# The Chloroform Baronet (Part 1)

An episode of [Noble Blood](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1468332063), 9 Jun 2026, 23 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/arttrk.com/p/D5CA5/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/55b20558-9add-4d0b-8c42-ae300188d1aa/a3ea8df3-87b4-492c-a8d4-b4630133211b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=0bfdba5f-fcca-4c2f-8772-ae300188d1b8

James Young Simpson, as a young surgeon, was distraught at the seemingly inescapable pain and fear that patients were suffering. He decided to try to find a better solution. Support Noble Blood: —ORDER 'THE ARCANE ARTS' — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
[0:04] Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener discretion advised. Around eighteen
[0:10] Speaker 1: twenty nine, a woman from the Scottish Highlands arrived at
[0:14] Speaker 1: the University of Edinburgh Hospital for surgery. She had breast
[0:19] Speaker 1: cancer and was getting a misectomy with one of the
[0:22] Speaker 1: most famous and renowned surgeons in the country, James Liston.
[0:28] Speaker 1: Every time Liston performed surgeries, medical students crowded into the
[0:33] Speaker 1: theater to learn his extraordinary techniques. Sometimes the students were
[0:38] Speaker 1: so close to the operating table that they'd be splattered
[0:42] Speaker 1: with blood. Legend has it that before he began surgery,
[0:47] Speaker 1: Liston would shout to the med students in the audience
[0:50] Speaker 1: time me, gentlemen. While this brag may seem crass, it
[0:55] Speaker 1: may have comforted the patient. Before anesthesia and antiseptics, patients
[1:00] Speaker 1: were awake during surgery and would feel every cut. The
[1:05] Speaker 1: best strategy a surgeon had to ease the patient's suffering
[1:10] Speaker 1: was to get the operation over with as quickly as possible.
[1:15] Speaker 1: Liston was one of the fastest surgeons in the country,
[1:19] Speaker 1: while most at the time took a couple of minutes
[1:22] Speaker 1: to amputate a limb. Liston could do it in just
[1:26] Speaker 1: thirty seconds. Mastectomies were particularly gruesome and painful. After taking
[1:33] Speaker 1: the woman from the Highlands into the medical theater and
[1:36] Speaker 1: securing her onto the operating table with leather straps, Liston
[1:41] Speaker 1: held her down with one hand and wielded a.
[1:44] Speaker 2: Hook with the other.
[1:46] Speaker 1: He used the hook to trigger warning lift the soft
[1:51] Speaker 1: tissue of her breast before slicing her breast with two
[1:55] Speaker 1: clean cuts. As she writhed and screamed. The medical students
[2:01] Speaker 1: watched carefully, taking careful notes, except for one of them,
[2:07] Speaker 1: a nineteen year old named James Young Simpson. Simpson was
[2:13] Speaker 1: so disturbed and overwhelmed by the woman's pain that he
[2:17] Speaker 1: pushed through the crowd of fellow students and stormed out
[2:21] Speaker 1: of the room. Simpson was an ambitious, diligent medical student
[2:26] Speaker 1: who excelled in his classes, but the idea of actually
[2:31] Speaker 1: performing surgery made him a little uneasy. His own pain
[2:36] Speaker 1: tolerance was low. He wrote to a friend that he
[2:40] Speaker 1: couldn't so much as go to the dentist without quote
[2:43] Speaker 1: the stimulus to my courage of two or three glasses
[2:47] Speaker 1: of whiskey. The idea of inflicting the same thing or
[2:52] Speaker 1: worse on his patients was too much to bear. He
[2:57] Speaker 1: walked out of the hospital gate and up the hill
[3:00] Speaker 1: to Parliament Square, where he announced to the university administrators
[3:05] Speaker 1: that he wanted to enroll as a clerk and study
[3:08] Speaker 1: law instead. The change of heart was short lived. He
[3:14] Speaker 1: soon returned to his medical studies and accepted the reality
[3:18] Speaker 1: that the surgeon had to tolerate a patient's pain just
[3:23] Speaker 1: as the patient did. But the mestectomy he witnessed stuck
[3:27] Speaker 1: with him. He wrote to a friend at the time
[3:30] Speaker 1: that quote all pain is per se, and especially in excess,
[3:36] Speaker 1: destructive and even ultimately fatal in its action and effects
[3:41] Speaker 1: end quote. As he returned to his medical studies, he
[3:45] Speaker 1: asked himself, can nothing be done to make operations less painful?
