Ɛpsilon

To the editor of The Times1   23 June 1876

To the Editor of the Times

sir,

as every one who is capable of forming a sound judgment on the subject is convinced that the relief of human suffering in future depends chiefly on the progress of physiology, i hope that you will find space in your columns for the enclosed article by dr. richardson, which has just appeared in “nature”.2 the article shews in a practical manner, and more conclusively than anything that has been published elsewhere, the necessity of experiments on living animals. women, who from the tenderness of their hearts and from their profound ignorance are the most vehement opponents of all such experiments, will i hope pause when they learn that a few3 such experiments performed under the influence of anaesthetics, have saved and will save through all future time, thousands of women from a dreadful and lingering death. it is humiliating to reflect that those to whom mankind owe the deepest debt of gratitude should now be overwhelmed by falsehood and calumny

i am, sir, | your obedient servant | Charles Darwin

Down, Beckenham

June 23rd. 1876.

TLS

1
The editor of The Times was John Thadeus Delane. This letter was written on a printing machine that printed only capitals, with manuscript alterations not in CD’s hand; it was not published in The Times.
2
The first two parts of Benjamin Ward Richardson’s seven-part report on animal experimentation were published in Nature on 15 and 22 June 1876 (B. W. Richardson 1876). They were not republished in The Times. ‘Article’ has been interlined before ‘letter’, deleted. ‘nature’ has been underlined by hand, and the quotation marks were added by hand.
3
Interlined above ‘dozen’, deleted.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10546,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10546