This hostility flowed from an ancient and time-honoured belief in
Scotland. As far back as the year 1591, Eufame Macalyane, a lady
of rank, being charged with seeking the aid of Agnes Sampson for
the relief of pain at the time of the birth of her two sons, was
burned alive on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; and this old
theological view persisted even to the middle of the nineteenth
century. From pulpit after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was
denounced as impious and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited
abundantly, the ordinary declaration being that to use chloroform
was "to avoid one part of the primeval curse on woman." Simpson
wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to defend the blessing which he
brought into use; but he seemed about to be overcome, when he
seized a new weapon, probably the most absurd by which a great
cause was ever won: "My opponents forget," he said, "the
twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis; it is the
record of the first surgical operation ever performed, and that
text proves that the Maker of the universe, before he took the
rib from Adam's side for the creation of Eve, caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam.
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