RAISING THE DEAD-A SURGICAL EXPERIMENT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue XXIV, 15 December 1894, Page 569

RAISING THE DEAD-A SURGICAL EXPERIMENT.

MY friend, Dr. Lansett, was by common consent pronounced to be a * very queer fellow.’ Clever he undoubtedly was, and a perfect master of his -profession ; but he delighted in hazardous experiments and seemingly impossible operations, and though he had more than once saved a life which some less daring surgeon had given up, yet in all such cases he appeared to derive far more pleasure from the amazement and chagrin of his unsuccessful rivals than from the service done to the patient, or the high fee with which the latter repaid it. t But while in one way the doctor seemed to light up dry medical facts with a wonderful play of fancy, in another be was the most unimaginative man alive. He cared nothing for the supposed influence of mind and soul upon matter, and, indeed, was popularly held to have no belief in the existence of the sonl at all. To him a body, living or dead, was merely a body and nothing more. * Don’t tell me abont impulses or emotions,’ be used to say, * everything is simply a question of good or bad health. It was the restlessness of incipient cancer that made Napoleon set Europe in a blaze. It was dyspepsia that sent Charles V. into war after war. Pope libelled all his friends not from natural depravity, bnt from curvature of the

spine. If Adam had taken a pill or two when he first thought of eating the forbidden fruit he would have been in Paradise still. The “ origin of evil,” about which people make such a fuss, is merely a derangement of the system. Sin, properly considered, is an unhealthy action of the vital forces, and its cure is—medicine.’ With all his queer ways, however, Lansett was one of the bravest men whom I have ever known. He was credibly reported to have captured a burglar single handed, and then (so the story went) having gagged and bonnd the man securely, he was coolly proceeding to vivisect him, when the intrusion of the police prevented, to his great chagrin, the completion of this interesting expeiinient. Nor was the doctor, like many brave men, more accessible to supernatural terrors than to those of earth. In bis student days be bad rifled more graves of promising * subjects’than any other pupil in the hospital, and he often said that if the ghosts of those whose rest be had broken had a mind to come and haunt him, they were quite welcome to do so as soon and as long as they liked.

* Take care that they don’t take you at your word some fine day, Ned,’ said his friend and classmate, Professor Dryasdust, who was staving with him at the time. * You remember how poor Dr. John Hunter, when he was delirious from overwork, used to be haunted by the appaiition of a man whom he had dissected, who came walking up to bis bedside every night, with his side gaping like the mouth of a letter-box, and, pointing to the gap, said fiercely, “ Give me my liver !" ’ * Pooh I’ cried the undaunted doctor, * seeing’* believing, and I won’t believe that sort of thing till I do see it. If there are such things as ghosts they’ll have a fine chance at me to-night, for I’m going to dissect the body of a man from one of the hospitals, who had a very singular disease of the left arm, which kept it bent back like a bow for several years, the finger-tips actually touching the shoulder. I mean to find out exactly what was the matter with that arm of his, and even if he should come to life again, and spring up to prevent me, I’d do it all the same I* Three or four hours later, these defiant words came back rather unpleasantly to Dr. Lansett’s mind as he sat alone in the giim old laboratory that had witnessed so many horrors, bending over the deformed and ghastly body of bis new * subject ’ In truth, on such a night as that, the dullest and least fanciful man alive might have been pardoned for feeling nervously excited. It was one of those black, stormy nights of early spring, which poets, seated snugly by a good fire after dinner, love to describe in neat and well-paid verses, but which seamen and lonely travellers dread and abhor. No gleam of moon or star broke the inky blackness of the midnight sky. Great gusts of rain dashed against the rattling casements, and doors and windows shook and clattered as the wild blasts went shrieking I y. Then came a sudden lull, more ghostly than all the hideous uproar, and in that dead, unnatural silence the heavy dripping of the rain from the roof upon the pavement below sounded like the falling of great drops of blood. Dr. Lansett began to feel very uncomfortable. For the first time in his life he found it impossible to concentrate his whole attention upon bis work. His thoughts wandered in spite of himself, and his eyes strayed nervously to all parts of the gloomy old chamber. Strange and terrible fancies, such as be had never known before, began to beset him. Shadowy faces seemed to look forth from the grim old books on the shelves. The skeleton in its tall glass case in the far corner appeared to grin at. him in mockery. The long, straggling shadows that flickered across the wall looked like black, bony hands outstretched to seize him, and more than once he found himself c? sting a nervous

glance over his shoulder in the belief that some one or xomethinc/ was standing just behind him. And now there came rushing upon his mind, with haunting power, the memory of his rash challenge to the dead man whose limbs he was mangling, to rise up and prevent the desecration if he could. At the time he uttered it the bare idea of su?h a thing seemed the wildest folly ; but now, in the silerce and loneliness of midnight, with the storm raging outside and the profaned corpse lying white ard rigid before him tn the spectral lamplight, it appeared awfully real and possible. * Pooh !’ cried the doctor aloud, trying to keep up bis failing courage by affecting a boldness which be was verv far from feeling. * Il’s something new for me to turn fanciful like this. I suppose I shall imagine next that I see this fellow move.’ Ha I did he suddenly feel the lifeless figure stir beneath his hand ! Did that drooping eyelid move—that rigid limb quiver—that clenched band slowly open! Good heaven I could such things be, after all ?

* It’s all nonsense,’ quavered the operator, beginning to cut away more vigorously than ever in sheer desperation. * The man’s dead—he’ll never move again.’ Hardly were the words uttered when tbeaead man sprang half erect and dealt the doctor a blow that knocked him backward off bis chair as if felled with a butcher’s axe. His tall overturned the lamp—there was a tremendous crash, a piercing cry, and then all was dark and silent. Meanwhile Professor Dryasdust (whose bedroom was just over the laboratory) had been amusing himself with a scientific treatise as dry and tough as a boarding house fowl, and was just laying it aside to prepare for bed, when he was startled by the crash and shriek from the room below, and flew downstairs, candle in hand, to see what was the matter. Bursting into the laboratory he found Dr. Lansett lying senseless on the floor, while beside him lay the corpse, with its arm outstretched as if trying to clutch him by the throat. For an instant the worthy professor was as much shocked and amazed as it was in bis cold, matter of fact nature to be. But the next moment a curious smile flickered across his marble face as be bent over the ‘subject,’ and then, pushing it aside, set about restoring bis friend to consciousness.

• Take away that thing out of my sight, for heaven’s sake I' gasped the doctor, as his half opened eyes rested on the body. * I’ll never dissect a man again I’ And then, in tones faint and tremulous with horror, he told his feaiful adventure.

* Well, my dear fellow,’ said Dryasdust, when he had heard the story to an end, * 1 dare say I should have I een just as badly scared myself if I had been in your place ; uut, for all that, I can assure you that there was no gho-*t> in the case. You simply cut the ligament that had held the man’s arm in its unnatural position, and then, of course, tbe arm flew back like a broken spring and knocked you down.’

But Dr. Lansett seemed very little comforted by this explanation, scientific though it was. ‘I dare say you are right,’ said he, faintly ; * but, be that as it may, I’ll never dissect another man as long as I live.’ And tbe doctor kept his word

David Ker.