A letter from John Dalton (1766-1844) to Dr. John Bostock (1773-1846) following Dalton's letter of June 11, 1808. Dalton writes he has sent Bostock four copies of his "Chemistry," referring to his work, A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), "which are the only ones that have yet found their way to Liverpool." Dalton expresses his wish to converse with Bostock about his new book and his experiments inspired by "Dr. Roget's lectures on physiology."

Widely known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry, Dalton was a noted English meteorologist and chemist. His research on meteorology resulted in its acceptance as a recognized science. He discovered his own color blindness through his botanical studies of flower hues and subsequently used this discovery to inform his research on color blindness.

Bostock was a physician, geologist, and one of the first chemical pathologists. He was the first to realize the relationship between urea and albumin in the blood and urine; he noted diminution of urea in urine as it rose in the blood, and that albumin concentration in the blood fell as that in urine increased.