From J. D. Hooker   12 November 1862

Kew

Nov 12 1862

Dr Darwin

I have found out that Haughton is the identical one & indivisible with our Nat. & prejudiced reviewer of the Origin.1 He is certainly a man of large capacity, & that is his special quality— he has taken to the Medical classes lately & turned his attention to poisons,—2 My own impression as regards his strychnine case3 is that it is only a deduction from Dr. Andersons discovery, some 8 years ago, that one Narcotic &c counteracts another, I do not know where Andersons paper was published, but can enquire & let you know—4

Haughton is as I am given to understand a man without any faculties of imagination or discovery.—but a plodder & applies with many horse power brains. He will grapple any subject on a moments notice, & the only thing to be deplored is that some of his friends would not put him up to a wrinkle or two on Theology, & let him get his steam up— wouldn’t he just break things!—

I send the Maize book by Carrier today, & it will go on from Nag’s head tomorrow by your Carrier.5

I have a little yesterday from our West Africa collector, he has been across Du Chaillus country & says his accounts are all false. 6 That impudent liar Burton (another Geogr. Soc. protegee) has in a public despatch) filched away all poor Mann’s credit for the ascent of the Cameroons, calls it his Expedition, planned & carried out by him, & calls Mann his volunteer associate.7 I never read any thing so gross in my life— Poor Mann had set his heart on this thing for 2 years, had failed the first time, & was actually leaving F. Po. for the ascent when Burton arrived at F. Po as Consul, did leave & had ascended the Mt. several weeks before Burton following him was at its foot; having prepared the way & provided guides & every thing— I am quite disgusted, but hardly know how to act, I dislike & despise the Geogr. Soc. way of going so much that I do not like to bring the matter forward there, & as to having a quarrel with Burton, we all know what it is to touch pitch.8

I have some more matters (in your letter) to write about, but they are not at hand here (B. House) where I am examining.9

Ever Yours | J D Hooker

CD annotations10

Top of first page: ‘(Acropera)’ ink
End of letter: ‘Hooker | L Büchner11 | on Mann | Welwitschia’ ink
1
See letter to J. D. Hooker, 3 November [1862] and n. 14. Hooker refers to Samuel Haughton, author of a critical review of Origin that was published in the Natural History Review ([Haughton] 1860b).
2
Haughton had been professor of geology at the University of Dublin since 1851; he entered the university’s medical school in 1859, at the age of 38, in order to obtain a better knowledge of anatomy for his palaeontological researches. He graduated in 1862 and was appointed medical registrar of the school (DNB).
3
Haughton 1862.
4
The reference is probably to Anderson 1848, a paper documenting a ‘Case of Recovery from a poisonous dose of Strychnia’; it was published in the Monthly Journal of Medical Science 8 (1848): 566–74. In the paper, Thomas Anderson, professor of chemistry at the university of Glasgow, and an expert on the chemistry of narcotics, stated (p. 569): The question may be raised as to how far the action of the strychnia may have been affected by the habitual use of opium … In this case, it is just possible that intoxication [with opium] may have prevented the immediate access of symptoms [of strychnine poisoning], exactly as it is known to do in the case of poisoning by opium.
5
Bonafous 1836 (see letter from J. D. Hooker, [18 October 1862] and n. 6). Hooker refers to George Snow, who operated a weekly carrier service between Down and London.
6
Gustav Mann was botanical collector for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on the Niger expedition led by William Balfour Baikie (R. Desmond 1995, p. 433). The veracity of Paul Belloni Du Chaillu’s account of his explorations and adventures in equatorial Africa (Du Chaillu 1861) had been repeatedly questioned and was the cause of much public controversy (see Vaucaire 1930, pp. 125–41).
7
Burton 1862. Richard Francis Burton was appointed British consul in Fernando Po, West Africa, in March 1862. He had previously received Royal Geographical Society support for a projected expedition to cross the Arabian peninsula, and for an exploring expedition into Central Africa (DNB).
8
Hooker sought to secure Mann’s reputation in a paper read before the Linnean Society on 5 November 1863 (J. D. Hooker 1863c). He apparently began the paper at the end of 1862; in a letter to Thomas Henry Huxley of [before 19 December 1862] (The Huxley Papers, College Archives, Imperial College, London, V.3.78), Hooker wrote: ‘I am making a précis of our poor German collector, G. Mann’s, West African letters, to contradict Burton’s assertions’. In his account of Mann’s ascent of the Cameroon mountains (J. D. Hooker 1863c, p. 174), Hooker stated: Some of the physical characters of the group have been described in a memorandum transmitted to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by Consul Burton, who accompanied Mr. Mann on his second visit to this group. The account there given of this adventurous expedition seeming to imply that it was one planned and conducted by Consul Burton, to which Mr. Mann had attached himself, I have been desired by Mr. Mann to publish the accompanying statement of the facts of the case as communicated by himself The subsequent report demonstrated, as Hooker noted, that Mann began his exploration ‘nine months before Consul Burton arrived on the coast of Africa’.
9
Hooker probably refers to examinations at University College London, where he was examiner in botany (Medical directory (1862): 200). University College was one of several organisations to have its offices at Burlington House, Piccadilly (Post Office London directory 1861).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3802,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3802