Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington S.E.R.)
October 10th 1880
Dear Sir
I am very much obliged to you for your great kindness in having sent me a copy of your work on parasitic worms.1 The subject has always interested me, & I am sure that I shall profit by reading your work.2
Believe me Dear Sir | Yours faithfully & obliged | Charles Darwin
CD had collected parasitic worms during the Beagle voyage (see Correspondence vol. 17, letter to T. S. Cobbold, 9 August [1869]). In Origin, p. 70, he noted that when animals of the same species were crowded into a small space epidemics ensued, caused in some cases by parasitic worms, which flourished in such situations because of their facility of diffusion among crowded animals.
Acknowledges receipt of R-LM’s book on parasitic worms. [Perhaps Essai monographique sur les cysticerques (1880) in vol. 3 of the Travaux of the Institut Zoologique de Lille.]