A few days after this last run to London he was summoned to see a patient in Perth, but was this time so fatigued by the effort, that after his return on February 25th he was obliged to take to bed. The news sped to all quarters of the globe that Simpson was gravely ill, for nothing but grave illness could compel that vigorous man to completely lay down his work. His symptoms improved at first under appropriate treatment sufficiently to allow him to be placed on a bed in the drawing-room; and he even once more took up his favourite archaeology, revising some of his work in that subject. Patients also were not to be denied; many were seen and prescribed for in his sick room, some even being carried up to his presence. But the fatal disease regained ascendancy, and the fact became apparent to all, not excepting himself, that the last chapter of the closely written book of his life had been entered upon. Towards the end of March, by his own request, his eldest surviving son was telegraphed for to be near him, and he wrote a touching letter to his youngest son, then a student in Geneva, encouraging him in his studies, asking him to look for cup-markings cut in the curious islet rock in Lake Geneva, and ending with an expression of his feeling of impending death, for which he felt perfectly and happily prepared. In these last days he loved to have his nearest and dearest around him; Lady Simpson and others read to him, and his daughter tells us how she daily prepared her school lessons in the sick room with his help; to the last he interested himself in the work of his relations and friends. He answered the attack of Bigelow, of Boston, conscious that it was his last effort on behalf of chloroform, and wrote to all his old opponents asking their forgiveness if at any time words of his had wounded their feelings. He might well have spared himself the regrets--such as they were--which troubled him. "I would have liked to have completed hospitalism," he said, "but I hope some good man will take it up." On another occasion he asked, "How old am I? Fifty-nine? Well, I have done some work. I wish I had been busier." He expressed a desire that his nephew should succeed him in the Chair of Midwifery--he would, he thought, help to perpetuate his treatment. There was much communing with himself on his future, and all his sayings on the subject breathed the simple faith first inculcated in him in the Bathgate cottage. His great sufferings, sometimes allayed by opiates and his own chloroform, were bravely borne, but the days dragged sadly on. On the evening of May 5th Sandy took his place at his side, and the last conscious moments of the great physician were spent with his head in the arms of him who had helped and guided him through the difficult days of his career. At sunset on May 6th he passed peacefully away.