[3:51] Speaker 1: Little could he possibly know that this question would go
[3:55] Speaker 1: on to define his medical career, and only a little
[4:00] Speaker 1: over a decade later he would be the one to
[4:03] Speaker 1: answer it. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood.
[4:10] Speaker 1: James Young Simpson started at Edinburgh University at fourteen, traveling
[4:16] Speaker 1: all the way to the city from its rural outskirts
[4:19] Speaker 1: in his brother's ill fitting corduroy suit. His colleague John
[4:24] Speaker 1: Brown described him as quote thick set, fat, sancy caalent,
[4:29] Speaker 1: with a wide face with dimples on his cheeks in
[4:32] Speaker 1: a particularly large head end quote. His early years at
[4:37] Speaker 1: school were miserable. Later, Simpson recalled that he felt quote
[4:42] Speaker 1: very very young, and very solitary, very poor, and almost friendless.
[4:49] Speaker 1: He initially was studying the arts, but during his first
[4:53] Speaker 1: year of school, a friend took him to an anatomy lecture.
[4:57] Speaker 1: Simpson was fascinated. He switched to medical school in eighteen
[5:02] Speaker 1: twenty eight, where he studied with Robert Liston the Lightning
[5:07] Speaker 1: Fast Surgeon. Liston thought Simpson was an exemplary student, writing
[5:13] Speaker 1: that he was convinced that Simpson will become a well
[5:16] Speaker 1: informed and excellent practitioner. Simpson finished his medical coursework in
[5:22] Speaker 1: eighteen thirty and then prepared his doctoral thesis so he
[5:26] Speaker 1: could pursue his MD. He ended up writing his thesis
[5:30] Speaker 1: about inflammation, which impressed his former pathology professor so much
[5:36] Speaker 1: that he offered Simpson a job as his assistant, and
[5:41] Speaker 1: so Simpson spent the next few years rising up the
[5:44] Speaker 1: medical ranks, pursuing leadership positions in various medical societies. During
[5:51] Speaker 1: that time Simpson began to develop an interest in obstetrics,
[5:56] Speaker 1: or the labor and delivery of babies.
[6:00] Speaker 2: Pathology.
[6:00] Speaker 1: Professor suggested that he might be more successful as an obstetrician.
[6:05] Speaker 2: As opposed to a pathologist.
[6:08] Speaker 1: Fields like surgery, internal medicine, and pathology were competitive, and
[6:13] Speaker 1: in order to advance, Simpson would have to break into
[6:17] Speaker 1: an elite network.
[6:19] Speaker 2: Of established doctors.
[6:21] Speaker 1: This would be particularly difficult for Simpson, who came from
[6:26] Speaker 1: a humble background. The eighth child of a baker, Simpson
[6:32] Speaker 1: was so poor that on the day of his birth,
[6:35] Speaker 1: the doctor's fee was greater than the revenue of his
[6:38] Speaker 1: father's bakery for that entire year.
[6:42] Speaker 2: Obstetrics would be.
[6:43] Speaker 1: An easier field for an ambitious doctor like Simpson to
[6:47] Speaker 1: advance in, since it was considered a less prestigious field
[6:52] Speaker 1: at the time. What's more, Edinburgh had a growing maternity
[6:56] Speaker 1: hospital where Simpson could establish himself, and there was quite
[7:00] Speaker 1: a bit of money in having a private midwife practice
[7:04] Speaker 1: for wealthy families. Simpson was also temperamentally well suited for obstetrics.
[7:10] Speaker 1: While he may have bulked at the ruthlessness of a
[7:13] Speaker 1: surgeon like James Liston Simpson's empathy and concern for his
[7:18] Speaker 1: patient's well being made him a comforting presence during childbirth.
