pupil contract? Does the pupil dilate in incipient faintness, or in utter
prostration, as when after a severe race a man is pallid, bathed in
perspiration, with all his muscles quivering? Or in extreme prostration
from any illness?


LETTER 471. TO W. TURNER.
Down, March 28th [1871].

I am much obliged for your kind note, and especially for your offer of
sending me some time corrections, for which I shall be truly grateful. I
know that there are many blunders to which I am very liable. There is a
terrible one confusing the supra-condyloid foramen with another one.
(471/1. In the first edition of the "Descent of Man," I., page 28, in
quoting Mr. Busk "On the Caves of Gibraltar," Mr. Darwin confuses together
the inter-condyloid foramen in the humerus with the supra-condyloid
foramen. His attention was called to the mistake by Sir William Turner, to
whom he had been previously indebted for other information on the anatomy
of man. The error is one, as Sir William Turner points out in a letter,
"which might easily arise where the writer is not minutely acquainted with
human anatomy." In speaking of his correspondence with Darwin, Sir William
remarks on a characteristic of Darwin's method of asking for information,
namely, his care in avoiding leading questions.) This, however, I have
corrected in all the copies struck off after the first lot of 2500. I
daresay there will be a new edition in the course of nine months or a year,
and this I will correct as well as I can. As yet the publishers have kept
up type, and grumble dreadfully if I make heavy corrections. I am very far
from surprised that "you have not committed yourself to full acceptation"
of the evolution of man. Difficulties and objections there undoubtedly
are, enough and to spare, to stagger any cautious man who has much