During these years of fame and prosperity Simpson concerned himself in schemes for the improvement of the surroundings of the working classes, and helped with speech and purse those who worked among the poor. He strongly supported the establishment of improved dwellings for workpeople and gave much attention to the subject of Cottage Hospitals. He did not neglect the poor amongst whom he had laboured in his early days. He loved old Edinburgh, and the poor inhabitants of it were near his heart. “The Professor” was known in many a “wynd” and “stair,” where his services were rendered willingly and without reward.
CHAPTER IX
Archæology—Practice
His versatility—The Lycium of the Muses—The Catstane—Was the Roman Army provided with medical officers?—Weems—His lack of business method—Fees and no fees—Generosity often imposed upon—His unusual method of conducting private practice—The ten-pound note—Simpson and the hotel proprietors.
Professor Simpson’s versatility was remarkable. He turned from one subject to another and displayed a mastery over each; it was not merely the knowledge of principles which astonished but the intimate familiarity with details. He was able to discuss almost any subject in literature, science, politics, or theology with its leading exponent on equal terms. He had the power of patient listening as well as the gift of speech; more than that he had the ability to charm speech from others, of making each man reveal his inmost thoughts, betray his most cherished theories, or narrate his most stirring experiences; the most reticent man would not realise 153 until he had left Simpson’s presence, that in a brief interview, perhaps the first, he had told his greatest adventures, or laid bare his wildest aspirations before this student of mankind who was summarising his life and character as he spoke. Simpson built up his knowledge not so much from books as by the exercise of his highly developed faculty of observation aided by his memory. He enjoyed the study of his fellowmen and extracted all that was worth knowing from those with whom he came into contact. He never undertook work without a definite object in view, and rarely abandoned his task before that object was accomplished. Quite small researches would lead to considerable and unexpected labour. He preserved his scientific method, his desire to appeal only to the evidence of facts—not to other men’s fancies—through his archæological work as well as in more professional lines of study. He laboured long and carefully over such an object as the study of old skulls dug up in antiquarian excursions; setting before himself the object of finding out by the condition and wear of the teeth what kind of food had been consumed by the owners, probably primeval inhabitants of some district. He impressed his methods upon those who worked for him or with him. We find him writing to his nephew, who was about to visit Egypt, telling him when there to gather information as to the suitability of the country for invalids, and directing him how to employ his leisure in furthering this object. He was 154 to study German on the voyage thither, and to take with him as models Clarke’s book on Climate and Mitchell’s on Algiers, and any French or German books on the subject he might hear of. He would require to collect (1) The average daily temperature; (2) The hygrometric and barometric states daily; (3) The temperature of the Nile; (4) The temperature of any mineral springs; (5) The general character of the geology; (6) The general character of the botany of the country. He asked him to inquire specially as to the effect of the climate on consumption, and pointed out that Pliny described Egypt seventeen centuries ago as the best climate for phthisical patients. For amusement he was to take some good general book on Egypt and Egyptian hieroglyphics. The serious study of a succession of inquirers was to be the young man’s holiday amusement!
Simpson’s most notable contributions to archæology were made when his time was most occupied professionally. The researches on Leprosy were first enlarged and improved. In 1852, when in the British Museum, his eye was attracted by a small leaden vase bearing a Greek inscription signifying the Lycium of the Muses. By a painstaking inquiry he established that this lycium was the Lykion indikon of Dioscorides, drug used by ancient Greeks as an application to the eyes in various kinds of ophthalmia. It was obtained from India, and is still used for these purposes in that country. He discovered that there were three other 155 examples of this ancient receptable for the valued eye-medicine in modern museums.
He had correspondents in different parts of Scotland engaged in making researches into antiquities, which he encouraged and directed. Among such were inquiries into the whereabouts of a church said to possess holy earth brought from Rome; and a hunt for ancient cupping-vessels. The work on the Catstane of Kirkliston was elaborate, and a perfect example of his method. Probably this stone, a massive unhewn block of greenstone-trap, had been a familiar object to him in his youth, for it lay alone in a field close to the Linlithgow road. In his monograph he endeavoured to show by close reasoning, with profuse references to forgotten authorities and ancient history, that the stone was the tomb of one Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa. His argument ran as follows: The surname Vetta, which figured on the inscription carved upon the stone, was the name of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, as given by the oldest genealogists, who described him as the son of Victa. The inscription ran thus: VETTA F(ilius) VICTI. Vetta was an uncommon Saxon name, and no other Vetta, son of Victa, was known in history. Two generations before Hengist and Horsa arrived in England a Saxon host was leagued with the Picts, Scots, and Attacots in fighting a Roman army, and these Saxons were probably commanded by an ancestor of Hengist and Horsa. The battlefield was situated 156 between the two Roman walls, and consequently included the tract where the stone is now placed. The palæographic characters of the inscription indicated that it was carved about the end of the fourth century. Latin (with a very few exceptions in Greek) was the only language known to have been used at that time by Romanised Britons and foreign conquerors for the purpose of inscriptions. The occasional erection of monuments to Saxon leaders is proved by the fact mentioned by Bede that in his time, the eighth century, there stood in Kent a monument commemorating the death of Horsa. In 1659 a writer had described this tomb of Horsa as having been destroyed by “storms and tempests under the conduct of time.”
In 1861 Simpson was president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and delivered an address on the past and present work of archæology which greatly stimulated antiquarian study in his country. Amongst the honours which his antiquarian achievements brought upon him was that of being appointed Professor of Antiquities to the Royal Academy of Scotland; he was also elected a member of the Archæological Societies of Athens, Nassau, and Copenhagen.
He made researches into the subjects of lake dwellings, primeval pottery, and burial urns. One of his most valuable writings was upon the subject, “Was the Roman Army provided with Medical Officers?” He answered the question in the affirmative 157 after a laborious hunt amongst votive and mortuary tablets; no Roman historians had left clear indications of the existence of any army medical department. He found that several tablets were preserved bearing inscriptions referring to army surgeons, which suggested that although they were all known as medicus there were degrees of rank amongst them, notably the medicus legionis and the medicus cohortis. There is a well-preserved tablet in the Newcastle Museum found in that neighbourhood, commemorating a surgeon of the first Tungrian cohort, and one in Dresden, referring to a medicus duplicatorius, a term which indicates that the surgeon had been fortunate enough by his attainments to merit, and, we hope, receive double fees for his services.