Summary

Thanks CD for his note and his new book [Movement in plants].

Makes him feel "we must go beyond plants for a really elemental pathology".

Wishes he knew enough about crystals to work at them.

Summary

Sends two [unidentified] papers on inheritance of medical malformations. Suggests that besides the inheritance of specific variations, the tendency to show variations in the same organ system (stomach, nervous, etc.) may also be inherited.

Summary

Thanks JP for volume of his lectures [Clinical lectures and essays, ed. H. Marsh (1875)].

Mentions "vivisection question".

Summary

JP’s note [8739] suggests reversion, but that is an easy trap. Will look to the ears of "our brethren at the Zool. Gardens".

Summary

Asks JP to remember him if anything occurs to him "in regard to inheritance at corresponding or rather earlier ages". Sends JP a few examples for his "Chronometry of life". CD is sure he often met with striking facts but he disregarded them. "Deviations alone would have struck me."

Effects of different climates on breeding periods.

Summary

Sends a copy of his lecture Elemental pathology: an address on elemental pathology delivered in the pathological section of the British Medical Association (Paget 1880).

Summary

"I am at work on the nervous mimicry of organic disease: I have some hope that, during my work, I may fall on some facts which may be of interest to you, and you may be sure that I shall send them to you."

Summary

Perhaps you would like to see a very small “tumour” on a lateral branch of the Silver Fur, caused by an Œstrum, as stated (with references) in my Power of Movement in Plants. These tumours are sometimes almost as big as a child’s head. At what age they emit the upright shoot, I do not know.

Summary

Asks to have observations made of a person retching violently, but ejecting nothing from stomach, in order to test relation between spasmodic contraction of orbicular muscles and tears. CD believes tears are caused by matter filling nostrils.

Summary

Is honoured by, and accepts JP’s invitation for 3 August.

Summary

Describes a patient’s ears with peculiar tufts of hair in places where he has never seen them before. Encloses sketch.

Summary

Is delighted with JP’s article on vivisection ["Vivisection: its pains and its uses, No. 1", Nineteenth Century 10 (1881): 920–30]. CD is "boiling over with indignation on the subject".

Summary

"I enclose a note from Lord Fitzwilliam about his horse with zebra-marks. The case seems as striking as I believed."

Summary

"Sir William Gull has just brought me the enclosed quotations from Chaucer, as illustrations of the closure of the eyes in effort. [In "The Nun’s priest’s tale" in Canterbury tales the fox tricks Chanticleer into crowing, whereupon Chanticleer closes his eyes to make the effort (and gets seized by the fox).] He begs me to send them to you.

I have lately seen a terrier who very distinctly frowns during mental excitement – not always with anger, but often, I think, with anxiety, as in expecting food."

Summary

Sends a sentence, quoting JP, on inherited peculiarities in eye-brows. Asks whether he may use it in his chapter on inheritance [Variation, ch. 12].

Summary

A letter introducing T. F. Burgers, President of the Transvaal Republic.

Summary

Thanks for Erasmus Darwin. It is a rare life and an unmatched illustration of the transmission of intellectual strength.

Summary

Thanks JP for bearing in mind his strong wish to learn any facts on inheritance at corresponding ages, and on correlation of growth.

JP’s case of teeth affected by syphilitic parents seems very curious. Would like to hear a few particulars when they meet.

Summary

Asks CD to lunch to meet the Prince of Wales.

Summary

Returns an "old book" [? Baeta, Comparative view of the theories and practice of Drs Cullen, Brown and Darwin (1800); see Erasmus Darwin, p. 107]. Glad to see that Dr Erasmus Darwin’s views on fever were attended to.

Fears his life of Dr Darwin will be a poor affair. "Never again will I be tempted out of my proper work."