such petty considerations. As a matter of fact, no physician ever attracted such a number of visitors; the invalids came in shoals. Simpson 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 discoveries 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 25th 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 now a great many manufactories of chloroform 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 preëminently 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 anæsthetics. He generally uses the new anæsthetic methylene, 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 ovariotomy 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 conspicuous adherence to the principle of the cottage hospital. The National Hospital at Ventnor is constructed on the cottage principle, and we have before had occasion in these pages to testify to its wonderful efficiency.
