RECORD: Herbert, J. M. 1882.06.12. [Recollections of Darwin]. CUL-DAR112.A60-A61. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Kees Rookmaaker 8.2008. Corrections by John van Wyhe. RN2
NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with the permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
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[in another hand] J.M. Herbert
[printed letterhead] Rocklands, Ross.
Kerne Bridge Station. Telegrams to Ross.
12 June 1882
Dear Mr F. Darwin
I have forwarded your letter to Whitley. His address is Revd. Canon Whitley, Bedlington Vicarage, Northumberland. I will remember meeting you in the Railway train and recognizing you by the likeness of your
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voice to your father's. — Since I wrote an incident has come back to my memory which may be of some interest. One day in his rooms he doped a large Beetle with a penful of prussic acid. The creature almost instantaneously kicked & fell over on his back apparently dead — but after a few minutes exposure
to the lense it rallied and wattled off as if nothing had happened to it, to our general amazement. Was this a discovery in toxicology?
When in my notes I spoke of your Father's enjoyment of fine music, I might have mentioned my accompanying him one afternoon to the service at Trinity, when we heard a very beautiful anthem -
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At the end of one of the parts, which was exceedingly impressive, he turned round to me & said with a deep sigh "How's your backbone?" — He had at one time an eruption about the mouth for which he took small doses of arsenic. He told me that he had mentd this treatment to his Father — & that his Father had warned him that the cure might be attached with worse consequences. — I forget what he said the risk was. I think it was partial paralysis.
Very truly yrs
J.M. Herbert
F. Darwin Esq.
Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
File last updated 25 September, 2022