“You haven’t changed its reflection spectrum, either, have you?”
“We have that somewhere. There are no points of interest about it. Of what interest is it to you, anyway?”
“My dear Dr. Cimon. It is a well established psychological fact that combinations of red and green colors exert a deleterious effect on mental stability. We have a case here where the red-green chromopsychic picture—to use a technical term—is inescapable and is presented under circumstances which seem most unnatural to the human mind. It is quite possible that chromopsychosis could reach the fatal level by inducing hypertrophy of the trinitarian follicles with consequent cerebric catatonia.”
Cimon looked floored. He said, “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Naturally not,” said Sheffield—it was his turn to be lofty. “You are not a psychologist. Surely you are not questioning my professional opinion.”
“No, of course not. But it’s quite plain from the last reports of the expedition that they were dying of something that sounded like a respiratory disease.”
“Correct, but Rodriguez denies that and you accepted his professional opinion.”
“I didn’t say it was a respiratory disease. I said it sounded like one. Where does your red-green cromothingumbob come in?”
Sheffield shook his head. “You laymen have your misconceptions. Granted that there is a physical effect, it still does not imply that there may not be a mental cause. The most convincing point about my theory is that red-green chromopsychosis has been recorded to exhibit itself first as a psychogenic respiratory infection. I take it you are not acquainted with psychogenics.”
“No. It’s out of my field.”