But it is by no means only in connection with ether and chloroform that Simpson introduced a new practice. Besides numberless suggestions and novel ideas in midwifery, he brought forward (in 1859, after some years of study) a totally new method of closing arteries after operations and in substitution for ligatures, so often the cause of inflammation. Long before John Hunter had pointed out that needles and pins when passed into and embedded in the living body seldom or never produced any inflammatory action. Simpson was struck with the idea that slender sharp-pointed needles or pins of non-oxidisable iron, somewhat like hare-lip needles, might be used to close together the walls or flaps of wounds, at the same time keeping the blood-vessels closed. These pins could be withdrawn very early, and would greatly favour healing at the earliest possible moment. The new method, called acupressure, of course met with much opposition, and Simpson was severely censured for meddling in a preserve strictly limited to the surgeon. But the help of the Aberdeen surgeons, Keith and Pirrie, was of great service in promoting the fair trial of the practice. His attack on the prevailing hospital system in 1869 was one of his later crusades, and he certainly accumulated a great store of facts showing the unhealthiness of the existing conditions of aggregation in crowded hospitals. His advocacy of a separate system in hospital construction, and of limiting the number of patients close together, of course drew on him further fierce opposition. We cannot here refer to his strong exposure of the fallacies of homœopathy, his vigorous actions in connection with the University of Edinburgh, or the numerous antiquarian papers which his prolific pen gave forth. Every year had crowded into it three times as much research as a very industrious man could manage, ten times as much controversy, and twice as much practice. Honours came thick upon him. In 1856 he was greatly gratified by the French Academy’s award of the Monthyon Prize of 2000 francs for “most important benefits done to humanity.” At the beginning of 1866 he was created a baronet. In 1869 the freedom of Edinburgh was presented to him.