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.