[Sir Henry W. Acland, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Henry W: Acland'), regarding arrangements made by Benjamin Jowett for recipient and Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie to stay at Balliol while in Oxford for a meeting.

2pp, 12mo. Bifolium on grey paper. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to blank reverse of second leaf. The year has been noted in another hand. The recipient is not identified. The letter begins: 'My dear sir, | I have made arrangements with my excellent friend Mr. Jowett of Baliol Coll. that he should offer to you rooms in Balliol. You will be there with our common friend Brodie, and will I am quite sure find nothing that will not add to your comfort and enjoyment in the Meeting'. He ends in the hope that the recipient will 'find this plan consonant to your wishes'. The letter relates to the meeting at Oxford on 23 June 1847 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 'Mr. Jowett' is Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), later Master of Balliol; and 'Brodie' is the celebrated surgeon Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783-1862). 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'.