Thanks JSBS for telegraphing his results, which seem very remarkable; feels he should now try Drosera.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Thanks JSBS for telegraphing his results, which seem very remarkable; feels he should now try Drosera.
Very pleased at JSBS’s discovery ["On the electrical phenomena which accompany the contractions of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Rep. BAAS 43 (1873): 133].
Asks for pure animal substances [proteins] for Drosera experiments. His other sources have been T. L. Brunton, Edward Frankland, W. A. Miller (now dead), and Hoffmann of Berlin [A. W. von Hofmann?].
Hears from Frank [Darwin] that Drosera behaves perversely. Suggests that motor influence may move longitudinally away from the excited glands.
Frankland is sending JSBS organic acids for him to try artificial digestion. CD will send globulin and haemoglobin.
Sends the very little globulin and haemoglobin he has to be tested with artificial gastric juice. He could get more from Samuel William Moore. Perhaps T. L. Brunton knows about the digestion of chlorophyll by animals.
Sends his MS on Dionaea and hopes it may be useful for JSBS’s lecture ["On the mechanism of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 7 (1874): 332–5].
Thanks for MS which he intends to read while on a week’s holiday.
Sends thanks for Francis Darwin’s offer of help and says that Francis’s experiments on digestion are complete.
Thanks for the careful experiments, particularly on organic acids.
Thanks for the acid digestion experiments, which can be printed as they are. CD trying Drosera on dentine and enamel.
Discusses digestion by insectivorous plants, asks JSBS to try same experiments using pepsin as the digestive agent to see how the results compare with CD’s observations on digestive power of Drosera.
Thanks JSBS for his work. CD concludes the ferment of Drosera must differ from pepsin.
JSBS’s article in Nature ["Venus’s fly-trap", 10 (1874): 105–7, 127–8] could not have been better done.
Has found another plant, Pinguicula, which can catch and digest flies.
Thanks for fibrin. Drosera and Pinguicula dissolve it thoroughly.
Has been testing the digestive powers of Drosera; wants to know whether a group of substances that elicit similar responses are related.
Discusses the powers of digestion of Drosera and why certain substances produce less excitement in the plant than others.
Suggests experiments on artificial digestion.
Has been experimenting with phosphates on Drosera and wonders whether animals digest a particular one.
Asks whether Huxley has approached him regarding the introduction of a vivisection act.
Discusses the experiments with phosphates on Drosera and animals.
Considers the question of preparing a petition on the question of animal experiments, with the aim of promoting rather than hindering science. [Response to 9849.]
Considers the question of recognised lecturers being allowed a licence to perform animal experiments without having to obtain a certificate of fitness.
Sends the Memorial [concerning animal experimentation].