in London!

Manchester, 10 February 1866

Dear Mohr,

I have just seen Gumpert here and discussed your condition with him. He decidedly thinks you should try arsenic. He has used it in one case of carbuncles and one of very severe furunculosis and obtained complete cure in about 3 months. He is now giving it to three females, and so far with the best success, they are getting stout and fat on it. Fowler’s solution is what he gives, I believe 3 drops 3 times a day (I am not quite certain of that any more), but on the whole about 1 grain of arsenic daily is taken by the patient. Given the specific effect of arsenic in all skin diseases, here too there is every prospect of its working. Iron, he thinks, could only act symptomatically and as a tonic. With the arsenic, moreover, no special diet need be observed, only live well.

You really must at last do something sensible to get out of this carbuncle business, even if the book! is thereby delayed by another three months. The matter is truly becoming too serious, and if your brain, as you yourself say, is not up to the mark? for theoretical matters, then let it rest a little from the higher theory. Stop working at night for a time and lead a somewhat more regular way of life. When you are on your feet again, come here for a fortnight or so, so that you have a change, and bring along enough notebooks that, for all I care, you can do some work here. Incidentally, the 60 sheets will after all make two thick volumes. Can you not arrange it so that at least the first volume is sent to press first and the second a couple of months later? That way both publisher and public are satisfied and yet no time really lost.

Bear in mind, too, that as things now stand, matters on the Continent can change rapidly. In Prussia things are going famously fast. Bismarck is rapidly pushing things to a head. First the Obertribunal’s decision, then now the threat of an authentic interpretation of the constitution by the King. The philistines’ last illusion of a peaceful historical development has gone to the devil. The first push that comes along, even just a serious entanglement over Schleswig-Holstein, can bring the thing to a head as soon as the troops are concentrated on the frontier; although I myself hardly believe that anything will happen without a more general push, but the possibility is there. What good can it be, then, that perhaps a few chapters at the end of your book are finished and not even a first volume can go to press, if we are surprised by events? In France something can happen any day as well; in Austria the attempt at reconciliation with Hungary must only lead to sharper division.

Conclusion: See that you get well, and ad hoc, try the arsenic.

Your
F. E.

Many greetings to Madame and the young ladies.