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From Lionel Smith Beale   9 February 1866

61 Grosvenor Sq

Feby 9th 1866

My dear Sir

I send you the numbers you wish to see— Please keep them as long as you like & then let me have them back—1

I fear the notion will hardly be intelligible without what has preceded   I enclose a list of the journals in which other papers were printed but the whole will be republished2—though I fear not for some time as I have much work of another kind to get through—3

If you should be in London with an evening to spare I should be glad to tell you my conclusions & the facts on which they rest in few words or if you are disengaged some Sunday afternoon I would come down to you with pleasure if you will allow me—4

It is useless asking you to read what I have written as there is very much & distributed in many difft journals

Yours Faithfully | Lionel S Beale

1
The reference is apparently to numbers of an unidentified periodical containing articles by Beale, who wrote on medicine and microscopy (see Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers). During 1865, Beale had published a number of articles on cell biology, based on his examination of their microscopic constituents. Of these, ‘An inquiry into the nature of the phenomena which constitute “inflammation”: two lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians’ was serialised in the Medical Times and Gazette (1865), pt 1: 593–4, 619–21, 645–6, pt 2: 135–6, 191–3, 273–4, 329–31. CD ordered a copy of the second lecture (see this volume, letter to Williams & Norgate, 10 February [1866]); CD referred to it in Variation 2: 378.
2
The list has not been found (but see Royal Society catalogue of scientific papers). In Variation 2: 370, CD cited Beale’s notion of ‘germinal matter’ and ‘formed material’ from his On the structure and growth of tissues and of life (Beale 1865, pp. 21–63). CD’s annotated copy of Beale 1865 is in the Darwin Library–CUL (see Marginalia 1: 37–8). The endpaper bears CD’s annotation ‘Used for pangenesis and of no other use’. See also Variation 2: 382. In the Medical Times and Gazette (1865) pt 2: 331, the intention to print further papers on inflammation was announced although none of the titles of Beale’s subsequent papers in the journal specified that subject.
3
In 1866, Beale was working on Todd et al. 1866, a new edition of a work by Robert Bentley Todd and William Bowman. The first volume of the work appeared in or after June 1866; Archives of Medicine, an annual publication of which Beale was founder and editor, did not appear in 1866. For Beale’s other activities, see DSB.
4
No record of a meeting between CD and Beale has been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5000,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5000