St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student

“Shall we gather at the river?”

which was very well sung by the little congregation. By the time the hymn was finished, the medium had begun to breathe heavily, and occasionally draw deep sighs. When all was silent she began to speak in a queer tone, and Podger announced that it was the spirit of an ancient Egyptian who had entered into the medium temporarily, and who was about to describe what he saw round the heads of the visitors, amongst whom to-night was Janet Spriggs, niece of Mrs. Podger. She was Mrs. Crowe’s maid, and had recently made the acquaintance of Mr. Mole, who had frequent occasion to visit the house on business connected with the Laboratory. The ancient Egyptian declared he saw a vision of a field of waving corn behind Janet’s head, which her aunt interpreted to mean coming prosperity of extraordinary extent; he also saw her seated in a chariot, drawn by horses like those of Pharaoh, and waited upon by slaves of the desert (this was declared to mean she would ride in her own carriage, and have servants of her own); that he also saw Imhotep, the son of Ptah and Pakht, bringing one of his disciples to marry her (Mrs. Podger interpreted this to mean she should wed a young doctor); that an evil spirit was in the house where she lived who meant mischief, and indicated perhaps a speedy visit to the spirit world for a lady who abode there (this was not further explained, as Jenny seemed to know all about it).

As each visitor was permitted to ask any question he liked of the Egyptian gentleman, the fortune-telling business went briskly on till closing time, when everybody felt that they had had a very fair sixpennyworth, and went home to dream of the things in store for them.

“Spirit lights” had floated all about the room, accompanied by handbells, daubed with luminous paint, and agitated by unseen hands. The entertainment was altogether a very eerie affair, and no doubt contributed its quota towards manufacturing mental disorders for the neighbouring asylum.

It was very droll to see the old nurse in her new character. She had, in a few months, cast off most of her hospital peculiarities, and had picked up from the medium an ample vocabulary of spiritualist terms.

They worked together in harness very well. Podger was the jackal who provided the material for the medium to work upon; she got to know all the secrets of the folks who came to the séances, and by her wide acquaintance and powers of ferreting out all about people, kept Mrs. Allen well supplied with provender for the Egyptian and other familiar spirits who hovered about Chillingworth Street.

Mr. Mole never attended the séances, but he frequently saw the ex-nurse, and, by judicious hints, secured to himself the benefits of her niece’s co-operation.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. CROWE PARLEYS WITH THE EVIL ONE

He needed her no longer,
Each day it grew more plain;
First with a startled wonder,
Then with a wondering pain.

    – Proctor.

“You are sick, that’s sure” – they say;
“Sick of what?” – they disagree.
“’Tis the brain” – thinks Doctor A;
“’Tis the heart” – holds Doctor B;
“The liver – my life I’d lay!”
“The lungs!” “The lights!”
Ah me!

    – Browning.

Mr. Crowe was an intensely selfish man, but he had never found his favourite vice a profitable one. Regardless of the feelings of others, he found all the world against him; and his heart, entertaining no good company, was occupied by the evil tenants always on the look-out for such lodgings.

His marriage had brought him nothing but disappointment; his wife, finding him at first indifferent to her society, became at last herself unfit to entertain any one. Her life was no less a burden to herself than to him.

Neglected, and all but ignored, her temper became daily more intolerable; and soon, from a bright, happy woman, she became a morose and shrewish invalid, occupied only with the thoughts of her wrongs.

Because she no longer pleased her husband, she soon grew to be troublesome; and when such a man as Mr. Crowe realizes that state of things, the wish to be rid of it is never far distant from his thoughts. At first a scarcely defined, but soon a clearer shape of deadly intention formed itself before him, and found entertainment in his heart.

What wonder? He had been a murderer half his life in a licensed and acknowledged sense. What pain had he ever spared to secure his ends? What thought for others had ever interfered with his pursuits?

To abstain from putting out of the way of his pleasure and advancement a troublesome wife might be a concession to the prejudices of society. It was certainly only because such a process was condemned by law that he forbore at present to adopt it. He had reasons in abundance to satisfy his own mind that such a method of ridding himself of annoyance was justifiable. It is to be feared that if the murder spirit were to write his reminiscences he could tell some ugly stories of very respectable houses which had exhibited invitations to him to call when on his rounds. Sick people, when their illness lasts an inordinate length of time, must be often wished out of the way, else doctors would not be so frequently asked by over-anxious relatives and friends, “Don’t you think it would be a blessing if the Lord would take him, sir?”

