[Sir Rickman Godlee, President of the Royal College of Surgeons and pioneer in the field of brain surgery.] Autograph Letter Signed ('R. G. Godlee') to 'Mr Rowe', regarding a boy in a splint and a woman with cystitis.

Author: 
Sir Rickman Godlee [Sir Rickman John Godlee] (1849-1925), President of the Royal College of Surgeons and pioneer in the field of brain surgery
Publication details: 
On letterhead of 19 Wimpole Street, W. [London]; 6 February 1899.
£750.00
SKU: 21792

3pp, 16mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to the blank reverse of the second leaf. After acknowledging Rowe's note he continues: 'I should like the boy to get up and walk. He was supposed to be kept longer on the splint than usual, because there was so much adduction before.' The rest of the letter concerns 'a case of cystitis – a woman – who wants methodical washing out with A G N O Z.' He ends by asking whether it could be 'undertaken at the Infirmary'. 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'.