Novelists' Little Ways. By H. F. LESTER Our Maritime Supremacy. By J. A. FARRER. Prince Rupert. By H. GREENHOUGH SMITH . Progress of Pantomime, The. By W. J. LAWRENCE Romance of a Brain, The. By JOHN T. COLLIER Rosslyn, Hawthornden, and Ben Jonson. By EDW. WALFORD, M.A. Science Notes. By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F.R.A.S. : Krakatoa Waves-Edison's Victory in the Law Courts-The Electric Conductivity of Carbon-The Cannibalism of Rats 406 The Ancient Climate of our Globe-Drying Oils-The Properties of Oxidized Linoleine-Sugar as Cattle Food Solidification by Pressure-The Inner Structure of the Earth-A Second Part of Goethe's "Faust," The. By ALEX. H. JAPP, LL.D. 456 Sensation Scenes. By W. J. LAWRENCE Snakes in Poetry. By PHIL ROBINSON Some Unconscious Confessions of De Quincey. By ALEX. H. Star Lore. By J. A. FARRER Table Talk. By SYLVANUS URBAN: English Prefixes to Foreign Names-Board Schools and Natural ΙΟΙ 206 Mr. Irving at Oxford-"The Cenci" on the Stage-Scot's "Dis- The Death of Desdemona-Children and Cruelty to Animals-A A Translation of Mr. Christie's Etienne Dolet-Productions of The Last of Cæsar Borgia-French Politeness-The Macaroni Magazine Unteachable Woman-Libelled London History by Caricature-Mr. Gosse and the Quarterly Review- 310 Warm Day's Work, A. By Commander V. LOVETT CAMERON 390 THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. A JULY 1886. A HAZARDOUS EXPERIMENT. BY LUKE LOVART. "Ein ganz besond'rer Saft."-Faust. I. DOCTOR has necessarily some strange experiences. To me the most interesting of such experiences have always been those which hover, as it were, on the borderland between the mind and body, so that from first to last it is impossible to be quite sure how much is to be set down to a disordered state of the physical organism; how much to a morbid mental impression. One of the most curious of such experiences happened to me a good many years ago on this wise. I was at that time house-surgeon at one of the smaller London hospitals, and was sitting one evening in my cosily-furnished room, enjoying the company of two of my friends whom I will call Whitmore and Radford. They were both medical students in their last year. Whitmore was very clever, but unfortunately in delicate health. In my opinion he read too much and smoked too much. Radford was of a commoner type-a tall, robust fellow, very good at football and all manly exercises, and without any further ambition than to pass his examinations satisfactorily, and thus to become qualified to succeed to his father's practice in the country. Of course we were smoking, and, between the puffs, we were engaged in an argument such as most people like—an argument, namely, in which it is impossible for either side to score a decisive victory. This keeps up the interest, and the conversation becomes a kind of verbal game of battledoor and shuttlecock, each disputant keeping it up at his end when his turn comes, and skilfully returning it, until it is at last dropped from mere exhaustion. VOL. CCLXI. NO. 1867. B It was just at the time when the minds of some people were a good deal exercised on the subject of the alleged miracles associated with the name of Louise Lateau. According to eye-witnesses of credit and acumen, there appeared on the girl's hands and feet and side, at certain times, the stigmata of the Crucifixion. At other times they either disappeared, or at any rate ceased to bleed. This is the account, as I recall it, but nothing for my purpose hinges on the precise accuracy of these details. Of course, the question we were debating was (1) whether these appearances were what may be called spontaneous, or the result of a mere clever imposture; and (2), if spontaneous, how they could possibly be accounted for on scientific grounds. We were all of us agreed that the age of miracles was over, but beyond this our agreement did not go. Radford, in his blunt, matter-of-fact way, roundly asserted that the whole thing was humbug from beginning to end, and that it was altogether too much to expect any man endued with his proper share of common sense to believe it. I, on the contrary, on the evidence, leaned to the opinion that the manifestations might be genuine, but confessed myself unable to give any rational explanation of them. And Radford was just about to take advantage of this logical inconsistency on my part when Whitmore intervened. He told us a curious circumstance which had come under his own observation, and which certainly seemed to throw some light upon the subject we were discussing. A party of which he was one were assembled one winter at a country house, and were sitting late at night round the fire in a room otherwise not lighted. Amongst the party was Whitmore's cousin, a faircomplexioned girl of seventeen, of very nervous and sensitive disposition. As often happens in such circumstances, the talk took the direction of the awful and the uncanny. The young girl listened with the intensest interest. At last one of the speakers related a story of special and peculiar horror, and, being a man of much dramatic talent, invested it with all the semblance of reality. When the story was at an end, one of the party chanced to look at the girl and gave a cry of astonishment and concern. She was sitting on her chair, pale as