Background
Simpson was born on April 10, 1855, at Hudson, New York, the youngest of nine children of George Nicholas and Caroline (McCann) Simpson.
Simpson was born on April 10, 1855, at Hudson, New York, the youngest of nine children of George Nicholas and Caroline (McCann) Simpson.
Simpson attended school at Hudson and at the Episcopal Academy (later the Cheshire School), Cheshire, Connecticut, and graduated from Cornell in 1876 with the degree of B. A. and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1880.
After serving as interne in the Presbyterian Hospital until 1882, Simpson became a specialist in laryngology through the influence of Dr. Clinton Wagner, the celebrated laryngologist. He early identified himself with dispensary and hospital practice. He was attending surgeon to the Northern Dispensary, and to the throat department of the Presbyterian Hospital and of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.
As attending physician to the outdoor department of the New York Foundling Asylum, he became associated with Dr. Joseph O'Dwyer in his work on intubation; he was among the first after O'Dwyer to advocate the method in the application of intubation to chronic stenosis of the larynx. He was assistant surgeon to the Metropolitan Throat Hospital and instructor in laryngology in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School, in association with Dr. Wagner, 1885-1887.
Simpson became an assistant in the throat department of the Vanderbilt Clinic in 1887, chief of clinic and instructor in 1898, and in 1904 succeeded Dr. George Morewood Lefferts as professor of laryngology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, a position he held until his death. He was consulting laryngologist to a number of hospitals, a fellow of the American Laryngological Association, of the New York Academy of Medicine, and of the Hospital Graduates' Club, and secretary of the executive committee of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons.
The most important of his publications are Sequelae of Syphilis of the Larynx (1896), "A Study of Intubation in Chronic Stenosis of the Larynx, " "A Case of Laryngeal Diphtheria in an Adult, " "Stenosis of the Trachea, " "Laryngeal Stenosis in the Adult, " and "Two Cases of White Exudative Laryngeal Growths. "
Simpson died on February 6, 1914, in New York City.
After serving as interne in the Presbyterian Hospital until 1882, he became a specialist in laryngology through the influence of Dr. Clinton Wagner [q. v. ], the celebrated laryngologist.
He was a lover of music and excelled as a vocalist; he was a leading member and one of the best tenors of the Musurgia Society for many years.
Fellow of the American Laryngological Association, fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, fellow of the Hospital Graduates' Club, secretary of the executive committee of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons
He was a man of attractive personality and highly social nature.
On October 25, 1882, Simpson married Anna Farrand of Hudson, New York, who with a daughter and a son survived him.