|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 28
The writer began with a clear account of the discoveries of modern
psychologists and physiologists as to the physical basis of the
intellect, by which it has been ascertained that certain ones of the
millions of nerve corpuscles or fibres in the grey substance in the
brain, record certain classes of sensations and the ideas directly
connected with them, other classes of sensations with the corresponding
ideas being elsewhere recorded by other groups of corpuscles. These
corpuscles of the grey matter, these mysterious and infinitesimal
hieroglyphics, constitute the memory of the record of the life, so that
when any particular fibre or group of fibres is destroyed certain
memories or classes of memories are destroyed, without affecting others
which are elsewhere embodied in other fibres. Of the many scientific and
popular demonstrations of these facts which were adduced, reference was
made to the generally known fact that the effect of disease or injury at
certain points in the brain is to destroy definite classes of
acquisitions or recollections, leaving others untouched. The article then
went on to refer to the fact that one of the known effects of the
galvanic battery as medically applied, is to destroy and dissolve morbid
tissues, while leaving healthy ones unimpaired. Given then a patient, who
by excessive indulgence of any particular train of thought, had brought
the group of fibres which were the physical seat of such thoughts into a
diseased condition, Dr. Gustav Heidenhoff had invented a mode of applying
the galvanic battery so as to destroy the diseased corpuscles, and thus
annihilate the class of morbid ideas involved beyond the possibility of
recollection, and entirely without affecting other parts of the brain or
other classes of ideas. The doctor saw patients Tuesdays and Saturdays at
his office, 79 ----- Street.
Madeline was not crazy, thought Henry, as still standing under the hall
lamp he closed the article, but Dr. Heidenhoff certainly was. Never had
such a sad sense of the misery of her condition been borne in upon him,
as when he reflected that it had been able to make such a farrago of
nonsense seem actually creditable to her. Overcome with poignant
sympathy, and in serious perplexity how best he could deal with her
excited condition, he slipped out of the house and walked for an hour
about the streets. Returning, he knocked again at the door of her
parlour.
"Have you read it?" she asked, eagerly, as she opened it.
"Yes, I've read it. I did not mean to send you such trash. The man must
be either an escaped lunatic or has tried his hand at a hoax. It is a
tissue of absurdity."
He spoke bluntly, almost harshly, because he was in terror at the thought
that she might be allowing herself to be deluded by this wild and
baseless fancy, but he looked away as he spoke. He could not bear to see
the effect of his words.
"It is not absurd," she cried, clasping his arm convulsively with both
hands so that she hurt him, and looking fiercely at him out of hot,
fevered eyes. "It is the most reasonable thing in the world. It must be
true. There can be no mistake. God would not let me be so deceived. He is
not so cruel. Don't tell me anything else."
She was in such a hysterical condition that he saw he must be very
gentle.
"But, Madeline, you will admit that if he is not the greatest of all
discoverers, he must be a dangerous quack. His process might kill you or
make you insane. It must be very perilous."
"If I knew there were a hundred chances that it would kill me to one that
it would succeed, do you think I would hesitate?" she cried.
The utmost concession that he could obtain her consent to was that he
should first visit this Dr. Heidenhoff alone, and make some inquiries of
and about him.
CHAPTER X.
The next day he called at 79 ----- Street. There was a modest shingle
bearing the name "Dr. Gustav Heidenhoff" fastened up on the side of the
house, which was in the middle of a brick block. On announcing that he
wanted to see the doctor, he was ushered into a waiting-room, whose walls
were hung with charts of the brain and nervous system, and presently a
tall, scholarly-looking man, with a clean-shaven face, frosty hair, and
very genial blue eyes, deep set beneath extremely bushy grey eyebrows,
entered and announced himself as Dr. Heidenhoff. Henry, who could not
help being very favourably impressed by his appearance, opened the
conversation by saying that he wanted to make some inquiries about the
Thought-extirpation process in behalf of a friend who was thinking of
trying it. The doctor, who spoke English with idiomatic accuracy, though
with a slightly German accent, expressed his willingness to give him all
possible information, and answered all his questions with great apparent
candour, illustrating his explanations by references to the charts which
covered the walls of the office. He took him into an inner office and
showed his batteries, and explained that the peculiarity of his process
consisted, not in any new general laws and facts of physiology which he
had discovered, but entirely in peculiarities in his manner of applying
his galvanic current, talking much about apodes, cathodes,
catelectrotonus and anelectrotonus, resistance and rheostat, reactions,
fluctuations, and other terms of galvano-therapeutics. The doctor frankly
admitted that he was not in a way of making a great deal of money or
reputation by his discovery. It promised too much, and people
consequently thought it must be quackery, and as sufficient proof of this
he mentioned that he had now been five years engaged in practising the
Thought-extirpation process without having attained any considerable
celebrity or attracting a great number of patients. But he had a
sufficient support in other branches of medical practice, he added, and,
so long as he had patients enough for experimentation with the aim of
improving the process, he was quite satisfied.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|