This is a good novel, in an interesting setting. Edinburgh's medical community is starting to use anaesthetics, and working to find better and better ones. Within the book, Dr. Simpson discovers the uses of chloroform. The mystery itself has a very easily guessed solution, but it made sense that the characters within the book didn't suspect the malefactor. 
What made this infinitely more special to me is the coincidence that I was in the Edinburgh university library stacks while I was reading the book, and stumbled on a scrapbook made by Dr. Simpson's daughter Eve, in which she collects her own article about her father's great discovery, and other articles and letters she has received about it as well. And it matches this book perfectly! Only an apprentice with a mysterious past is somehow not mentioned...