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Show moreLetter to Robert Stecher discussing possible reasons for Charles Darwin's bad health. Transcription: "15/3/1948 Dear Dr. Stecher, It was a great pleasure to get your letter + to read the interesting excerpt from Dr. Alvarez's work. How good of you to have it typed, so that I can keep it with other reports I have of me grandfather's ill-health. Very many thanks. The doctors do not yet agree on this topic; Dr. Douglas Hubble (The Lancet Jan. 30-1943) considers that Charles' fear of his father, Robert, was an important factor in the neurosis to which he attributes his 40 years of ill-health. Dr. Buckstone Browne considers it a simple matter of stomach trouble which could have been cured by dieting! I think Dr. Alvarez's approach the right one; + have always seen in Rom Wedgwood (who, by the way was Emma's uncle, not brother) a neurotic state which together with the Darwin contribution through Dr. Erasmus, could be made to account too much. But without much more work it is impossible to say very definitely, + there are almost always stray uncles + aunts in every family tree to account for oddities! But if it is true that a poor nervous heredity came in on both sides of the family, it is indeed remarkable that with the frequent cousin marriages that took place for three generations, no more cases of nervous instability occurred. It is curious too to consider, that Tom Wedgwood, A brilliant mental endowment well above the average, infused into hopeless inertia, as did C.O's brother, Erasmus. But in C.O himself + two of his sons + one daughter. any nervous trouble that existed seems to have affected the stomach, + not to have impaired the will to work. I hope you will get your collection of caricatures + cartoons together; + what about the baldness? Perhaps you will be visiting England [], in which case I trust you will let us know, as it would be a great pleasure to see you again Yours Sincerely Nora Barlow Dr. Robert M. Stecher City Hospital Cleveland USA" Letter, signed by sender. Envelope included. Sent from Boswells, Wendover, Aylesbury.
The Robert M. Stecher Collection of Charles Darwin Books and Manuscripts
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