Numerous honours were heaped upon him during the last five-and-twenty years of his life. In 1847 he filled the office of President of the Edinburgh College of Physicians, and in 1852 held the corresponding post in the Medico-Chirurgical Society. In the following year the Imperial Academy of Medicine of France--a body which lacks an analogue in this country--conferred upon him the title of Foreign Associate. This was a jealously guarded honour awarded only to the most highly distinguished men of the day, and it was conferred upon Simpson in an altogether unprecedented manner which doubled its value. According to custom a commission of members prepared a list of renowned men whom they advised the Academy to elect; in the list no British name appeared although Owen, Faraday, and Bright were entered as "reserves." On the day of election the members accepted all the candidates named in the original list until the last was reached. When the president asked for the vote for this individual a sensational and truly Gallic scene was enacted. Almost to a man the members rose, and loud and long proclaimed Simpson's name. Excited speeches were made, and amidst great enthusiasm he was elected to the one remaining vacancy by an overwhelming majority. It had remained for Simpson to prove, as the President courteously pointed out at the time, that there existed a greater honour than that of being elected by the Academy--viz., that of being chosen in _spite_ of the will of the Academy itself. This was by no means the only honour awarded to him by France. In 1856 the French Academy of Sciences voted him the Monthyon Prize of two thousand francs for "the most important benefits done to humanity." Other foreign societies added their compliments, and he was elected Foreign Associate of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, of the Parisian Surgical and Biological Societies, and of the Medical Societies of Norway, Stockholm, Copenhagen, New York, Massachusetts, Leipsic, and other places.