Sir James Young SimpsonBorn 7 Jun 1811; died 6 May 1870 at age 58.(1st baronet) Scottish inventor and obstertrician who was the the father of modern anesthetics. He employed ether for the first time in Britain, and chloroform ("perchloride of formyle") for the first time as an anesthetic in an operation (1847). He was not the first to use chloroform but it was his persistent roversy about the morality of whether women should use such anesthetics in childbirth. Victoria's leadership broke people free from superstition and fear. Simpson was a natural inventor, always eager to experiment in new directions - the fight against puerperal fever, the invention of new types of forceps and the combating of cholera. |