Ɛpsilon

From Samuel Wilks   26 July 1879

77, Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square, | W.

July 26. 1879

My dear Sir

I am sending you by this post a copy of the oration I lately delivered at the College of Physicians— I should scarcely have ventured to have done so, had I not been honoured by your presence on that occasion—1 I shall always regard it on this account one ⁠⟨⁠of⁠⟩⁠ the most memorable days of my life—

I am only too pleased to have this excuse to enable me to say that I am one amongst a multitude ⁠⟨⁠    ⁠⟩⁠ you have never heard,—who have been your devoted disciples— As far as any scientific work can be done in my own profession I have endeavoured though in a very minor degree to follow the methods you have so well pursued.—

My oration though imperfect was intended to speak in a like spirit.2

Believe me | My dear Sir | With profound esteem & most affectionate regards | Yrs Sincerely | Samuel Wilks

To Charles Darwin Esq

1
On 26 June 1879, CD had received the Baly medal, a biennial award in physiology, on the occasion of the Harveian oration (see letter to H. A. Pitman, 17 June 1879 and nn. 1 and 2). CD’s copy of Wilks’s oration (Wilks 1879a) has not been found.
2
In his lecture, Wilks had stressed the relation between disease and physiology and cited the work of CD and Thomas Henry Huxley in this context (see Wilks 1879a, p. 16).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12174,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12174