Health and welfare has always been a popular topic of discussion in letters and journals and the correspondence of the merchants of the Old China Trade are no exception. The collections of letters in this resource are brimming with information on general health, disease, death and concerned relatives eager for a note confirming their loved ones, who have travelled away from home, are in good health. Hardly a letter goes by without a mention of health or sadly, a death in the family. For example, a letter from Edward G H Anthony, a gold seeker who sailed aboard the bark Susan to join the Californian Gold Rush, writes to his mother in 1849 describing his health. He writes of “combined attacks of consumption and dysentery” whilst living in San Francisco and the death of his cousin John Holland Chance. This letter is from the Edward G H Anthony Letters collection at the California Historical Society.