death, with the lips parted and the hands tightly clenched. But the ghastliest thing was that her forehead seemed streaked with blood. The candles were hurriedly lighted, and a closer inspection showed that there was no blood actually on the surface of the skin. But just below it there were blood-red streaks, and these streaks were exactly in the lines which the brow assumes when contracted with pain and horror. They did not altogether disappear for a week, during the whole of which time the girl remained too much disfigured to show herself.1 "Here," added Whitmore in conclusion, " was, as it seems to me, a clear case of a strong mental impression causing a direct physical effect, the mind stamping suddenly an image of its horror visibly on the flesh. In the same way, why may not the intensified consciousness of the Belgian mystic, directed ecstatically to certain portions of the body, produce the marks described ?" "Yes," I said, "and we all remember, too, the case of the man who was sentenced to be beheaded. They merely grazed his neck with the knife, and poured a few drops of lukewarm water over it, but the poor fellow was taken up dead all the same." "Oh, yes," exclaimed Radford, "but that was merely fright. Of course people can be killed by fright; I never denied that. That's hardly to the point, you know." "I think it is," said Whitmore. "The point is-as far as our discussions ever have a point-that the imagination can do anything. It can visibly mark and derange any part of the organism, as in the case I have given you, or it can destroy the organism altogether, as in the case just mentioned by Lovart. My uncle says he knew a man who gave himself an aneurism merely by persistently believing he had one, and concentrating his thoughts on the particular spot where he imagined it to be. In time one came, in response, as it were, to his appeal-a real thing created by mind out of matterand it ultimately killed the man." "I can't swallow that," said Radford. "I should prefer to doubt your uncle's original diagnosis, especially as the complaint is often difficult to detect in its early stages." "Well, when you come to practise, Radford," said I, a little oracularly, as became one who had already reached that stage, "you will find that you will have to allow something for the imagination." "In some cases, everything," remarked Whitmore. Just at this moment there was a knock at the door, and Jacques, the porter, put in his head. "Accident, sir," he said. Jacques was the very type of a cold, cut-and-dried official. think he prided himself upon his impassibility. If he couldn't be a doctor, he could at least imitate a doctor's manner. Only he overdid it a good deal. We doctors try to be calm; Jacques was stolid. It used to be a saying among us that, if-per impossibile-the Prince of Wales had chanced to be brought into the hospital, CK 1 A fact. comatose, Jacques would not have got beyond his invariable formula, "Accident, sir." Of course I went at once. There is always a certain interest in an accident. It suggests exciting complications, until you know exactly what it is. Whitmore went with me from professional curiosity. Radford, who had no curiosity in such matters, said "Good-night," and went off to a whist party. When we reached the accident ward, we found the new arrival lying on the bed nearest the door, with a screen between him and the next patient. He was deadly pale, and the silk handkerchief tied round his head was saturated with blood. His pulse was extremely feeble, and he was unconscious. I made a hasty examination. As far as I could make out, he had received no injury except the one to his head. This in itself did not appear to be dangerous, as the skull was not fractured. But there was a deep cut which had severed an artery, and it was clear to me that there must have been considerable delay in bringing him to the hospital, and that, meanwhile, he had lost a large quantity of blood. Hence his extreme exhaustion. It appeared on inquiry that he had been knocked down by a hansom cab, and had fallen on some sharp object-a broken bottle probably-which had cut his temple deeply. I stanched the hemorrhage, bound up his head, and attempted to revive him with stimulants. But it was pretty clear to me, as well as to Whitmore, that all our efforts would prove ineffectual, and yet it seemed very sad that he should die in this way—all the sadder that he was young and handsome, and was evidently a man of refinement and culture, and probably of wealth as well. He was in evening dress, and the make and material of all his clothes, as well as his general appearance, left no doubt on my mind that he was a gentleman. I searched in his pockets for a clue to his identification, in order that I might send a message at once to his friends. I soon found his card MR. LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN, Llantrissant Hall, -shire. 'There was no London address. It was impossible to communicate with his friends in the country, as it was already too late to telegraph. He was entirely in my hands until the morning, and I felt the responsibility keenly. I exchanged glances with Whitmore. We would willingly have done anything in our power for the poor sufferer, but there was absolutely nothing more to be done. There was no complication in |