Letter 1823

Yonge writes of a seal that was poached by fishermen. He asks whether Sloane has any information on the animal. Yonge plans on showing it to Sloane, should the specimen make it to London. He sends ‘the Case of the dropsy women’ for Sloane to read. A silhouette of a seal is enclosed: fol. 18. James Yonge was a surgeon and physician of Plymouth with experience as a ship’s surgeon. He was a prominent citizen in his native Plymouth and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1702 (Ian Lyle, Yonge, James (16471721), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30225, accessed 20 May 2011]).