[Sir William Lawrence, President of the Royal College of Surgeons and Serjeant Surgeon to Queen Victoria.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Wlm. Lawrence') to 'Professor Owen' [Sir Richard Owen], asking him to amend a document.

2pp, 12mo. In fair condition, on aged paper, with slight damage at head repaired with archival tape, and thin strip from stub of mount adhering to one edge. He asks Owen to 'alter or add to the paper sent herewith in any way you please, so that it may harmonize with the report you have drawn up, & represent the meaning you may intend to convey'. He will 'call at the College in the course of the day & affix my signature to the completed document'. Until 1856, when he became Superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum, Owen was conservator and Hunterian professor in the Royal College of Surgeons. From the distinguished autograph collection of Richard Hunter, son of Ida Macalpine, whose collection of 7000 books relating to psychiatry is in Cambridge University Library. Macalpine and Hunter had a particular interest in the illness of King George III, and their book 'George III and the Mad Business' (1969) suggested the diagnosis of porphyria popularised by Alan Bennett in his play 'The Madness of George III'.