SIR SAMUEL WILKS - THIRD PERSON AUTOGRAPH LETTER 12/04/1869 - HFSID 44440

SIR SAMUEL WILKS
Physician Sir Samuel Wilks wrote this letter to tell the recipient "So be it".
Autograph letter signed "Saml Wilks". Blue ink notations on verso in unknown hand. 1 page, 4½x7¼. In full: "My dear Russell Reynolds So be it - [illegible]." Wilks (1824-1911), considered the leading British physician of his day, made important contributions to several fields of medicine. His most important discovery was in the field of neurology came in 1866, when he identified surface lesions in the brain cortex as the cause of epilepsy and developed bromide as an anticonvulsive independently from Sir Charles Locock. Wilks also described the first case of myasthenia gravis in 1877 and recognized ulcerative colitis as an ailment separate from dysentery in 1859; he also recognized that syphilis affected the organs as well as the skin. He was a biographer of fellow doctors Thomas Hodgkin, Thomas Addison and Richard Bright, respectively the discoverers of Hodgkin's lymphoma, Addison's disease and Bright's disease. Wilks was President of the Royal College of Physicians (1896-1899) and Physician Extraordinary to Queen Victoria (1897). Lightly toned, soiled, stained and creased. Signature and body of letter are lightly smeared but legible. Ink transference, which touches body of letter but not signature. Neatly torn from binding at left edge. Folded thrice and unfolded. Otherwise in fine condition.