James Young Simpson 1811 - 1870

Graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1832. He was immediately appointed professor of midwifery and physician to Queen Victoria. With colleagues George Keith and James Matthew Dean he was looking for an anaesthetic to replace ether. In 1846, they experimented with a number of compounds until discovering the anaesthetic properties of chloroform. Although chloroform had been discovered in 1831, it had not been used in surgery or medicine.

Simpson used chloroform for the first time to assist a childbirth in 1847, against religious and medical opposition. Publishing his experiences in the same year, this is the first documented use of chloroform in obsterics and surgery worldwide. Chloroform was eventually welcomed as a non-irritating alternate to ether. It was more widely accepted after Queen Victoria took chloroform to aid her in the delivery of Prince Leopold in 1853.