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From James Paget   14 August 1875

Rectory. | Godstone

Aug. 14. 1875

My dear Darwin

I enclose a copy of the description of an outgrown stump in the Museum at St. Bartholomew’s—1 Two similar cases have lately occurred, I am told, in the Hospital—

Your last report of your case makes it, I think, yet more probable that the amputation was done through a bone or cartilage— The objection which Syme made against a deeper cutting was, probably, founded on the fear of cutting into a joint—2

I should like, before seeming to think everything settled, to look again through Sir J: Simpson’s cases: and I will do this when next I go to town.3

Sincerely your’s | James Paget.

Charles Darwin Esq.

CD annotations

Top of letter: ‘Nails | an other case of | 2d Regrowth | & case of’ blue crayon

Footnotes

1
The enclosure has not been found. Paget had been a lecturer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.
2
No letter to Paget on the subject of the reported regrowth of an extra finger removed by the surgeon James Syme has been found, but see the letter from Annie Dowie, [after 27 July 1875], and the letter to Annie Dowie, 1 August [1875].
3
In Variation 2: 15, CD cited James Young Simpson’s paper on the apparent regrowth of amputated limbs in human foetuses (Simpson 1848); he removed the discussion from the text of the second edition, noting Paget’s doubts about Simpson’s cases in a footnote (see Variation 2d ed. 2: 358 n. 22).

Bibliography

Simpson, James Young. 1848. Cases of spontaneous amputation of the forearm, and subsequent rudimentary regeneration of the hand in the fœtus. Monthly Journal of Medical Science n.s. 2: 890.

Variation 2d ed.: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1875.

Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.

Summary

Encloses copy of description of an outgrown stump. Refers to letter [missing] in which CD reports on a case of amputation. Would like to check J. Simpson’s cases before thinking everything is settled.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10117
From
James Paget, 1st baronet
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Godstone
Source of text
DAR 174: 10
Physical description
ALS 2pp †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10117,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10117.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23

letter

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