Much trouble to the cause was occasioned by enthusiasts who administered chloroform with more zeal than discretion, and without any study of the principles laid down by Simpson. As a result of imperfect trials, some persons went the length of saying that there were people whom it was impossible to anaesthetise at all, and others who could be only partially anaesthetised. Wrong methods of administration were used. Simpson patiently corrected these, and carefully instructed his students, so that the young graduates of Edinburgh University carried his teaching and practice into all parts of the world. Syme also took up the cause, and valuable work was done in London by Snow, and later by Clover. The teaching of Simpson and Syme led to such successful results that their methods are followed by the Edinburgh School to this day practically unaltered. So satisfactory an agent is chloroform in Edinburgh hands, that other anaesthetics are in that city but rarely called into requisition. All the world over it is the anaesthetic in which the general practitioner places his trust. Having seen what Simpson did for anaesthesia, we may briefly review what anaesthesia has done for humanity. That it has entirely abolished the pain attendant upon surgery is easily recognised by the profession and patients alike. The patient never begs for mercy nowadays; he dreads the anaesthetic more than the knife; he has no anxiety as to whether he will feel pain or not, but rather as to whether he will come round when the operation is over; happily after one experience he realises that his fears were unfounded, and, if need be, will submit cheerfully to a second administration. The horrors of the operating-room referred to in the preceding chapter were vanquished with the pain; the surgeon has no longer to steel himself for the task as formerly, to wear a stern aspect and adopt a harsh manner. The patient has no longer to be held down by assistants; instead of having to be dragged unwillingly to the operating-table--a daily occurrence sickening to the hearts of fellow-patients and students, while it served only to harden the surgeon and the experienced old nurse of those days--he will walk quietly to the room, or submit patiently to be carried there, and at a word from the surgeon prepare "... to storm The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life."