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Darwin Correspondence Project

To T. L. Brunton   25 April 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Ap 25/79

My dear Sir,

I hope that you will forgive me for begging a favour of you. I intend writing a preliminary notice to a short life of my grandfather Dr Eras: Darwin published in germany, & I want to say something about him as a doctor.1 My father thought that he had influenced to a certain extent the practice of medicine in England, but he was of course a partial judge.2 Can you give me any information on this head, for I know that you have attended specially to the subject. I have some curious evidence of eminent contemporary doctors thinking highly of him; but this does not go for much. The Zoonomia it is certain was formerly much studied.3 My father thought that his father’s advice not to mechanically restrain the insane, except when quite necessary, had a beneficial influence on their treatment.4 Again that he was the first who advised the use of stimulants in fever if they lowered the pulse.5 If you can aid me in any way on this subject I shall be very grateful, but it is probable that you have not paid any attention to the Zoonomia.

Any how I trust that you will forgive me for troubling you, & I remain | my dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

1
CD was writing a biographical preface to an English translation of Ernst Krause’s essay on the scientific work of Erasmus Darwin (Krause 1879a).
2
Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848) had followed his father into the medical profession.
3
In Zoonomia, Erasmus Darwin attempted to form a theory of diseases by classifying animal life (E. Darwin 1794–6, 1: 1).
4
By the later eighteenth century, madness was increasingly regarded as an illness rather than as demonic possession, and some medical men and asylum keepers began to advocate techniques that minimised physical coercion, arguing that this produced outward conformity but not the internalisation of moral standards (Scull 2011, p. 44). Erasmus Darwin supported this view in E. Darwin 1794–6, 2: 352.
5
Erasmus Darwin argued that the lowering of the pulse in a fever patient by the administration of wine or beer was an indication that the correct dose of stimulant had been ascertained (E. Darwin 1794–6, 1: 99). In advocating the use of stimulants Erasmus was following John Brown (bap. 1735 d. 1788), whose methods required close monitoring of pulse, temperature, and general condition during the critical phases of illness (Reinarz and Wynter 2014, p. 130). In Erasmus Darwin, p. 107, CD acknowledged that Erasmus was not the first to advocate such treatment.

Bibliography

Darwin, Erasmus. 1794–6. Zoonomia; or, the laws of organic life. 2 vols. London: J. Johnson.

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

Krause, Ernst. 1879a. Erasmus Darwin, der Großvater und Vorkämpfer Charles Darwin’s: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Descendenz-Theorie. Kosmos 4 (1878–9): 397–424.

Reinarz, Jonathan and Wynter, Rebecca. 2014. The spirit of medicine: the use of alcohol in nineteeth-century medical practice. In Drink in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, edited by Susanne Schmid and Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp. London: Pickering & Chatto.

Scull, Andrew. 2011. Madness: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Summary

Asks for information about his grandfather’s influence on medical practice, to be used in his preface to Erasmus Darwin [1879, p. 107].

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12011,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12011.xml

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