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To B. W. Richardson   [before 30 May 1879]1

I have been brought to the conviction from the very large experience of my father and grandfather, which has extended over a century, that no cause has led to so much suffering and inherited ill-health as the consumption of alcohol.2

Footnotes

1
The date is established by the fact that Richardson alluded to CD’s views on alcohol, in association with those of his father, Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848), and his grandfather Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), in his inaugural address to the British Medical Temperance Association (B. W. Richardson 1879, p. 13), on 30 May 1879.
2
In his inaugural address to the British Medical Temperance Association, Richardson wrote that Erasmus Darwin was earnest in his support of the principles of temperance, and added, ‘the illustrious representative of the name of Darwin to this day maintains the principle in unbroken line’. CD quoted Richardson’s remark about Erasmus Darwin in Erasmus Darwin, p. 58, following his own discussion of Erasmus’s views on alcohol. In B. W. Richardson [1882], a later temperance work, Richardson said that CD wrote the letter to him from which this extract came ‘a few years ago’.

Bibliography

Erasmus Darwin. By Ernst Krause. Translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice by Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1879.

Richardson, Benjamin Ward. 1879. British Medical Temperance Association. Inaugural address delivered at the annual meeting in the Medical Society of London’s rooms, May 30, 1879. London: the Association.

Richardson, Benjamin Ward. [1882.] Drink and strong drink: a series of readings for schools and families. London and Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, & Co.

Summary

Convinced from the experience of his father and grandfather that no cause has led to so much suffering and inherited ill-health as the consumption of alcohol.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-9223F
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Benjamin Ward Richardson
Source of text
B. W. Richardson [1882], p. 144

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9223F,” accessed on 5 June 2025, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9223F.xml

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Darwin Correspondence Project
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