1794

Thomas Beddoes to James Watt, 25 June 1794

Dear Sir

I have received all your letters & the parcel by the mail safe. The cause of my delay in answering the last letter but one was the expectation of a second. I had guessed that charcoal was the sweetener of oiled silk; but I think you have turned to more account in your dry way of using it than I sh^d have done. I like the look of your pot for boiling out air very well & long to use it. I doubt not but your invention will be of great utility & I agree with you in supposing carbonated hydrogen air likely to prove more beneficial in consumption than any other & equally beneficial in diseases of inflammation, in which I know that a lowered air will certainly be useful, in many cases prevent consumption. As soon as I have your drawing & description, I will begin to engrave & print. Dr Darwin thinks there is an objection to breathing through a tube in the mouth, 1. because the patient may breathe through the nose at the same time & 2. throw out through the nose, what is just taken in through the mouth. Rooms for lowered air w^d certainly be preferable, but the effect of oxygene is so great th^t moderate reservoirs will be sufficient for all purposes.

If azote th^t has been respired increases your dyspnoea & produces this effect as azote simply, it sh^d encourage you to try oxygene; & I sincerely wish you may be rewarded for the trouble you have taken in endeavouring to benefit mankind at large [xxxx] by a successful application of your apparatus to your own complaint.

Is there any person in your neighbourhood who w^d undertake to fit up apparatuses? I have had many applications from physicians & do not doubt but there w^d be an immediate demand for such an article. I w^d notify this circumstance in my pamphlet.

My comp^ts to Mrs & Mr James Watt. I am
D^r Sir
Your much obliged servant

Thomas Beddoes

June 25 1794

Address: James Watt Esq^r / Heathfield / Birmingham
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / June 25 1794
MS: LoB MS 3219/4/28/06