It was a favourite reply of Dr. Stanforth’s to this question, “Very likely, but I am not the Lord.”

How very fortunate it is that our thoughts cannot all be read, and that we can obscure the windows in our breasts from too inquisitive observation!

It must have been very trying to such an experimenter to have to adopt a roundabout method to release himself from his bonds, when he knew of so many pleasant and simple processes of hastening the departure of lingering mortals on the banks of Jordan. There were, however, two perfectly legal, not to say most fashionable, means of facilitating the descent into Hades which he was free to adopt; certain enough, though perhaps a little tedious-viz., Brandy and Chloral; and both quite to the victim’s taste. You could not call Mr. Crowe a generous man, yet he never stinted his wife’s brandy. It was everywhere convenient, and its supply always replenished. There is no law against liberal housekeeping arrangements. Some people, however, take a great deal of killing by alcohol, and Mrs. Crowe seemed obstinately to live for the purpose of confuting the highest medical opinions as to the prognosis of her case. Clearly the cirrhosis was shortening her life in a very languid manner. But the doses of chloral, to which she took very kindly, could be increased, and this was done with better prospects of success. Of course Mr. Crowe took care to let her have the advice of the most eminent of his colleagues, who each diagnosed the disorder from which she suffered according to his own speciality. The eminent heart-specialist considered it the most curious “presystolic” case he had seen for some time. But then the liver and stomach man smiled incredulously when his turn came, and found plenty to interest him also, while he made no account at all of his colleague’s discovery. Then the brain man came along, and said the liver was to ordinary doctors what the devil was to theologians, a very ill-used personality indeed, and generally a mere cover for a diagnosis which puzzled them. For his part, he had decided the mischief to be in the grey matter of one of the frontal convolutions of the brain. The gynæcologist laughed at all the others, and declared that if his delightful branch of science received more attention in the medical world, the profession would make the healing art worthy of the age, which at present it was very far from being.

As they stepped into their carriages after these examinations, each sighed deeply to think how ignorant the other was of the science of medicine, and heartily thanked Providence that they had devoted themselves to their particular speciality.

They ordered that neither stimulants nor chloral should be allowed, and ostensibly both were banished; but as Mrs. Crowe’s servants found little difficulty and no danger in keeping up the supplies, things went on as usual. Her own maid, it will be remembered, was Janet Spriggs, a niece of Nurse Podger. Janet’s private opinion was that, as missus couldn’t eat, she must be kept alive by stimulants; she considered them nourishing and good for ladies in low spirits. Then, as she couldn’t sleep without her draughts, how cruel it would be to deprive her of this means of repose! With the assistance therefore of a neighbouring chemist, the chloral was nightly administered. The chemist had his authority in a prescription of Mr. Crowe’s, which he had repeatedly dispensed without demanding fresh instructions. The worthy pharmacist would not have objected had the paper been brought daily for fifty years. Mr. Crowe never appeared to scrutinise his accounts very closely. Certainly he took no exception whatever to the amount of drugs swallowed by his wife. And so Olympia became a hopeless imbecile.

How she lived was a mystery. A little jelly, a custard, a few spoonfuls of beef tea, a morsel of Brand’s Essence, and her alcohol, helped her to drag on her existence from day to day. Yet for the past two years she had not appeared to be getting much weaker. She had no real kindness from any one about her. Her maid paid her all the attention which could be expected from a servant who did not really love her mistress. But this did not interfere with her “day out,” her “weekly evening,” or her love-making; for Janet was in love, and the object of her heart’s adoration was Mr. Walter Mole. Janet “looked high,” as cook said. Spriggs was a pretty, well-built girl, and it was prophesied in the kitchen that she would “ride in her carriage” some day. Mr. Mole often came to the house on professional business with Mr. Crowe, and though he was extremely discreet in the company of his superiors, was not above a little diversion with the servants when favourable occasions arose. Often of a night when he left Mr. Crowe’s study by the front door he would run down the area steps to have a chat with “pretty little Spriggie,” as he called her, and had frequently met her by appointment on the occasions when her holidays came round; but all this, on both sides, was with the greatest circumspection. Of course her fellow-servants were in the secret; but as no man was kept at Mr. Crowe’s, and as poor Mrs. Crowe was not in a condition to receive confidences, there was no fear of gossip reaching the dining-room, for the unapproachable master would have snapped the head off any domestic who had attempted disclosures with him. Mr. Mole’s little flirtation was not likely to get abroad, and poor Janet went on losing her silly little heart, and dreaming of being one day mistress of an establishment of her own, when her Walter should place her in the position she felt she was born to fill.

