Ɛpsilon

To J. S. Keltie   [after 24 September 1880]1

[Down.]

Dear Sir

I have no objection to your proposal if a single sentence is used,— so as not to appear as if I was patronizing Prof. Wilder.— Something like the following one would perhaps do.—

Mr Darwin has forwarded to us the following article, as he thinks that the suggestion there contained deserves consideration in this country.2

ADraft

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from J. S. Keltie, 24 September 1880.
2
See letter from J. S. Keltie, 24 September 1880 and n. 1. CD had forwarded a letter on vivisection by Burt Green Wilder to Nature; it had originally been published in the Medical Record: a Weekly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 21 August 1880, pp. 219–20. An extract from the letter with a preface similar to the one suggested by CD was reprinted in Nature, 30 September 1880, pp. 517–18. Wilder’s suggestion was to distinguish painless (under anaesthetic) from painful vivisection, noting that the vast majority of operations (including all those for teaching) were painless; but he argued that painful operations might still be performed under special conditions for research purposes. For more on CD’s involvement with vivisection debates, see Correspondence vol. 23, Appendix VI.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 to your proposal] interl
1.1 so] after interl & del ‘, and the following one’
2.1 as] above del ‘which’
2.1 that … contained 2.2] interl
2.2 country.] before del ‘& which we gave in an alternative form’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12727,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12727