Dalton, John.

Autograph letter signed to Abraham Bosquet.

      1807. Dalton, John (1766-1844). A.L.s. to Abraham Bosquet. N.p., June 15, 1807. 3pp. plus address, on single sheet measuring 202 x 323 mm. Tears where seal was broken mended at an early date, another small hole minimally affecting one word, light wear along creases, minor foxing, but very good otherwise. Docketed by recipient. An excellent letter from one of the founders of modern chemistry, discussing both scientific and social matters, and ending with a somewhat risqué bit of political verse, revealing an ease and sense of humor in marked contrast to Dalton's "quiet and reserved" public manner. Dalton is best known for his chemical atomic theory, "which for the first time gave significance to and provided a technique for calculating the relative weights of the ultimate particles of all known chemicals" (DSB); he also, early in his career, made significant contributions in physics, discovering the law of gaseous expansion at constant pressure (also known as Charles's law), and the law of partial pressures in gaseous systems. The letter we are offering here dates from the year that Dalton's interests shifted from physics to chemistry: in April 1807 (three months before the date of this letter) Dalton gave a lecture course in Edinburgh in which he made the first direct mention of "indivisible particles" or atoms, and set forth the groundbreaking ideas that he would begin to publish the following year in his New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808-27). Dalton's letter reveals his interest in medicine and anatomy: he prescribes a regimen of diet and exercise to a friend he thinks is "making fat too fast," and boasts of having acquired "a very fine arm & leg most famously & scientifically dissected" on which he could practice dissection. Dalton's postscript verse, lampooning the "bad luck" of "Bonapart," may refer to the Battle of Eylau (February 7-8, 1807), which ended in bloody stalemate and marked the first significant check to the advance of Napoleon's Grande Armée. Ironically, Dalton wrote the present letter one day after Napoleon's decisive victory in the Battle of Friedland (June 14, 1807), an event of which Dalton could not yet have been informed. The text of Dalton's letter is as follows: 15th June 1807 My Dr. Bosquet On the night I wrote you, I went to Sadlers Wells, and on driving myself home from that place the night being extremely dark, and turning on the pavement out of the road to Fitzroy Square, I fell from my box and met with so bad a contusion on my right side, that I was not able to quit my room before last Saturday. I assure you I was more grieved at being prevented the pleasure of accompanying you to my friend David than I was at the pain I felt from the accident, particularly so as I then had the means, of making ourselves very comfortable for two or three days. I beg you will do me the kindness to make the above known to your son, at the same time with my best wishes remembering me to him. You may recollect I some time since, mentioned to you, I held some two or three hundred manuscript sermons of a Divine of celebrity. I have now twenty or more of them in my possession, which I will one night this week bring over to you, the residue I can procure when necessary, weigh in your mind whether an immediate purchaser may not be got for them. I saw [Hanyer?] the other day I am afraid he is making fat too fast, if so he should resort to cold bathing a milk & vegetable regimen with very little animal food gentle exercise with no other beverage but port wine, or port wine & water. If the constitution is clear of minerals the happiest & most lasting effects have been derived from cold bathing and the before mentioned mode of living. Doctor Cheyney informs us, of a man's living to a hundred & six years of age, that is 46 years after two violent attacks of an epilepsy by resorting to cold bathing a milk & vegetable diet &c. So much from Doctor Dalton & if you wish me to prescribe for the Gent. I do assure you I can & will, most effectually with pleasure. I have just purchased (really you may believe me) a very fine arm & leg most famously & scientifically dissected, upon which I am most attentively studying dissection, that I may with dexterous art, be ready to use my Clunabulum [literally "small sword"] by way of friendship, upon the carcass of any Joltering Gl[...] who after being convicted, may miss being suspended in the Darby's-Give my love to Charlotte and believe me with great esteem & regard, Yours very sincerely, J. Dalton a momentary sketch of accidents: They say the Bonapart has lost his Prick (had bad luck) That politics are confounded, That the Queen de Prusse, has playd the trick (with Europe & Russia) And the messenger, been drown'ed (Pn. mess'r lately drown'd) JD Damnation bad I suppose you'll say, or I shall go on in this here vay Dalton's letter was written to Dr. Abraham Bosquet, author of treatises on marine technology and on dueling. It is not cited in Smyth's bibliography of Dalton's works, which includes a section on Dalton's correspondence. DSB.