Now Mr. Mole’s attentions were not wholly caused by the tender passion. He had long had dark and deep suspicion of his chief. Scientific secrets were concealed from him, of that he was sure. He was carrying out a long course of physiological experiment, the object of which Mr. Mole was unable to fathom, and he was not the sort of man to be kept out of a good thing willingly. A great number of animals had been used up for some unexplained reasons, and always at night; some at the hospital laboratory, and others, as he had reason to suspect, at Crowe’s own home. Numerous square cases had from time to time been sent in from Odessa and other Russian towns. These were never opened in Mr. Mole’s presence, but were always reserved till the nights when Mr. Crowe worked alone. Never had he succeeded in finding even one of the empty cases. What could Mr. Crowe want from Russia which must be kept so very secret?

For months this question had agitated the breast of our inquisitive little physiologist, and he seemed no nearer its solution than when he first set his brains to work upon it. One day, however, he picked up under his employer’s desk a small pamphlet printed in characters of a language with which he was quite unfamiliar. It was something like Greek, but he knew it was not that. However, he thought it was good enough to take pains about, so he went to an office in Fleet Street which advertised itself as willing to translate anything into anything in the world of human speech. He found that the pamphlet in question was in the Russian language, and was a treatise on the poison of mushrooms written by a professor of toxicology at Moscow. It gave a very curious account of the symptoms produced in various mammals by the administration of the active principles of several poisonous fungi, and urged that they should be tried by some doctor, having proper convenience for doing so, on hospital patients, with a view to the investigation of the symptoms produced by them on human beings. Mr. Mole paid his translation fee and preserved his notes for future use, restoring the Russian pamphlet to the laboratory from which he had taken it.

He was still puzzled at the secrecy shown by Mr. Crowe, having often before assisted him in the investigation of the action of the most deadly and obscure vegetable poisons, which were always tried on some of the unfortunate patients with more or less valuable results.

One day, when visiting Janet at her aunt’s home by appointment, Mr. Mole confided to her his desire to know what those foreign boxes contained which he had discovered at the laboratory, and asked her if she had ever observed such things in her master’s rooms? Spriggs said she had not noticed them, but would oblige him by keeping a sharp look-out; and shortly after, to his great delight, she handed him one which she had abstracted from a cupboard in the study. It was empty, but Mr. Mole took it home with a view to closer scrutiny. In the corner of the box, which was of thin deal, he found a brown powder, which he subjected to careful microscopical examination, and was not long in proving to his complete satisfaction that it consisted of the spores of some mushroom, of a species which he was not precisely able to determine. However, he had satisfied himself that certain kinds of Russian fungi were imported by Mr. Crowe for some mysterious purpose. Some months after this he was on a visit to the kitchen when the other servants were absent temporarily, and Spriggs was preparing for her mistress a small dish of stewed mushrooms, of which she was able to partake with more relish than she showed for her other food. Spriggs told him that her master had ordered her to let her mistress have them as often as she liked, as they were very good for her complaint. He did not at the time attach any importance to this discovery; but when a few days after a case of mushroom poisoning of a whole family was reported at the hospital, he remembered the circumstance, and took copious notes of the cases. In the college Library he turned up from the files of the Lancet all the cases he could find of poisoning by fungi, and soon had a very clear idea of the peculiar symptoms of such cases, after which he began a course of experiments for himself. At first he thought Mr. Crowe was engaged on some monograph on the subject that was to bring him distinction, especially as he noticed in the wards set apart to his principal’s cases, symptoms more or less severe, which he had no doubt were due to small doses of some such agent as Muscarin, Lorchelin, or Bulbosin, the active principles of poisonous mushrooms. On examining the prescriptions for the medicines which these patients were taking, he found that his ideas were correct, and that Mr. Crowe had been exhibiting these poisons in minute doses to all of them. He made no remark, but obtaining a supply from the dispenser, tried their effect in various doses on a number of animals which he kept for such purposes in one of the subterranean chambers under the pathological rooms. It was not long before Mr. Mole was in possession of quite a fund of information relating to the use of these potent drugs.

