From C. C. Blake 20 February 1871
46 Devonshire Street | Queens Square W. C.
February 20th 1871
My Dear Sir.
I have just received with great pleasure a copy of your work, which I shall of course not criticise in the Medico Chirurgical Review till I have carefully read it.1 Thank you much for your kind notice of me.2
I have been led to corroborate your observations ii. 380. by my own experience of the Mosquito Indians.3 There is not even tradition of the natives having practised artifical compression of the skull, yet a distinct artifical compression is visible. The children are not swaddled, nor cradled. I think that Gosse may have been right after all.4
You may be assured that in my review, I shall have no other object than fiat justicia ruat cœlum,5 & if I have to modify some of my previously published opinions, the shame will merely attach to myself.6
I should be tempted to extend this letter, but I know just now that you must be overwhelmed with congratulations.
Yours very sincerely | C. Carter Blake
C. Darwin Esq FRS
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Gosse, Louis-André. 1855. Essai sur les deformations artificielles du crâne. Annales d’hygiène publique et de médicine légale 2d ser. 3: 317–93.
Summary
Has just received copy of CD’s work [Descent].
Can corroborate artificial compression of skull practised by Indians.
May have to modify his earlier published opinions on CD’s views.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7495
- From
- Charles Carter Blake
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Devonshire St, 46
- Source of text
- DAR 160: 199
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7495,” accessed on 20 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7495.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19