Autograph letter signed : [place not specified], to an unidentified recipient, 1821 June 24.

Explaining that he was asked to examine Elizabeth Barrett Browning--"that prodigy in intellectual powers and acquirements!"--because mutual friends knew that he had had success alleviating nerve pain such as EBB seemed to be experiencing; giving a detailed description of EBB's symptoms, from their first onset as headaches to the development of repeated episodes of paroxysms of pain on her right side, along with mental confusion, weakness in the back, listlessness, and other problems; discussing a similar case he had observed and treated several years earlier, and how the initial illness developed into an "affection of the spine"; recommending that EBB be treated as having a "diseased spine"; noting that medicine seems to have little or no effect; acknowledging that proofs of the diagnosis are wanting, but giving it as his best inference, based on his examination of her; apologizing for the length of his letter: "You will probably have thought me tedious but it is impossible to see such a patient without feeling a lively interest in her recovery"; in a postscript, writing that he thought the recipient would like to see his communication with "your friend Dr. Nuttall" about this case and that he has "therefore taken the liberty of sending you a copy of it" (raising the possibility that this letter is a copy of a letter Coker sent to Dr. George Ricketts Nuttall); adding that he trusts that "Mr. S. Barrett [possibly Samuel Moulton-Barrett, EBB's uncle] will excuse my sending this under cover to him."