[7:24] Speaker 1: The Lancet wrote of him at the time that quote
[7:27] Speaker 1: his winning manners, his power of entering fully and at
[7:31] Speaker 1: once into the mind and heart of the patient wonderfully
[7:34] Speaker 1: reinforced his professional sagacity and skill, And so in eighteen
[7:40] Speaker 1: thirty six Simpson began to practice midwifery at the Maternity
[7:45] Speaker 1: Hospital in Edinburgh. On the side. He started lecturing about
[7:50] Speaker 1: midwifery at the medical school in eighteen thirty eight, and
[7:55] Speaker 1: even opened up a popular private practice operating out of
[7:59] Speaker 1: his townhouse. The Landset gushed quote his house soon became
[8:03] Speaker 1: crowded with patients, whom he treated according to their need
[8:07] Speaker 1: rather than their.
[8:08] Speaker 2: Ability to pay.
[8:11] Speaker 1: When the chair of midwifrey resigned the following year, Simpson
[8:15] Speaker 1: applied to replace him. He had to be elected into
[8:19] Speaker 1: the position by his colleagues, and he had two serious disadvantages.
[8:25] Speaker 1: He was young, only twenty eight years old, and he
[8:28] Speaker 1: was a bachelor, which was a problem because many thought
[8:32] Speaker 1: it was unseemly for a bachelor to devote his career
[8:36] Speaker 1: to childbirth. So Simpson disappeared from Edinburgh for a month,
[8:42] Speaker 1: solved the second problem by marrying his cousin, Jesse Grindlay,
[8:46] Speaker 1: and returned just in time for the election. He won
[8:51] Speaker 1: by one vote, and afterward the couple departed for their
[8:55] Speaker 1: honeymoon to celebrate. Simpson's career had skyrocketed before the age
[9:01] Speaker 1: of thirty. He became one of the most respected obstetricians
[9:05] Speaker 1: in the country, but he was still haunted by the
[9:09] Speaker 1: same issue that caused him to almost quit medicine when
[9:13] Speaker 1: he was still in school. The pain of his patients.
[9:17] Speaker 1: Seeing his patients suffer through childbirth disturbed him. He wrote
[9:22] Speaker 1: to a fellow doctor in eighteen thirty six, cannot something
[9:26] Speaker 1: be done to render the patient unconscious while under acute
[9:30] Speaker 1: pain without interfering with the free and healthy play of
[9:34] Speaker 1: natural functions. He didn't have a lot of options. Alcohol
[9:38] Speaker 1: could numb the senses, but the effect didn't last long
[9:43] Speaker 1: and pain still cut through drunkenness. Opium was an effective sedative,
[9:49] Speaker 1: but it dulled pain only partially and took a while
[9:53] Speaker 1: to take effect. It was also unpredictable and dangerous, as
[9:58] Speaker 1: it could slow a patients breathing and sometimes caused their death.
[10:04] Speaker 1: Simpson experimented with mesmerism and hypnosis as a potential way
[10:09] Speaker 1: of lessening pain, which turned out to be even less effective.
[10:14] Speaker 1: It wasn't until eighteen forty six that he heard promising
[10:19] Speaker 1: news about a potential anesthetic, a colorless, sweet smelling gas
[10:25] Speaker 1: called ether. Ether had been around for hundreds of years,
[10:31] Speaker 1: but mostly as a to put it frankly, party drug.
[10:35] Speaker 1: During a dinner, party or salon in the early nineteenth century,
[10:40] Speaker 1: guests might participate in quote ether frolics, where someone would
[10:45] Speaker 1: take out a glass vial filled with ether or a
[10:48] Speaker 1: handkerchief dipped in the chemical and pass it around for
[10:52] Speaker 1: everyone to inhale. Sometimes people would even drink it straight.
[10:57] Speaker 1: After seeing the numbing effects of eath on partygoers, a
[11:02] Speaker 1: dentist in Boston decided to see if it could be
[11:05] Speaker 1: used medicinally. On October sixteenth, the dentist invited scientists and
[11:12] Speaker 1: journalists to Massachusetts General Hospital for a public demonstration in
[11:18] Speaker 1: which he used ether to sedate a patient before removing
[11:22] Speaker 1: a tumor in his neck before a crowd of onlookers.
