Ɛpsilon

To William Walmisley Baxter   23 September [1857–9?]1

Down.

Sept 23

Dear Sir

I am sorry to say that the returned gloves are not at all tougher or stiffer than those which I possess. If you could get me a pair made with stiffer hairs, or bristles, I shd. be very much obliged.2

Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin.

1
The year span is conjectured from the date when W. W. Baxter took over the Bromley pharmacy of his father, William Baxter (1857), and based on the years after then when CD took the most hydropathic treatments (see n. 2, below). CD gave up hydropathy after 1863 (Browne 2002, p. 238), and he was not at home on 23 September in 1860, 1862, and 1863. He underwent a number of hydropathic treatments in 1857, 1858, and 1859. See Correspondence vols. 6–11. There is a handwritten note on the letter, reading, ‘from Wm Baxter Junr March 18[88]. | Bromley Kent’, which suggests that W. W. Baxter sent the letter to someone else after CD’s death. However, it is possible that the letter was written to his father. CD first took the water cure in 1849.
2
Horsehair gloves were used to apply friction as part of hydropathic treatment, including as part of the treatment for nervous indigestion, from which CD suffered (Gully 1846, p. 162).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2142F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2142F