Ɛpsilon

From J. L. H. Down   20 December 1873

39, Welbeck Street, | Cavendish Square. W.

20. 12. 73

Dear Sir,

So far as I can judge from the external configuration and general feel of the ear I wrote to you about, it does not in my opinion lend support to L. Meyer’s views.1 The ear is not by any means a depraved one. Contrary to what one usually finds in the ears of Idiots there is a free lobule and the Helix and other parts are fairly developed.

It appears to me a real projection of the cartilage. I omitted to mention that the boy was extremely prognathous & had moreover an unusually large appendix vermiformis to his cæcum. The opening to it was sufficiently large to admit fæcal matter, with which it was partially filled. I shall have much pleasure in lending you the specimen for the purpose you name. I shall try to have a photograph taken before it is dissected.2

I am at home every morning until one. The psychological condition of the boy was interesting. The cause of the arrest was emotional disturbance of the mother during gestation.

I have been for a long time working at an antithetical subject to that which has engaged your attention; to involution rather than evolution and with results confirmatory of your teaching—

In 1866 I published some observations I had made with reference to the change of race type associated with degeneration.3 My paper did not excite much interest at the time, but on the late visit of the British Medical Association to my establishment for training Idiots at Normansfield, Hampton Wick the interest in the question was revived.

I shewed the Members several specimens of typical Mongols the progeny of Caucasian parents. I have had negroids & Malays from like parentage— Of course the argument is that if these changes of race type can be produced by degeneration there is an end to the so called species and the races are true varieties.

Probably, however, all this has occurred to you before and I am only taking up your time with a thrice told tale. The subject has great interest to me, as it assists one in prognosis and to some extent in treatment.

I am, dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | J. Langdon Down

CD annotations

1.1 So far … developed. 1.4] crossed blue crayon
6.1 I shewed … treatment. 7.3] crossed blue crayon
1
See letter from J. L. H. Down, 18 December 1873. Ludwig Meyer had maintained that the small point (‘Woolnerian tip’) visible on some ears, described and figured by CD in Descent 1: 22–3, was not a rudiment of a former pointed ear shape, but merely a result of random variability (Meyer 1871, pp. 489–90). In Descent 2d ed., p. 16, CD cited Meyer on this point and also referred to the ear described by Down, concluding that, at least in some cases, the points were vestiges of the tips of formerly erect and pointed ears.
2
A photograph of the ear with CD’s notation, ‘Ear of Microcephalic rec’d from Dr J. Langdon Down’, on the back of the print is in DAR 87: 65.
3
Down’s paper ‘Observations on an ethnic classification of idiots’ had focused primarily on the ‘Mongolian variety of idiot’, arguing that the typical facial features associated with the condition were the result of degeneration to the Mongolian type, and moreover, that such degeneration furnished an argument in favour of the unity of the human species since the differences in the races were not specific but variable (Down 1866). The condition is now known as Down syndrome.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9188,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9188