[11:26] Speaker 1: This was the first successful demonstrated use of an anesthetic
[11:31] Speaker 1: for surgery. News spread quickly across the pond. By December
[11:38] Speaker 1: James Simpson's former professor, the infamously speedy surgeon Robert Liston,
[11:44] Speaker 1: used ether to anesthetize a patient before amputating an infected leg.
[11:49] Speaker 1: The surgery took all of twenty eight seconds. The patient
[11:53] Speaker 1: felt nothing, and Liston is said to have exclaimed this
[11:58] Speaker 1: Yankee dodge, gentlemen beat zmesmerism hollow. Throughout the next couple
[12:04] Speaker 1: of months, surgeons across Britain and Ireland tried this new wonder.
[12:09] Speaker 1: Drug news reports featured patients with breathless praise for ether.
[12:14] Speaker 1: One proclaimed that he had the most pleasurable sensations while
[12:19] Speaker 1: on ether, while another said he was transported to a
[12:23] Speaker 1: beautiful heaven and cried with joy when her operation was
[12:27] Speaker 1: over without any pain at all. Impressed with the results,
[12:32] Speaker 1: Simpson decided to try the chemical in his own obstetric practice.
[12:37] Speaker 1: In January, he was tasked with facilitating childbirth for a
[12:42] Speaker 1: woman with a deformed pelvis, where it was likely to
[12:46] Speaker 1: be especially painful, maybe even fatal. He gave her some ether,
[12:52] Speaker 1: and not only did the woman survive the complicated surgery,
[12:56] Speaker 1: she didn't feel any pain. This result was so thrilling
[13:01] Speaker 1: to Simpson that when he received a letter from the
[13:05] Speaker 1: Queen the next day to appoint him the Queen's physician
[13:08] Speaker 1: in Scotland. He was comparatively unmoved. He wrote to his brother,
[13:13] Speaker 1: flattery from the Queen is perhaps not common flattery, but
[13:16] Speaker 1: I am far less interested in it than in having
[13:20] Speaker 1: delivered a woman this week without any pain while inhaling
[13:24] Speaker 1: sulfuric ether. I can think of naught else. He was
[13:29] Speaker 1: so excited about ether that he even used it for
[13:33] Speaker 1: so called quote natural births because he thought that it
[13:37] Speaker 1: had the potential to increase survival rates while ether was
[13:41] Speaker 1: better than the alternatives. A few months later, Simpson's enthusiasm
[13:47] Speaker 1: about ether began to fade. March eighteen forty seven, a
[13:52] Speaker 1: twenty one year old woman in Grantham had a tumor
[13:56] Speaker 1: on her thigh and begged the doctor to use ether
[13:59] Speaker 1: in surgery to remove it. The doctor did, but she
[14:03] Speaker 1: was left in a weakened state after the surgery, and
[14:07] Speaker 1: she died two days later. Even in less fatal cases,
[14:13] Speaker 1: ether had a number of drawbacks. The gas had an
[14:17] Speaker 1: overpoweringly acidic, stinging smell that irritated the throat, even causing
[14:24] Speaker 1: choking for some patients. It caught fire if it was
[14:28] Speaker 1: too close to a candle or gas light. It was
[14:31] Speaker 1: also cumbersome to use. It was stored in heavy glass bottles,
[14:36] Speaker 1: which were a nuisance to carry up and down, and
[14:40] Speaker 1: acted very slowly, requiring a few minutes of inhaling before
[14:45] Speaker 1: patients were knocked out. For a woman giving birth who
[14:49] Speaker 1: was already under a lot of physical stress, taking deep
[14:53] Speaker 1: breaths of an awful, smelling, acidic, stinging gas for ten
[14:58] Speaker 1: minutes was a difficult an unpleasant task. Simpson wanted to
[15:03] Speaker 1: find a better solution. Over the summer and fall of
[15:08] Speaker 1: eighteen forty seven, he did a series of experiments with
[15:13] Speaker 1: different chemicals to see if they could be used for surgery.
