In this edition of the program we are remembering Erasmus Darwin, the outstanding English physician and scientist and the grandfather Charles Darwin. 

Born on December 12, 1731, Erasmus Darwin was seen by some people as a genius, and a sorcerer by others. One can easily imagine just how people felt reading in the October 23, 1762 issue of a local newspaper the following announcement, “The body of a criminal who will be executed on Monday 25 at Litchfield will be taken to Dr. Darwin’s house who, at 4 pm on Tuesday will launch a series of daily lectures to run as long as the body can be preserved…” Or the feelings of a local peasant who brought the doctor a letter from someone and, just as he sat in the kitchen waiting for a reply message, suddenly heard a voice coming from the burning fireplace asking for coal. The poor man took to his heels not knowing that it was the inventive doctor speaking through a pipe he had  laid to connect his study with the kitchen…

Erasmus Darwin was the founder of the Lunar Society whose philosophically minded members would normally gather at full moon simply because  it is easier to find your way back home with a full moon shining in the sky than when it is not… 

Endowed by nature with a towering height and enviable strength, Erasmus Darwin was enormously fat at times weighing a very impressive 180 kilos so than they had to cut a semicircle in the dining table to accommodate his protruding pouch. He limped and he stammered, a handicap he said gave him time to think things over and not to ask indelicate questions. Erasmus was the heart his Lunatic society and just about any other society too, his lively and original wit offering a combination that was as perfect as it was enchanting.  He studied classical literature and mathematics at Cambridge University and medicine in Edinburgh.  He was twice married to the most beautiful women in town. His second spouse, Elizabeth Pole, a wealthy widow, was 20 years his junior. Erasmus Darwin fathered 10 children from two marriages and to him love held the key to the understanding the surrounding world. He readily agreed with David Yum in that the force of procreation is stronger that the much-touted intelligence because, while intelligence spawns a machine, the force of procreation spawns its maker…

In his scientific works Doctor Darwin outlined his boldly unorthodox views on the genesis of the Universe, on earthly life and even on the future of  some of the 18th century inventions. James Watt had just patented his brainchild but Erasmus Darwin was quick to predict in a poetic form that,

Soon shall thy arm, Unconquer’d Steam! Afar

Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; 

Or on wide-waving wins expanded bear

The flying chariot through the fields of air

Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd

And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud… 
 
When, decades later, all poetry not immediately related to the human heart and soul became dated, Lord Byron hailed Darwin as ‘a mighty weaver of senseless rhymes’. A talented doctor, Erasmus Darwin established his first medical practice at Litchfield as a 25-year-old university graduate by curing a patient  local doctors had all given up on as a helpless case. “One who has never experimented in his life is a fool,” Erasmus said.  His earnings were growing all the time even though he never accepted money from his poor patients and even bought them medicine and food. Darwin never cared much about money preferring the simple enjoyment of every passing moment of life to spending one’s entire existence on “making a stash”. People loved him to the extent that, meeting Darwin on an empty road one night, a highwayman recognized Darwin’s voice and let him go. Darwin’s popularity was so widespread and King George III invited him to move to London and become his personal physician. Darwin raised many eyebrows by turning down the royal offer. He was too attached to his lifestyle and his friends.  

Erasmus Darwin spent most of his life in a carriage getting from one patient to another. ‘To Dr. Darwin on the Road’ read the envelope headings of the many letters Dr. Darwin was getting from all around the country.  Not to lose time, he fitted out his carriage with a lamp and a book holder so that he could read and which he used to write most of his books.  When, during Darwin’s ebbing years, his son suggested he retire and relax, Darwin said it was a dangerous experiment that normally ended in hypochondria and alcoholism. On April 18, 1802 Erasmus Darwin died peacefully sitting in an armchair in his home near Derby, aged 70.  His last work, a great book-length poem published posthumously in 1803, The Temple of Nature, anticipated his grandson’s theory of evolution. Charles Darwin missed his grandfather by just seven years but he certainly knew about his legendary grandfather and read his works which definitely brushed off on his outlook.  And my feeling is that each time Charles Darwin finished a new work, the smiling ghost of his bulky granddad Erasmus was hovering behind his back singing stammering praises to his grandson…
 
 

12/12/2005