From Francis Galton 1 June 1870
42 Rutland Gate SW.
June 1. 1870
My dear Darwin
Though I have no new litter to report, & shall only have one before the end of this month, I do not like to let more time go by, without heartily thanking you for your helpful & encouraging letter.1 I will not trouble you with details now, but simply say that I feel sure unless some unexpected disaster to my stock should arise, I shall have a very complete set of experiments finished before August.
My bucks have been heavily re-transfused & I have a doe in the same state. Also I shall have all the combinations, extreme & intermediate of pure and tranfused bucks with pure & transfused does.
I find I cannot manage pigeons for want of a dove cot & dare not try dogs lest the Zoolog: Gardens shd. be alarmed by the noise and I should be extruded.2
But notwithstanding this I can assure you that I have the matter firmly enough in hand. and will be guided by the results, as to the extent of future work.
De-fibrinised blood3 is my salvation. I literally put into my silver grays during one operation as much blood as I can get from the divided throats of two rabbits each the same size as the patient. & I have 3 bucks who have undergone two operations (but unluckily the earlier ones were far less succesful)
Very sincerely yours | Francis Galton
Footnotes
Bibliography
Galton, Francis. 1871. Experiments in pangenesis, by breeding from rabbits of a pure variety, into whose circulation blood taken from other varieties had previously been largely transfused. [Read 30 March 1871.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 19 (1870–1): 393–410.
Summary
Thanks CD for his help and encouragement in his series of experiments [to test Pangenesis].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7212
- From
- Francis Galton
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Rutland Gate, 42
- Source of text
- DAR 105: 19–20
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7212,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7212.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18