Sir James Young Simpson and chloroform (1811-1870) / by H. Laing Gordon.

  • Gordon, H. Laing (Henry Laing)
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir James Young Simpson and chloroform (1811-1870) / by H. Laing Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    had considerable ability for the post, and encouraged his pupils by kindly personal interest to develop affec- tion for learning. But for Simpson there were other teachers and greater subjects for study in the country- side around Bathgate. The district was full of rich treasures for the field naturalist and for the anti- quarian. Bathgate lies between the Firth of Forth and the Pentland Hills, in a geologically varied district, with a varied and abundant flora and fauna— more so in those days when Bathgate was a small village of hand-loom weavers than latterly, when it was a thriving little town, the centre of a coal, shale, and ironstone mining industry. The archaeological features of the neighbourhood were full of interest. There was the famous Catstane, of Kirkliston, which had puzzled antiquarians even before the establishment of the Scots Society in 1780, and at Kipps was one of the few remaining cromlechs— and that a ruined one—in Scotland ; whilst the line of the Roman wall between the Firth of Forth and the Clyde was not far distant. There were traces of a Cistercian monastery founded by David I., and various hills and fields and caves were associated with the names of Sir William Wallace, Robert Bruce, and King Edward I. Simpson thoroughly familiarised himself in boyhood with the natural features, as well as with the antiquarian objects in the district. He continued to investigate them during his vacations when a student at Edin-