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Darwin Correspondence Project

To J. F. W. Herschel1   13 June [1849]

The Lodge | Malvern

June 13th.—

My dear Sir

I thank you cordially for your extremely kind note & for all the trouble & precautions which you have taken, & which are almost more than the occasion deserves.— I have, also, had a very obliging note from Mr. Murray, written, I think, before even he had heard from you, so that all will be made quite right & very much obliged I am to you. I hope that the volume may bring forth some good fruit & so repay you for your trouble in superintending it.—

I have been here for three months under Dr. Gully & the Cold Water Cure, which has had an astonishingly renovating action on my health; before coming here I was almost quite broken down, head swimming, hands tremulous & never a week without violent vomiting, all this is gone, & I can now walk between two & three miles. Physiologically it is most curious how the violent excitement of the skin, produced by simple water, has acted on all my internal organs.

I mention all this out of gratitude to a process which I thought quackery a year since, but which now I most deeply lament I had not heard of some few years ago.

Excuse this medical dissertation, & believe me dear Sir John Herschel, with much respect | Yours sincerely obliged | C. Darwin

Footnotes

John Frederick William Herschel was the editor of the Admiralty manual (Herschel ed. 1849), about which CD complained in his letter to John Murray, 7 June [1849].

Summary

Thanks JFWH for the trouble he has taken to correct printing error in "Geology".

Discusses Dr Gully’s water-cure.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-1246
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Frederick William Herschel, 1st baronet
Sent from
Malvern
Source of text
The Royal Society (HS6: 16)
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1246,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1246.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 4

letter