In 1831 Simpson returned to his university studies, his brother David having commenced business in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, and being able to accommodate the young doctor. He assisted in maintaining himself by becoming assistant to Dr. Gairdner. Thus he was enabled to complete his university course and take his M.D. degree in 1832, giving as his inaugural thesis an essay on “Death from Inflammation.” This attracted much attention, especially from Dr. John Thomson, Professor of Pathology, who at once requested him to act as his assistant with a salary of £50, which the young man made sufficient for all his necessities. In this capacity he prepared a catalogue of the museum of the pathological department. His first experience of obstetric study in attending Professor Hamilton’s lectures had not left his mind under a compulsion to pursue the subject deeply, but Dr. Thomson saw that his assistant, soft-mannered but full of decisive activity, was the very man to succeed in midwifery practice, and he therefore advised him to devote himself specially to it. Another great characteristic was his power of winning the confidence of others, and especially of getting his patients to tell him what it was most important that he should know. But he went immediately to work to become learned in his subject, and then to turn over in his mind everything that he had learnt, until it assumed a new aspect. He always sought new and better ways, and if any department of practice or theory appeared to him defective, he restlessly applied his mind to invent or imagine some improvement. And he had an absorbing desire to gratify his family by achieving success. When his sister Mary told him in 1834 he was injuring his health by overwork, he replied, seriously, “Well, I am sure it’s just to please you all.” Simpson’s first important paper, on the Diseases of the Placenta, delivered before the Royal Medical Society in 1835, at once showed a master hand. It was translated into French, German, and Italian. He began by exhaustively studying the previous history of every subject he took up, and then tested others’ opinions and facts by his own observation. One of his earliest papers includes nearly one hundred references to previous literature, including many authorities, showing an unusual range of reading. If he could not read the language of an author he got some one who could to do so, and give him the material bearing on his point of inquiry. But while no man regarded more highly than he the patient achievements of the past, no man sat more loosely to tradition and convention.