[Thomas Hastie Bryce, Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Glasgow.] Autograph Letter Signed to Professor David Waterston of St Andrews, describing his declining health and other personal matters.

Considering his achievements and range of activities it is curious that Bryce should not have been accorded an entry in the Oxford DNB. Waterston was Bute Professor of Anatomy at the University of St Andrews from 1914 to 1942. In 1913, while Professor of Anatomy at King's College, London, he was the first authority to debunk the Piltdown Man hoax. 2pp, 4to. 49 lines of closely-written text. Addressed to ‘My dear Waterston’ and signed ‘James H. Bryce’. In fair condition, somewhat creased and aged. He explains the ill health and circumstances that forced him to miss Waterston’s ‘paper & exhibit’ at the Society of Antiquaries the previous Saturday, and complains of the bad weather and its effect on his injury. Waterston is ‘lucky in having three able sons’. He himself had his only son ‘called back to the colours from the Emergency Reserve and is on Instruction at the R. A. Camp at Shrivenham in Wilts’. He has worried over the safety of Waterston’s department ‘when the Bute buildings were injured’, but is pleased to hear ‘that none of the contents of the anatomical department were injured’. He regrets not being able to take up Waterston’s invitation to visit St Andrews: ‘a train journey is impossible - and my self-driven motoring is also over’. He describes how his brother and his family have come to live with him as ‘evacuees from Edinburgh’. He ends in the hope of one day being able to see Waterston’s ‘ivory buckle’, with a comment on the ‘high’ artistry of the bronze age both in Scotland and Ireland.