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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Lawson Tait   16 July [1880]1

My dear Sir

I shd be the most ungracious of men if I hesitated to accept the honour of the intended prize-medal, & will answer accordingly when I receive the official letter.—2

I saw something in the newspaper about the Fund, & admired greatly the noble spirit of Birmingham. I supposed that it was confined to the place; otherwise I hope & believe that it wd have occurred to me spontaneously to have subscribed.— As it is, I shall be most happy to do so. I do not, however, understand whether it is an annual subscription; or a donation for a fund, the interest of which alone is employed.— I shd be glad to subscribe 2.2.0 annually or what I shd prefer wd be to give 25£ the interest of which wd be about 1£ annually, & as I am an old man, this wd be best plan for the Fund. Will you kindly take the trouble to advise me.3

I wd give more, but in truth the claims on my purse are many.—

Pray Believe me | my dear Sir | yours very f. C. D.

P.S. You sent 2 surgical papers to my son F. (who at present is away from home) and I have read them with interest.4 Your success in ovariotomy is truly wonderful. I had a sister who many years ago died from this cause, and now she might have been saved!5 Surgery is indeed a grand scientific art.—

L. Tait Esqre— July 16th

Footnotes

The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from E. W. Badger, 17 July 1880.
Letter from E. W. Badger, 17 July 1880. The Midland Union of Scientific and Literary Societies had resolved to offer a ‘Darwin prize’ or medal for original work on local topics (see letter from Lawson Tait, 15 July [1880] and n. 2).
An article in Nature, 1 July 1880, p. 203, reported on the fund established by the Birmingham Philosophical Society for the endowment of original research and on the first recipient of a grant, George Gore (see letter from Lawson Tait, 15 July [1880] and n. 4). For CD’s contributions, see the letter from Lawson Tait, 15 July [1880] and n. 5.
Francis Darwin was probably in Wales at this time (see letter from Francis Darwin, [1 August 1880]); he went to Coniston in the Lake District from about 7 to 17 August (letter from Emma Darwin to W. E. Darwin, [18 August 1880] (DAR 219.1: 137). The papers sent by Tait have not been found, but were probably two recently published papers from the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions on surgical procedures (Tait 1880a and 1880b).
Tait was a pioneer in ovariotomy (surgical removal of ovaries) and performed one hundred procedures with the loss of only three patients (ODNB, Tait 1880a). CD’s sister Marianne Parker died in 1858 of ‘chronic disease of the ovarium’ (Certificate of death, Marian Parker, 1858, Overton (General Register Office, England)).

Bibliography

Tait, Lawson. 1880a. The antiseptic theory tested by the statistics of one hundred cases of successful ovariotomy. [Read 10 February 1880.] Medico-Chirurgical Transactions 63: 161–80.

Tait, Lawson. 1880b. On the treatment of pelvic suppuration by abdominal section and drainage. [Read 11 May 1880.] Medico-Chirurgical Transactions 63: 307–16.

Summary

Is honoured by RLT’s announcement, and offers a contribution to the Birmingham scientific fund.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12659
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 202: 86
Physical description
ADraftS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12659,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12659.xml

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