The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MR WINCKWORTH,1 3 OCTOBER 1853

Text from facsimile in Invaluable on-line catalogue, June 2010.

Tavistock House | Monday Third October 1853.2

Mr. Charles Dickens begs Mr. Winckworth to be so good as to fill the accompanying case of bottles;3 one with Laudanum, one with sal volatile, and one with the best powdered ginger. He also begs to have a large box—as it is to travel with, it should be strong—of the pills according to Dr. Southwood Smith’s4 prescription which is in Mr. Winckworth’s possession.

• 1. Of Stephen Winckworth Silver & Co., “emigrant’s fitting out warehouse”, 3 & 4 Bishopsgate Within: see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 182n.
• 2. Address and date at foot of letter.
• 3. CD was preparing for his European journey, 10 Oct-11 Dec, with Wilkie Collins and Augustus Egg. Laudanum was a painkiller and soporific; sal volatile (smelling salts) could be inhaled or taken in water; ginger was used for upset stomachs and bowels. These bottles were intended as a general precaution, but especially since Collins suffered from neuralgia and rheumatism. For CD’s medicine chests on his two American tours, see Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 226 & n; Pilgrim Letters 11, p. 448 & n; David Dickens & Norman Jacoby, “CD’s Travelling Medicine Chest”, Dickensian, 92 (Spring 1996), 19-24.
• 4. Thomas Southwood Smith, MD (1788-1861; Dictionary of National Biography), sanitary reformer: see Pilgrim Letters 2, p. 164n.