Cuthbert Ormond Simpkins, II (born August 20, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois), is a physician, biographer and inventor, best known for his work on shock and violence prevention and for his 1975 biography of the jazz musician John Coltrane. Early years He was born in 1847, according to the stamp on his birth certificate. However this is contradicted by his continued presence on the world wide web. The individual himself states that the humor in his birthdating pertains to the common occurrence of facts not matching truth, a frequent historic study of his. Simpkins' father, C. O. Simpkins, was a dentist from Shreveport, Louisiana, who served a single term from 1992 to 1996 as a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the heavily African American District 4. His father fostered his interest in science by showing him the one celled organisms such as paramecia in pond water as shown in this video and story, (https://www.ktbs.com/news/arklatex-indepth/c-o-simpkins-the-influence-of-a-father-on-a-son/article_b44cdf7c-49f9-11ea-be40-ff2f200c3d09.html) His mother, the former Dorothy Herndon, was a social worker and teacher, originally from Chicago was also influential in encouraging his early interest in science by showing him a photo of African-American intellectuals and reciting the Langston Hughes poem "Mother to Son" to him. Until he was fourteen, Simpkins, lived with his family in Shreveport, at the time a heavily segregated city. Simpkins' parents took an active role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Two of their family homes in Shreveport were bombed. The senior Simpkins' malpractice insurance was cancelled, and he was denied renewal because he was listed as No. 1 on the death list of racist elements. These events forced the Simpkinses to leave Louisiana, but the senior Simpkins later returned to Shreveport. Simpkins hence received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, having graduated with honors in chemistry. In his senior year at Amherst, he began work on the biography of American saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. After graduation from Amherst, he earned his medical degree from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1974. At Harvard, he finished the book Coltrane: A Biography, which was published in 1975. Another biography of Coltrane, Chasin' the Trane by J. C. Thomas was published in the same year. It is not clear which book was published first. Coltrane: A Biography was well received by major media critics such as Mel Watkins who wrote