[Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter, surgeon and social psychologist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Wilfred Trotter'), regarding 'the Office of Sergeant Surgeon'.

2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to edge on reverse. He begins by stating that he is not 'antiquarian enough' to answer the question in the unnamed recipient's letter 'with any precision'. He refers him to 'a number of “The Lancet” for one of the earlier weeks of September of this year', which contains 'an “annotation” dealing with the Office of Sergeant Surgeon'. He concludes the letter with a 'scrap of information I happen to possess' regarding Sir Thomas Vicary, Henry VIII and 'the Holbein painting of Henry giving the Charter to the Barber-Surgeons (now in the Barber's [sic] Hall Monkwell St) Vicary is represented kneeling before the King receiving the Charter from him.' 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'.