Volume 1

Biographic clinics / by George M. Gould.

  • George M. Gould
Date:
1903-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biographic clinics / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    85/234 page 79
    CHAPTER III. CHARLES DARWIN. The following quotations and epitomizations of the data of Darwin’s life are drawn from “ The Life and Letters ” by his son: Charles Darwin’s father was a highly successful physician, six feet two inches tall, very corpulent, with close powers of observation, and of sympathy. He at first hated his profes¬ sion, but practised it for sixty years, although he had a horror of operations, or even to see a person bled. This same horror existed in Charles. Modern physicians may to-day read with profit what Charles writes of his father as a physician. The health of his brother Erasmus was “ weak from boy¬ hood and he failed in energy.” “ His spirits were not high, sometimes low, more specially during early and middle man¬ hood.” “ He read much, even whilst a boy.” “ Our tastes were so different.” Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809. He was a fleet runner as a boy at school, and loved long walks; his father once said to him: “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a dis¬ grace to yourself and all your family.” He had great love of poetry and music while young, which entirely disappeared before he was old. He did “no good” at school, and was taken away to Edin¬ burgh, to study medicine; but he hated it, could not dissect, detested the lectures, and could not endure to see an opera¬ tion. After two sessions there, as he seemed bound to be “an idle sporting man ” his father proposed that he become a
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