Mary Darwin's illness

A recent paper in Notes and Records has provided many new details about Mary Darwin (née Howard), the first wife of Dr Erasmus Darwin, F. R. S. (1731-1802). Mary suffered chronic illness for several years before her death in 1770 at the age of 30. Her illness and its cause have provoked a good deal of conjecture, as a result of a possible connection with the ill-health of her grandson Charles Darwin. With this new evidence about her life, an accurate retrospective diagnosis is more likely. Erasmus married Mary in December 1757, and from the following year onwards they lived at a house (now named Darwin House) at the periphery of the Cathedral Close in Lichfield; they produced five children, the fourth of whom - Robert Darwin, F. R. S. (1766-1848) - was to be the father of Charles Robert Darwin, F. R. S. (1809-1882). In a letter dated 1 November 1766, containing the earliest known reference to ill health, Mary wrote: ‘I did not design to have said any thing about my health, but... I am now not well again’'. By the following year, her health seems to have deteriorated further (possibly exacerbated by another pregnancy)

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