From S. W. Moore 3 October 1873
113 Brixton Road | S.W.
3. 10. 73
Dear Sir
I thank you very much for your kind letter, & offer of your works,1 I have free access to the British Museum Library & have taken great interest in the perusal of your works generally the last of them the “Expression of Emotions” has afforded me some very useful & instructive reading & it would give me great pleasure to hold one from your hands.
I have been collecting facts for some time, purposely to explain & illustrate a matter wrapped in great mystery & that is the cause of marks, nævi, malformations etc received in utero & I think many of your remarks in the above lead to suggestive thoughts on this matter.2
I am sorry I did not take sufficient care in the sending of the syntonine, but about 1 dram of pepsin to 1 quart of water & an ounce of your dilute acid would meet the case, that is 3 grains of pepsine to 2 oz water with .2% hydrochloric acid, pepsine of shops contains variable quantities of starch so that double that quantity might be used.3
I do not entirely agree with Watts in this case a certain amount of vegetable matter is soluble in water but hardly of legumen because in the residue but a small proportion Nitrogen is to be found; when peas are boiled they lose but little of the 25.% legumen they contain because it is this body that gives them their special nutrient properties, it seems to me to be more the starchy matter which dissolves, in conjunction with some of the chlorophyll a matter not considered so fully in the days of Gerhardt; if however the seeds were germinating then a soluble form of albumen does exist & may be dissolved in water4
In a few days you may expect the Chlorophyll5 & I trust you will not consider you are troubling me if you should want further assistance
I remain | Dear Sir | Yours very truly | S. W. Moore.
Ch Darwin Esqe F.R.S.
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Gerhardt, Charles. 1853–6. Traité de chimie organique. 4 vols. Paris, Leipzig: Firmin Didot frères.
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Watts, Henry. 1872–4. A dictionary of chemistry and the allied branches of other sciences. 2d edition. 5 vols. London: Longman, Green, & Co.
Summary
Sends formula for pure pepsin for experiments on digestion of Drosera, and information on legumin. Will send chlorophyll soon.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9086
- From
- Samuel William Moore
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Brixton Rd, 113
- Source of text
- DAR 58.1: 41–2
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9086,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9086.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 21