He found, to his horror, that in none of the papers or books which he could find bearing on the subject was there a record of any re-agent or test that could be relied upon for the detection of the poison after it had been taken internally. Other poisons had their respective tests, but these deadly principles existing in fungi could be administered criminally with little chance of detection, and no chemist would be able to prove their presence in food or drink to the satisfaction of any jury.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE HOBBY OF DR. SONES

Let me be sick myself if sometimes the malady of my patient be not a disease to me. I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own necessities.

    – Sir Thomas Browne.

We own that numbers join with care and skill,
A temperate judgment, a devoted will;
Men who suppress their feelings, but who feel
The painful symptoms they delight to heal.

    – Crabbe.

As Mr. Crowe had evidently been for many months engaged in this particular branch of research, it occurred to his assistant that it would be a good idea to take up the same line himself. He was piqued that any new discoveries should be kept from him; and as he had devoted himself heartily to the interests of his chief, he felt he should have been permitted to share in so interesting a study as this promised to be. He had done much valuable microscopical work for the school and the curator of the museum, and here was an opportunity of still further glory. He got his firm of translators to write him an order to the Russian agents for the drugs and the fungi from which they were manufactured, and had the journals and books which recorded Professor Oppenheim’s discoveries sent to his private address. He went further than this. He had often rendered services to one Dr. Newberry Sones, an analyst and specialist in toxicology, who lived in a turning out of Wardour Street, and he determined to enlist him as a partner in the chemical part of his work.

Dr. Sones was not in any way connected with St. Bernard’s, nor did he even know Mr. Crowe, except by repute.

Dr. Sones was the parish surgeon of his district, and had a large and lucrative practice amongst the poor folk of his neighbourhood. He was an energetic man, and got through an amount of work in the course of his long day which amazed less active men. He had a hobby as every one has who is good for anything, more especially every medical man. If he has none, his mind becomes unhealthy from the nature of his calling. This hobby was analytical chemistry. When his day’s work was done he retired with a sigh of relief to his well-ordered laboratory at the top of his house, where he could carry on his experiments without fear of interruption. Much good work had been done in this place, for its owner was no amateur. He had written papers for half the chemical journals of Europe, and had earned an honourable name for the accuracy and utility of his research. He always declined work of a medico-legal nature, as he detested law and police courts, which would have interfered with his pursuits, in which he was perfectly happy; and, as he knew that change of work was as good as play, he never repined when a sick call took him from an interesting bit of research to help some poor sufferer. As he grew in prosperity he could afford to keep a qualified assistant, who did his night work for him; there being one thing in life which he dreaded – the sound of the night-bell. He loved his well-earned sleep, and thought it only fair that he should be able to count upon enjoying a good night’s repose if he did an honest day’s work. The room where the speaking-tube and night-bell communicated with the outer world was occupied by a gentleman who had no objection whatever to being called up, and seemed as happy tramping about at night as his employer was miserable at the bare idea of the proceeding. Every man to his taste. It is lucky for folk who are taken ill at ungodly hours that some body can be found to attend with cheerfulness and promptitude at, say, three a.m., when the snow is falling in January, or it is raining cats and dogs; or a genuine pea-soup fog makes the red lamp scarcely visible over the doctor’s door. The poorer the neighbourhood the more these night calls are the rule, because the indigent are often compelled to defer calling in medical aid till the most urgent necessity arises. In addition to this reason, they are more nervous, as they are usually unskilled nurses, and symptoms not really serious often cause the greatest alarm to ignorant persons.

Dr. Sones was beloved by his pauper patients, who knew how to secure his influence with the relieving officer when they wanted “nourishments,” which the doctor knew well were generally more efficient in effecting a cure of their little ailments than the physic he prescribed. His genial way with the poor creatures, his pleasant smile and his hopeful, cheering words were not the least effective armamentaria he bore with him in the treatment of disease. Crabbe’s well-known and admirable description of the consequential parish apothecary, “whose most tender mercy is neglect,” did not apply to Doctor Sones, who was as beloved by his poor clients as he was skilled in aiding them. He had the virtues which the poor always appreciate – sympathy and patience. No tale of impossible affections of disturbed organs in impossible situations ever caused him to speak irritably or hastily, so they poured out their troubles into his willing ears, and were always satisfied with his courtesy, if not relieved by his skill.

