Flockhart, that the quantity of chloroform 
now manufactured in this town is about double what it was a 
year ago, partly in consequence of the sanguinary European war 
which has raged for the last five months, but chiefly in con¬ 
sequence of the rapidly increasing use of chloroform in general 
practice. Mr Flockhart told me that just before Paris was 
invested, he sent to the medical staff there 1000 bottles of 1 lb 
each,—which he heard had reached their destination. He also sent 
800 bottles to the Germans. These went chiefly to the army of 
the Crown Prince. 
Numerous were Simpson’s discoveries and improvements, even 
in departments of medicine which lay outside of his own special 
field. The stopping of haemorrhage from cut arteries is effected 
by ligatures or torsion. He proposed pins or needles, by which to 
close the artery. 
With a view to arrest the spread of epidemics, he urged the 
complete isolation of the patients affected; maintaining that, as 
rinderpest could be stamped out by the immediate slaughter of 
cattle attacked by it, so scarlet fever, measles, hooping-cough, and 
* Erl. Med. Journal for Nov, 1870, p. 473. 
