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Recollections of a visit to Mr. Darwin —Dec. 19th. He met me at his entrance and took me upstairs to his usual high seat in the Drawing Room. He was as usual full of kindness & sympathies & said it always did him good to talk with me. He was sorry I had come so far &c.

He said that F Darwin was about writing a Review for Nature of Wiessmans Essay. He had read the Abt of his R.S. paper & wished to keep it for FD. to see. He did not understand a good deal of it. I explained about the [2 words illeg]. He was interested to hear about Engelmans conclusions from his research on muscle as to the mechanisms of contraction.

Then he told me what he had obsd on Dionaea [about] the aggregation produced in the cells [illeg] by the action [illeg] sol of Carbonate of ammonia —also about the "aggregation phenom. in Drosera, which Pfeffer had written to him could not be considered as "protoplasmic" at all

There he went on w the vivisection matter, saying how gratified he was that an association was being formed [illeg] & that he thought it very important that [illeg] should be an invalid among medical men for use

[2v]

informing the Public. He told of a conversation had had with Mr Farrer who had been staying with Chamberlain at Birmingham, who, speaking of free trade, said that it was entirely useless to try to argue with people on general principles you must show [illeg] what the effect of a return to protection wd be on the price of a 4 Pd loaf.

So as regards v.v. it was necessary to offer concrete examples of actual good effects.

The argument that the physiology owed it existence to expt that pathology sprung out of physiol. & medicine was founded on pathology had no effect whatever on the generalities of people. He thought Pagets article far more calculated to do good than Wilkes & [recalled] the influence, it had had in convincing Mr Farrer

He told of the lady who had kindly expressed her hope that the time wd come when her (Papa) wd be "flogged through the streets at a Carts tail"