It was the man’s strong individuality which carried the day. The town councillors threw aside the political and academic bias of those who endeavoured to lead them, and elected the man who had boldly said, “Did I not feel I am the best man for the Chair I would not go in for it”; and had more boldly gone on showing them how thoroughly he felt what he said until they themselves came to believe it.
The gift of this Chair, as of many others in the University, has now passed from the hands of the Town Council into those of a body of curators, seven in number, three nominated by the University Court and four by the Town Council; such a body might have made a more cautious choice, but never a more fortunate one both for the city and the University than this of their long-headed and far-sighted predecessors.
CHAPTER V
Professor and Physician. 1840-1847
Success as a lecturer—Increased practice—Generosity—Fashionable patients—Memoir on Leprosy—Controversy concerning the Pathology Chair—Address to the Graduates, 1842—Squabbles—Purchases 52, Queen Street—A great and good physician—Called to London—Visit to Erskine House—The daily scene at 52, Queen Street—Rangoon petroleum and Christison—The disruption—His family—Appointed Physician-Accoucheur to the Queen for Scotland.
Simpson had not long been engaged upon his new duties before the town councillors gladly saw, and his brother professors were obliged to admit, that the baker’s son was bringing a mighty genius to bear upon the subject of his choice from the chair of his ambition. He cherished no ill-feeling against those confrères who had actively opposed his candidature, but set to work amidst his new surroundings conscious that the best way to obliterate bitter feelings was by gradually creating a stronger feeling—that of respect for him as a man and a worker. He had dealt heavy blows himself during the conflict—blows not easily forgotten. The position demanded tact and 67 patience, and he was not found wanting in either. He converted many who had worked against him into adherents, admirers, and even friends.
His lectures speedily attracted students. Besides those who were entering the profession, grey-headed and grey-bearded men, whose student days had long since passed away, came to sit at the feet of this remarkable young man and hear the so recently despised subject dealt with in his own masterly, scientific manner. Conciseness, clearness, and directness characterised his delivery; while with illustration and anecdote he made his dull subject fascinatingly interesting. It was his custom to write out on a black-board notes of the subject on which he was about to speak—concise, pithy headings, which were hung up in the theatre and which he proceeded methodically to explain and enlarge upon. So successful were his efforts that even in the first session he was able to make the proud boast that his class was for the first time in its history the largest in the University, and this in spite of the fact that one of the leading professors altered his lecture hour to the same hour as Simpson’s, with the purpose of injuring the attendance at Simpson’s class.
A direct result of the reputation obtained through his course of lectures and improved professional position was the rapid increase of his practice and the improvement of the class of his patients, so that pecuniary profit came within his reach. He continued 68 to be a general practitioner, however, attending to all classes of cases that came to him; but his zeal for midwifery and the diseases of women, together with his renown in those subjects, brought mostly patients of the female sex to his consulting-room. With the improved position there came necessarily increased expenditure, which at first exceeded the income; he never stopped to consider the patients’ circumstances or whether he was likely to be paid for his services. “I prefer to have my reward in the gratitude of my patients,” he said. He treated all that came to him, and his generous nature was oftentimes taken advantage of by persons very well able to remunerate him; moreover, at this time, when his pecuniary profit did not equal his professional reputation, he cheerfully helped many who appealed to him with amounts he could ill spare.