[William Benjamin Carpenter, biologist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('William B. Carpenter') to the physician and geologist John Bostock

4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering at gutter edge of reverse of last leaf, and covering the last few letters of Carpenter's signature. After explaining that he is directing Bostock's attentiont to 'the accompanying Remarks', he announces that he has 'lately decided upon relinquishing the practice of my Profession, and upon devoting myself altogether to the pursuit of Physiology and its allied branches of Science. This determination involves a very serious pecuniary sacrifice; and I cannot but feel very keenly, therefore, an attack which will have so prejudicial an influence on my future prospects, if I do not take some very decided mode of silencing the calumny.' He is 'procuring, for this purpose, the testimony of men whose position in the scientific world may give weight to their statements'. He asks Bostock to communicate to him 'your opinion in regard to the correctness and tendency of the views expressed in my Chapter “on the Nature and Causes of Vital Actions,” and in the concluding one on the Evidences of Design'. If Bostock is not in possession of his 'Principles of Physiology' he has no doubt that 'Dr Roget' (Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), MD, of the 'Thesaurus') will 'have pleasure in lending you his'. He feels sure that Bostock 'will agree with me, in general at least, as to the correctness of my views – And I feel sure that you will exonerate me from the imputations which have been laid to my charge in regard to their dangerous tendency'. He asks at the same time for 'a separate testimonial as to my merits as a Physiologist'. He was 'happy to hear, while in Liverpool two months ago', of Bostock's improved health, and he has received a letter from his own father in Rome. (Carpenter's father, the Unitarian minister and school master Dr Lant Carpenter (1780-1840), would drown off Leghorn in April of the same year.) He hopes that Bostock has received a copy of 'my Prize Thesis on the Nervous System, which I desired Churchill [John Churchill (1801-1875), London medical publisher] to send you'. From the distinguished autograph collection of the psychiatrist Richard Alfred Hunter (1923-1981), whose collection of 7000 works relating to psychiatry is now in Cambridge University Library. Hunter and his mother Ida Macalpine 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'.