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Ourselves at a loss, we assured her, with the usual assumption of professional medical knowledge, that everything was following a normal course, and that nothing was to be apprehended at present. All depended, we explained, upon keeping up the strength of the patient.

For several ensuing days the shares of United German Pickles, Ltd., went up and down in the most astonishing manner. Dr Lenkenzimmer reported to me by telephone the news that neither the temperature nor the pulse of his patient had been affected by these fluctuations, which he seemed to follow with the keenest interest. It was, in fact, by the merest coincidence that, meeting early one morning in the neighbourhood of the Gewandhaus, the doctor suggested my accompanying him again to Herr Breitbach's flat, whither he was bound at that moment. I went with him gladly. To tell the truth, I had been turning over this case in my mind for some days, and was far from satisfied that we had estimated its unusual features at their proper value. I determined on this occasion to apply my powers of observation as keenly as possible.

Herr Breitbach was evidently pleased at our visit.

"You are just in time to do me a favour," he called out to my colleague as we entered the

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The invalid, who was half sitting up in bed supported by an array of pillows, produced the morning paper.

"United German Pickles have gone down to 48, just two points above what I gave for them," he replied, pointing with a perfectly steady hand, I noticed, to the Bourse report of the preceding day. "I have, therefore, decided to sell out at once."

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Capital!" cried Dr Lenkenzimmer. A most wise thing for you to do, I am sure, from every point of view."

"So will you be so kind," continued the patient, "as to telephone at once to my brokers, Maulswerth and Grosshaufen, instructing them to sell out my entire holding?"

"With the greatest pleasure," declared the doctor, and he promptly left the room with Frau Breitbach to carry out the undertaking.

Watching the patient narrowly, I observed a look of weariness come into his already emaciated face, and I interpreted it as a sudden weakening of his hold on life. The light seemed to have gone out of it altogether. He took no notice of my presence, but closed his eyes and leaned back heavily on the pillows behind him.

When the doctor returned in a few minutes I could see that it cost the sick man a considerable effort to come back, as it were, to consciousness and speak to him.

"Well, is it done?" he asked wearily.

easy," replied the doctor in loud cheerful tones. "The shares will be sold at once, and you need not trouble about them any more. All you have to do now is to take nourishing food, and get well."

"Yes, yes, make your mind for a medical man. There would have been irregularity in the pulse, and probably a rise in temperature. It had been evident to me, on the contrary, both from my own observation and from the daily reports of my colleague, that the episode of the shares had brought an accession of strength, not of weakness, to the invalid. More than that; he had manifested an intense interest in the fluctuations of the market, but no unhealthy excitement.

The patient made no response. He uttered a deep sigh, and sank down, rigid and motionless.

I hastened to his side and placed my hand over the region of the heart. It had ceased to beat.

He was dead.

In the certificate, which he wrote out immediately downstairs, Dr Lenkenzimmer stated that death was caused by failure of the heart due to extreme weakness after double pneumonia, and accelerated by excitement. Discussing the matter privately with me afterwards, he expressed to me the opinion that death might have occurred at any moment during the last few days. That it should have occurred at the precise moment when the patient had disposed of his shares struck him as pure coincidence. He attributed no significance whatever, medical or otherwise, to that remarkable circumstance. But to me it had the greatest significance. Dr Lenkenzimmer had stated in his certificate that the patient's weakness had been accelerated by excitement. That he was completely in error in this regard I had no doubt at all. An increase of weakness, whether caused by excitement or by anything else, would have written itself in plain language

From that circumstance I made, then, the correct deduction that an absorbing interest will stand between death and its victim. The man had been kept alive by his interest in certain financial operations. Directly he discarded that interest, death claimed him. It set me thinking in the right direction; but the clues were still wanting that were to be supplied by later experience.

(2) A Victim of Pain.

Several other cases occurring during this period of my inquiry

cases in which dying persons seemed to have their existence prolonged by some absorbing interest-are enumerated in the Appendix. They served to strengthen my conviction that a strong interest actually interposes an obstacle to death. But it did not occur to me to make this belief the subject of any experiment until an opportunity practically thrust itself in my way.

This happened during one

of my periodical visits to England, the main object of which was to keep in touch with the valuable research work carried on-far removed from the limelight, as is the modest custom of English scientific men-in the metropolis. One day, a baronet named Sir Charles Wentworth, whom I had met several times at a friend's house, came to me in considerable distress. He told me that his daughter Sybil, a charming girl of twenty-two, whom I had also seen on one or two occasions, was dying of cancer; that the doctors had done all they possibly could to alleviate her sufferings; but that nature was taking its course in so slow a fashion as to have become unbearable to the patient and her unhappy family.