Of course, Sones entered with delight into the scheme as unfolded by Mr. Mole. He dearly loved a new line of research; but as he refused to have anything to do with the physiological part of the business, ridiculing the idea as unscientific that the alkaloids to be found would act in the same manner on animals as humans, Mr. Mole had to content himself with getting his chemical work done in the best way possible. And this was really all he wanted. The task was not an easy one, but Sones was just the man for it. When a matter like this took his fancy, he threw his whole soul into the work. He isolated a number of active principles from the hundreds of poisonous fungi which Mr. Mole brought to him, and put them into separate glass tubes, carefully marked with signs corresponding to those which he kept in a register. Mr. Mole was so interested in his pursuit that he actually tested some of these dreadful agents upon himself, after he had tried them on some dogs which had been reserved for the purpose.

Apart from the business he had with the analyst, Mr. Mole always enjoyed his visits to Wardour Street. Those who had once met Newberry Sones and his witty, clever sister Mary, in that hospitable home of theirs in Mulberry Lane, were always glad to go again; and so in the course of a few years they had gathered round them a society of charming people, in whose company the hours flew pleasantly by with high talk of poetry, literature, and with the refining influences of art and music. Mr. Mole found plenty of food for discussion and investigation in the mushroom question, and Sones had worked at little else of late than the isolation of the alkaloids in fungi. His laboratory had long been stocked with baskets full of agarics, morels, and puff-balls; every known poisonous species which collectors could bring in was rigidly submitted to analysis. Especial attention was directed by Mr. Mole to the species which are commonly eaten in Prussia and Russia, but which are never eaten in France, and to those which, though eaten with impunity in France, are considered poisonous in England. The great questions they desired to settle were the circumstances that modify the action of fungi, e. g. cooking, idiosyncrasy, climate, weather, and seasons; all of which are known very greatly to influence the behaviour of mushrooms in the human stomach.

Dr. Sones had nothing to do with the physiological part of the question, and Mr. Mole was dependent mainly for the chemical side of the business on Sones. When Mr. Crowe started on his annual holiday, the various poisonous alkaloids in the fungi had just been isolated by our chemist, and it only awaited a series of experiments on animals to verify the facts which had been discussed relative to their operation. During his absence Dr. Sones had prepared a considerable quantity of these deadly poisons for the use of his friend. The porter at St. Bernard’s had collected a sufficient number of animals of various ages and sizes for Mr. Mole, so that nothing was wanting but the remaining links in the chain of proof to settle once and for all the great question of the causes of mushroom poisoning. One terrible fact greatly impressed Dr. Sones as the result of these determinations: namely, that if the poisonous alkaloid became readily procurable, nothing would be easier than for a criminal to prepare a dish in such a manner that the eater thereof would die, without much chance of detection, owing to the bad reputation of the fungi for terminating life suddenly. He laboured, therefore, long and anxiously to find some reagent or means of detecting the presence of the different alkaloids he had discovered which were capable of causing death in the human species; but hitherto without success.

Dr. Sones had bought his practice of an aged surgeon who had occupied the house over fifty years. He often showed his friends a curious collection of old drugs and medicines that were in actual use in pharmacy in the time of his predecessor. There was a bottle labelled “Moss off a dead man’s skull,” but it was not known how or for what complaint it was administered. There was another horrible mess called “Oil of earth-worms,” besides “Oil of bricks,” and “Powdered tapeworms,” actually administered for those parasites on the similia similibus principle. “Cobwebs,” “Crabs’ eyes,” and “Crabs’ claws,” were at that time regularly used in medicine, the two latter being merely chalk, sold under those names. If one were disposed to laugh at the therapeutic folly of the past generation of doctors, Sones would remind you that quite as absurd and disgusting things have been “strongly recommended by the faculty” in the present day. A prominent medical journal only recently had several articles on the virtues of an “Essence of Cockroaches” of all loathsome remedies! What is there that has not at one time been either a deity or a drug? One of these old bottles contained a preparation from some Russian fungi, which he had not hitherto noticed, and in that he found an important clue to his tests.