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From J. S. Burdon Sanderson   14 May 1879

26, Gordon Square. | W.C.

May 14th 1879

Dear Mr. Darwin

I have this morning received your note. It would have arrived yesterday had it not been addressed to Queen Anne Street.1

The Baly in whose memory the Medal was instituted was the Translator of Müllers Physiology. The donor of the Medal Fund is Mr. Dyster, a friend of Balys and a man much interested in physiology, though not himself a naturalist.2

The Medal bears the words “Ob physiologiam feliciter excultam”.3 It is given every other year. The last recipient was Ludwig, the previous one Bernard & the previous one Sharpey.4

If you feel that it wd. be too fatiguing to attend at the College, it is not by any means indispensable that you should do so. Neither Bernard nor Ludwig were present. If you do come it will be a great pleasure to your friends. The only penalty that you would have to pay would be that of having to listen for an hour to the Harveian Orator. My neighbour Dr Pitman the Registrar of the College assures me that it could be easily arranged that you should come in at the end of the hour, in case you feel that this would be too fatiguing.5

It is not necessary (I again write on the authority of the Registrar) for the Medallist to say anything in acknowledgment. The Medal is presented immediately after the oration.

I may add that Mr Dyster has expressed his extreme gratification at the selection the College have made on the present occasion.

I am, Dear Mr Darwin | Yours truly | J B Sanderson

1
See letter to J. S. Burdon Sanderson, 13 May 1879. Burdon Sanderson used to live in Queen Anne Street, London (Correspondence vol. 23, letter from J. S. Burdon Sanderson, 23 May [1875]). Gordon Square is about a mile away.
2
On William Baly’s translation of Johannes Müller’s work, see the letter to J. S. Burdon Sanderson, 13 May 1879 and n. 2. Frederick Daniel Dyster, a physician in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, had founded the medal in 1866 in memory of Baly, who had died in a train accident in 1861 (ODNB). Dyster was also an amateur naturalist; his principal interest was in annelid worms (Daves 1981, p. 18).
3
Ob physiologiam feliciter excultam: for successfully advancing physiology (Latin).
4
Carl Ludwig, Claude Bernard, and William Sharpey were recipients of the Baly medal in 1877, 1875, and 1873, respectively.
5
In 1879, the Harveian oration was delivered by Samuel Wilks (Wilks 1879a). Henry Alfred Pitman was the registrar of the Royal College of Physicians of London; he had written to inform CD of the award of the Baly medal (letter from H. A. Pitman, 9 May 1879).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12052A,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12052A