[15:17] Speaker 1: Because Simpson had no training in chemical research, these experiments were,
[15:24] Speaker 1: let's say, a little informal. He didn't take notes on
[15:29] Speaker 1: his experiments, but letters from the time and memoirs written
[15:33] Speaker 1: by Simpson and his colleagues much later give us a
[15:37] Speaker 1: general sense of what went on. He got samples of
[15:41] Speaker 1: any substance that someone might be able to inhale, and
[15:45] Speaker 1: invited his friends over to his house to test them out.
[15:49] Speaker 1: His friends and assistants would sit around the dinner table
[15:52] Speaker 1: and pass around whatever chemical Simpson.
[15:55] Speaker 2: Brought that day.
[15:57] Speaker 1: The group tried out ethyl nitrate, beans in carbon disulfide, actone,
[16:03] Speaker 1: and Dutch liquid, but all of them had significant side effects.
[16:08] Speaker 1: They smelled like rotting cabbage, or produced intolerable ringing sensations,
[16:14] Speaker 1: or sometimes did nothing at all. Sometimes Simpson would try
[16:18] Speaker 1: them out himself, and his wife would find him passed
[16:21] Speaker 1: out on the basement floor. Simpson's neighbor recalled that quote
[16:26] Speaker 1: these experiments were performed at late night or early morn
[16:30] Speaker 1: when the greater part of mankind were soundly anesthetized in
[16:34] Speaker 1: common sleep. In October, one of Simpson's friends recommended he
[16:40] Speaker 1: try chloroform. Simpson was already familiar with some experiments other
[16:46] Speaker 1: physicians had tried with chloric ether chloroform diluted with alcohol,
[16:51] Speaker 1: which produced light, dizziness and intoxication, but he didn't realize
[16:56] Speaker 1: that undiluted chloric ether or chloroform hadn't been tried yet
[17:01] Speaker 1: as an anesthetic. When Simpson obtained some chloroform later that month,
[17:07] Speaker 1: he was skeptical. It was heavier than water, which suggested
[17:12] Speaker 1: that it might be hard to vaporize, but on November fourth,
[17:16] Speaker 1: eighteen forty seven, he decided to give chloroform a try.
[17:21] Speaker 1: Sitting around the dinner table were his typical surgery buddies,
[17:25] Speaker 1: but also his wife, her sister, her niece, and her
[17:29] Speaker 1: brother in law. He poured a little bit of chloroform
[17:32] Speaker 1: in a glass for his three colleagues, and they all
[17:36] Speaker 1: inhaled As his family looked on. The drug took effect immediately.
[17:43] Speaker 1: Everyone started drunkenly, laughing and talking, finding each other unusually
[17:49] Speaker 1: intelligent and charming. As Simpson witnessed the intoxication of his guests,
[17:55] Speaker 1: he thought, this is far stronger and better than ether.
[17:59] Speaker 1: The next day, he knew he was lying on the
[18:01] Speaker 1: floor looking up at the ceiling. He saw one of
[18:04] Speaker 1: his colleagues sprawled out under a chair, mouth agate, unconscious
[18:09] Speaker 1: and snoring. Simpson heard a thump and turned to see
[18:13] Speaker 1: the other man under the table, flailing his legs before
[18:17] Speaker 1: tiring himself and raising his head in a stupor. As
[18:22] Speaker 1: they came to the three were so thrilled at the
[18:25] Speaker 1: results that they decided to try again this time around.
[18:30] Speaker 1: His sister in law even decided to join the party.
[18:34] Speaker 1: She inhaled, deeply, folded her arms across her breast, and,
[18:39] Speaker 1: according to Simpson's recollection, she fell asleep while yelling I'm
[18:43] Speaker 1: an angel, Oh, I'm an angel. The party lasted until
[18:47] Speaker 1: three a m.
[18:49] Speaker 2: I want to take a.
[18:50] Speaker 1: Brief moment here for any slightly younger listeners of Noble Blood,
[18:54] Speaker 1: just to remind you that, under no conditions, you absolutely
[18:59] Speaker 1: should not through any parties where you inhale noxious substances.
