ly worthy of serious
notice, because it must be considered as the beginning of that
inevitable effort at compromise which we see in the history of every
science when it begins to appear triumphant.(326)

(326) For the opposition of the South American Church authorities to
the introduction of coca, etc., see Martindale, Coca, Cocaine, and its
Salts, London, 1886, p. 7. As to theological and sectarian resistance to
quinine, see Russell, pp. 194, 253; also Eccles; also Meryon, History of
Medicine, London, 1861, vol. i, p. 74, note. For the great decrease in
deaths by fever after the use of Peruvian bark began, see statistical
tables given in Russell, p. 252; and for Hoffmann's attempt at
compromise, ibid., p. 294.

But I pass to a typical conflict in our days, and in a Protestant
country. In 1847, James Young Simpson, a Scotch physician, who afterward
rose to the highest eminence in his profession, having advocated the use
of anaesthetics in obstetrical cases, was immediately met by a storm
of opposition. This hostility flowed from an ancient and time-honoured
belief in Scotland. As far back as the year 1591, Eufame Macalyane, a
lady of rank, being charged with seeking the aid of Agnes Sampson for
the relief of pain at the time of the birth of her two sons, was burned
alive on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; and this old theological view
persisted even to the middle of the nineteenth century. From pulpit
after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was denounced as impious
and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited abundantly, the ordinary
declaration being that to use chloroform was "to avoid one part of
the primeval curse on woman." Simpson wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to
defend the blessing which he brought into use; but he seemed about to be
overcome, when he seized a new weapon, probably the most absurd by
which a great cause was ever won: "My opponents forget," he said, "the
twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis; it is the record of
the first surgical operation ever performed, and that text proves that
the Maker of the universe, before he took the rib from Adam's side for
the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam." This was
a stunning blow, but it did not entirely kill the opposition; they had
strength left to maintain that the "deep sleep of Adam took place before
the introduction of pain into the world--in a state of innocence."
But now a new champion intervened--Thomas Chalmers