By Thomson's advice Simpson attended Hamilton's lectures in the winter session 1833-4, and this time with awakened interest. With the definite object of devoting himself to Midwifery clearly in view Simpson worked with all his phenomenal energy during the years from 1832 to 1835, studying the subject while he was helping Thomson. He entered the front rank of the young graduates of his day, and was elected a member of the Royal Medical and Royal Physical Societies in the same year, 1833. Both these societies were for the encouragement of scientific study and discussion among students and young graduates, and to obtain the Presidential chair of either was a high honour. The Royal Medical Society was the oldest Society in the University, having been established in 1737 by the great Cullen and others; it had always been of great account in the University, and the originality of the utterances on professional matters which emanated from it made it then a power to be reckoned with not only in Edinburgh, but throughout European professional circles. For membership of the Royal Physical Society he was proposed by Edward Forbes, a brilliant youth, who subsequently distinguished himself in Natural History, and held the University Chair in that subject for a brief period until cut down prematurely at the age of thirty-nine. Forbes was the leader of a set of able young students who have left a distinct mark in the history of the University. John Reid was an intimate friend of Forbes, and Simpson was probably as intimate with him. Forbes was the founder and editor of the best of all the shortlived literary ventures of Edinburgh undergraduates--_The University Maga_, which was issued weekly in 1834; and he was also one of the founders of the Oineromathic Society, "The brotherhood of the friends of Truth." Forbes thus described the nature of this Society in song:-- "Some love to stray through lands far away, Some love to roam on the sea, But an antique cell and a college bell, And a student's life for me. For palace or cot, for mead or grot I never would care or pine, But spend my days in twining lays To Learning, Love, and Wine." "Wine, Love, and Learning" was the motto of this curious brotherhood, and it numbered in its membership many men of the day, who afterwards became eminent, such as Forbes himself, Reid, George Wilson, Goodsir, and Bennet. Simpson must have been quite cognisant of this Society's doings; he was closely associated with its leaders, but his name does not appear in any of the lists of members still preserved. His whole-hearted devotion to the ~MATHESIS~ probably prevented his uniting with the brotherhood to worship the ~EROS~ and ~OINOS~. The brotherhood was conspicuously united. In the great snowball riot of 1837, which was quelled only by the reading of the Riot Act and the marching down at the double from the Castle of the Cameron Highlanders into the University gates, they fought shoulder to shoulder.