The year is conjectured from the fact that this draft was written on the back of notes for the second edition of Descent, which was published in 1874, and from the fact that Crichton-Browne was appointed a Chancery visitor on 11 December 1875 (Pall Mall Gazette, 11 December 1875, p. 6). It is unlikely that CD would have reused his notes until the end of March 1874, when he finished working on revisions for the second edition of Descent (letter to T. H. Huxley, 28 March [1874]). The post of Chancery visitor of lunatics, which involved visiting lunatics whose affairs were being looked after by Chancery, was prestigious and Crichton-Browne is unlikely to have sought other posts shortly after he was appointed. There is no extant correspondence between CD and Crichton-Browne after 1875.

CD and Crichton-Browne had corresponded since 1869, and Crichton-Brown had sent CD copies of the West Riding Asylum Medical Reports (see, for example, Correspondence vol. 19, letter from James Crichton-Browne, 18 August 1871).

The appointment has not been identified; this may have been a draft of a general-purpose testimonial.