RECORD: Anon. 1882. The late Mr. Darwin. The Times (29 April): 7.

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed (single key) by AEL Data 2010, corrections by John van Wyhe 2.2012. RN1

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[page] 7

THE LATE MR. DARWIN.—The funeral sermon for the late Mr. Darwin will be preached in Westminster Abbey to-morrow afternoon, at 3, by the Bishop of Carlisle. The British Medical Journal has the following:— "Under the domination of a many-sided, sensitive, and highly strung nervous system, the health of the late Charles Darwin was always delicate, and often seriously impaired. For many years he was a sufferer from catarrhal dyspepsia; later, he suffered from various irregular manifestations of a gouty constitution, such as eczema, vaso-motor nerve-storms, vertigo, and other disorders of sensation. Nevertheless, by means of great care in diet, exercise, and regularity of sleep, he managed to keep himself in sufficiently good order for almost continual work of the highest kind. A year ago he became subject to attacks of palpitation, with irregularity of the heart's action, occasionally accompanied by pain in the chest, spreading to the arms. A few months since it was found that the heart and greater blood vessels were degenerating. The anginal attacks became more frequent, and signs of heart failure more serious; and it was, as we understand, in one of these attacks that our greatest naturalist expired. There are two common errors concerning Charles Darwin—one is that that illustrious man was a professor, while, in fact, he never held any chair or fulfilled any educational duties that would entitle him to be so-called; the second is the prevalent opinion that, in pursuit of the study of his great theory, he worked from morning to night. The truth is that the delicate state of his health rendered him incapable of prolonged thought for more than about three hours daily. His success was due to the fact that he concentrated all his powers of thought on one subject, so that the yearly sum of the very few hours devoted on each day to such thought amounted to the high display of mental energy the result of which is demonstrated by his works and by the great influence they have exercised on modern science and philosophy."


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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

File last updated 30 November, 2022