[19:04] Speaker 1: This was a terrible idea, and though the end result
[19:08] Speaker 1: was historically significant, do not attempt to do this at home.
[19:12] Speaker 1: I repeat, absolutely never attempt to do anything like this
[19:17] Speaker 1: at home.
[19:18] Speaker 2: Okay.
[19:19] Speaker 1: The next day, Simpson contacted a manufacturer to get him
[19:24] Speaker 1: more of this seeming miracle drug, but this time it
[19:28] Speaker 1: wasn't for himself, for his friends. He was ready to
[19:32] Speaker 1: try it on patients. On November eighth, eighteen forty seven,
[19:38] Speaker 1: only four days after Simpson's three am chloroform party, a
[19:43] Speaker 1: woman named Jane Carstairs entered the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital ready
[19:48] Speaker 1: to give birth. She was understandably nervous. It was her
[19:53] Speaker 1: second pregnancy, and her first ended after three days of
[19:58] Speaker 1: labor and resulted in the death of the child. Jane
[20:02] Speaker 1: hadn't slept in days. When she arrived at the hospital.
[20:06] Speaker 1: James Simpson had rolled a handkerchief into a cone, dipped
[20:10] Speaker 1: it in chloroform, and put it over the patient's nose
[20:14] Speaker 1: and mouth. Twenty five minutes later, Jane Carstairs woke up.
[20:19] Speaker 1: She told Simpson that she was grateful to finally get
[20:23] Speaker 1: some sleep before giving birth, but she was a bit
[20:26] Speaker 1: worried that something had gone wrong because she no longer
[20:29] Speaker 1: felt any of the pain from contractions. Moments later, the
[20:33] Speaker 1: nurse brought in her child, a baby girl who had
[20:37] Speaker 1: already been safely born. Jane was so dumbfounded that she
[20:42] Speaker 1: didn't believe that the child in front of her was hers.
[20:47] Speaker 1: On that day, James Young Simpson was elated. He had
[20:52] Speaker 1: done it. He had found a substance that was easy
[20:56] Speaker 1: to administer and he believed could insure a quick, painless
[21:00] Speaker 1: childworth now he just needed the rest of the world
[21:04] Speaker 1: to catch up. That's the end of part one of
[21:09] Speaker 1: our two part episode on James Young Simpson, But keep
[21:13] Speaker 1: listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little
[21:16] Speaker 1: bit more about that miraculous first chloroform baby. If you
[21:26] Speaker 1: go to any modern obstetrician, it's a common sight to
[21:30] Speaker 1: see a bulletin board with letters and Christmas cards featuring
[21:34] Speaker 1: the cherubic babies that the doctor helped deliver. It's a
[21:38] Speaker 1: sweet thing for a doctor to keep in touch with
[21:42] Speaker 1: the baby he or she brought into the world. James
[21:46] Speaker 1: Young Simpson agreed. He kept in touch with the baby
[21:49] Speaker 1: he delivered painlessly to Jane Carstairs, exchanging letters as the baby.
[21:54] Speaker 2: Girl grew up. He also kept a photo of.
[21:57] Speaker 1: Her on his desk, referring to her as Saint Anesthesia
[22:02] Speaker 1: because of the pious expression on her face. It's a
[22:06] Speaker 1: common misconception that the baby's name actually was Anesthesia. And
[22:12] Speaker 1: while I will say that would be a beautiful name
[22:15] Speaker 1: for a baby girl, it was only a nickname. Her
[22:19] Speaker 1: real name was Wilhelmina. But for anyone looking for a
[22:23] Speaker 1: unique baby name, Anesthesia is right there waiting for you.
[22:35] Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
[22:39] Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
[22:43] Speaker 1: Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, Hannah'swick,
[22:47] Speaker 1: Paul Jeffy, Natasha Laski, and me Dana Schwartz. The show
[22:52] Speaker 1: is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin,
[22:56] Speaker 1: with supervising producer Rima il KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke,
[23:02] Speaker 1: Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
[23:07] Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
[23:11] Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.

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