Dear Darwin

We have had a terrible fight with the grim destroyer, but I do hope that we have pulled baby out of his clutches for the present.¹ Up to the present hour (10 am) he has had no fits for 12 hours—& is taking his Asses milk freely & looking brighter. I quite suppose it was a case of defective nutrition, the nervous system especially not being nourished—since he was weaned, though the child looked so well & plump, & took its food so freely, that no one guessed that anything could be the matter— I kept at him day & night, craming in nutrient by oil rubbing, keeping a lump of bacon in his mouth during the fits, which lasted 5, 8, & in one case nearly 10 hours, without intermission, & during which he took no other food. The affection was confined to nerves of motion— the last was on Monday, when he lay 5 hours, violently jerked twice every second, with perfect rhythmic regularity, each jump sufficient to have tossed him up in the air: the muscles all clenched as if with strychnine, except those of the face, which were all in motion—& the pulse at 156— No doctor had seen anything like it & I have had 5 at him—& I am sure that Sibson² was right, & that it is a mere case of defective nutrition.—that his blood is, like his mother’s, deficient in red globules, or quality of these.

Mrs Hooker is all right again.³

Ever yr affec | J D Hooker