With tears in his eyes he begged me, in the most urgent terms, to come to his aid and see if anything had been overlooked that might be done to put an end to the situation.

"But medical etiquette!" I exclaimed, lifting up my hands in dismay. "You cannot call me in without your doctors' consent to another opinion."

I have obtained it already," Sir Charles Wentworth replied. "Your reputation is well known to them. They say that everything possible has already been done; that there could be no mistake either in the diagnosis or their treatment; but that they have not the slightest objection to your opinion being sought by me, or to any

measures being taken that you may think fit to propose."

All medical objection having been disposed of in this manner, I at once accompanied the baronet to his house in Eaton Square. After a brief and most distressing interview with Lady Wentworth, who only prayed that her daughter might be released from her sufferings as quickly as possible, I went up myself to examine the patient. It must be understood that I had no hope of curing any disease, least of all cancer, where the skill of first-class physicians had already failed. But my experience had taught me that very essential factors are often overlooked by qualified men, chiefly through ignorance of the working of forces which lie outside the province of approved medical science; though where such an omission would lead me, if it existed at all, I had not the least idea. I was there, at the house of Sir Charles Wentworth, simply because my humanity would not permit me to refuse his appeal.

The first thing that greeted me as I entered the sick-room was the fragrant smell of cigarette smoke; and there, truly enough, lay the unfortunate victim of the most dreaded of all diseases, peacefully smoking a cigarette. I do not wish, in a scientific treatise, to dwell upon the painful side of these matters; but I felt, as I looked down upon that beautiful emaciated face, that I would gladly give up all the knowledge and all the science I possessed

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"Would you give it up to smoking was responsible for please me?" I asked. prolonging their daughter's

A look of entreaty came into miserable existence. They were her face. too well bred to be openly "Oh, please don't ask me to sceptical; but I could see that do that," she begged. they were both difficult soil "Do you want to die?" I for the planting of new ideas. said abruptly.

'Yes, indeed I do," the girl repeated fervently. And if you think the cigarette smoking is hastening my death, I beg of you earnestly, in the name of humanity, not to take away from me anything that may cut short the terrible pain I often have to endure. They

At any rate, they promised me that my advice should be loyally followed. "If Sybil gave you her word that she wouldn't smoke any more,' declared Lady Wentworth, in a choking voice, as I took leave of her, "you may rely upon it that she will never touch another cigarette."

The experiment proved a complete success, and the result was exactly what I had anticipated. From the moment when the cigarette smoking was abandoned, the patient began to weaken perceptibly. I went frequently to the house to make inquiries, and on one occasion I saw the poor girl once more. She thanked me with her eyes, and with a quiet pressure of the hand, but was too weak to speak. The morphia injections, too, did their work more expeditiously under the new conditions; and in a few days the victim had passed on, to the unutterable relief of her grief-stricken parents, to a place where it is hoped no counterpart will be found of earthly diseases.

The collapse coincided exactly with the cessation of smoking. The patient's interest in living was cancelled by the abandonment of the habit. It left no doubt whatever in my mind that, as in the case of the fluctuating shares, proof was here afforded that a sufficiently absorbing interest will bind the individual to this earth-and keep him there.

(3) In the Realm of

Imagination.

forms a somewhat painful recollection. I ought, as a man of scientific training, to have proceeded with more caution. That I freely admit. Yet I cannot help seeing that without this precipitance on my part, due to over-confidence, I might not have blundered upon the truth at all.

Amongst the many acquaintances I had made in London was Bryn Williams, the composer of serious musical works of sterling originality. He was an immense favourite everywhere, full of fun and vitality; a typical musician in appearance, with bright living eyes that could have a very faraway look in them, and quantities of fluffy hair, turning grey. Healthy, happy, and working at an art that he loved, Bryn Williams was the last man I should have expected to succumb to a serious illness at a comparatively early age. The more so because his wife, a most capable and charming little woman, devoted her whole existence in the most unselfish way to making his surroundings comfortable and attractive.

For the last year, however, Mrs Bryn Williams had been extremely anxious about her husband's health. His appetite went; he became thin, Alas for human fallibility! took less interest in his work, My confidence in the conclu- and exhibited unaccountable sion to which my experiences signs of breaking up. His and reflections had led me was physician, Dr Gordon, with to suffer a severe shock before whom I was well acquainted, the whole truth penetrated my was puzzled to account for mind. In one sense, therefore, these alarming symptoms and my next case of importance tried various remedies, such as

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