From T. H. Huxley 21 April 1875
Council of Education | Kensington Museum
April 21. 1875
My dear Darwin
The day before yesterday I met Playfair at the Club and he told me that he had heard from Miss Elliot that I was getting up what she called a “Vivisector’s Bill”—& that Lord Cardwell was very anxious to talk with some of us about the matter—1
So you see that there is no secret about our proceedings. I gave him a general idea of what was doing, and he quite confirmed what Lubbock2 said about the improbability of any action being taken in Parliament this session
Playfair said he should like very much to know what we proposed doing—and I should think that it would be a good thing to take him into consultation
On my return I found that Pflüger had sent me his memoir, with a note such as he sent to you—3
I read it last night and I am inclined to think that it is a very important piece of work
He shows that frogs absolutely deprived of Oxygen give off Carbonic acid for 25 hours—& gives very strong reasons for believing that the evolution of Carbonic acid by living matter in general is the result of a process of internal re-arrangement of the molecules of the living matter—& not of direct oxidation4
His speculations about the origin of living matter are the best I have seen yet—so far as I understand them But he plunges into the depths of the higher chemistry in which I am by no means at home— Only this I can see that the paper is worth careful study
Ever | Yours faithy | T H Huxley
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Pflüger, Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm. 1875. Beiträge zur Lehre von der Respiration I. Über die physiologische Verbrennung in den lebendigen Organismen. Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie des Menschen und der Tiere 10: 251–367.
Summary
Lord Cardwell thinks it unlikely that Parliament will take any action on a vivisection bill this session. Playfair should be consulted.
E. F. W. Pflüger’s important memoir on how carbonic acid is produced by living matter and his speculation about origin of living matter [see 9931].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9942
- From
- Thomas Henry Huxley
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Council on Education, Kensington Museum
- Source of text
- DAR 166: 339
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9942,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9942.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23