To Lawson Tait 5 May 1876
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
May 5. 76
My dear Sir
I have at last heard about the Physiological Referee, but my informant was directed not to communicate to me the exact language, but only the sense of the Referee’s report.1 I will now copy what my informant says:—2
“The referees report that the modifications which Mr L. T has introduced into Brücke’s process for isolating pepsin consist in neglecting certain precautions without which the method is useless.3 He relies on neutralisation for separating his droserin.4 This process can have no diagnostic value, seing that innumerable substances would behave in this manner. The hygroscopic quality of his azein on which he insists is also unimportant since it is common to many derivitives of proteids, ex: gr. peptones5 His method of determining the nature of the acid by comparative trials is valueless, because he has reduced them to a standard strength & Brücke has shown that different acids act equally effectively at different strengths. His method however of estimating the degree of acidity of the different acids is in itself defective in the absence of any evidence as to the purity & constant quality of the litmus used”.6
I am extremely sorry to be compelled to convey the above information to you my dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Brücke, Ernst Wilhelm. 1861. Beiträge zur Lehre von der Verdauung. Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien. Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse 43 (2d part): 601–23.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Fruton, Joseph S. 2002. A history of pepsin and related enzymes. Quarterly Review of Biology 77: 127–47.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Tait, Lawson. 1879. Researches on the digestive principles of plants. [Read 22 May 1879.] Proceedings of the Birmingham Philosophical Society 1 (1876–9) pt 2: 125–39.
Summary
CD sends the gist of an extremely negative report from the [Royal Society’s] physiological referee on the value of RLT’s modifications of Brücke’s process for isolating pepsin [see 10470].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10497
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Shrewsbury School, Taylor Library
- Physical description
- LS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10497,” accessed on 17 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10497.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24