[John Gideon Millingen, army surgeon and author.] Autograph Letter Signed ('J G Millingen') to William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette, asking him to publish W. R. Hamilton's obituary of his brother.

For Millingen, his brother the archaeologist James Millingen (1774-1845), James's son Julius Michael Millingen (1800-1878), the antiquary and diplomat William Richard Hamilton (1777-1859), and the recipient the editor of the Literary Gazette William Jerdan (1782-1869), see the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium with mourning border. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount attached to the reverse of the second leaf, which is endorsed by Jerdan ('1847 | Dr Millingen | death of his brother in No 1501 –'), and has attached to it a printed slip with a biographical note. The letter begins: 'My dear Jerdan | I am much concerned in having to communicate to you the sad tidings of my brother's death – he was I believe well known to you & his old friend Mr W. R. Hamilton has written a long notice of him, which he gave me to make whatever addition I might think proper'. Hamilton 'had an idea' of sending the notice to The Times, but when Millingen 'expressed a wish that the public shall be informed of his death through the medium of [Jerdan's] paper [The Literary Gazette] he fully concurred' with Millingen, who has 'therefore enclosed it for [Jerdan's] insertion', being happy to supply further information. The letter concludes: 'In regard to my addition to the notice – you may do with it what you may think proper I mean in what concerns my nephew and myself.' As indicated by Jerdan, Hamilton's notice appeared (anonymously) in issue 1501 of the Literary Gazette, 25 October 1845, pp.706-707. It is not cited as a source in the entry on James Millingen in the Oxford DNB. From the distinguished autograph collection of the psychiatrist Richard Alfred Hunter (1923-1981), whose collection of 7000 works relating to psychiatry is now in Cambridge University Library. Hunter and his mother Ida Macalpine had a particular interest in the illness of King George III, and their book 'George III and the Mad Business' (1969) suggested the diagnosis of porphyria popularised by Alan Bennett in his play 'The Madness of George III'.