"Perhaps," said the other, "he has been——" and he hesitated.
"Been what?" asked Lefevre, turning on him his keen look.
"Enjoying himself."
"Having a debauch, you mean? No; I think not. There would then have probably been some reflex action of the nerves. This is not that kind of exhaustion; and it is more than mere trance or catalepsy; it seems the extremest suspensory condition,—and that in a young man of such apparent health is very remarkable. It will take a long time for him to recover in the ordinary way with food and sleep," he continued, rather to himself than to his subordinates. "He needs rousing,—a strong stimulant."
"Shall I get some brandy, sir?" asked the nurse.
"Brandy? No. That's not the stimulant he needs."
He was silent for a little, moving the young man's limbs, and touching certain muscles which his exact anatomical knowledge taught him to lay his finger on with unerring accuracy. The effect was startling and grotesque. As a galvanic current applied to the proper nerves and muscles of a dead body will produce expressions and actions resembling those of life, so the touch of Lefevre's finger made the unconscious young man scowl or smile or clench his fist according to the muscles impressed.
"The brain," said Lefevre, "seems quite sound,—perfectly passive, you see, but active in its passivity. You can leave us, nurse," said he; then, turning to the house-physician, he continued: "I am convinced this is such a peculiar case as I have often imagined, but have never seen. This nervous-muscular suspension is complicated with some exhaustive influence. I want your assistance, and I ask for it like this, because it is necessary for my purpose that you should give it freely, and without reserve; I am going to try the electrode."
This was a simple machine contrived by Lefevre, on the model of the electric cylinder of Du Bois-Reymond, and worked on the theory that the electricity stored in the human body can be driven out by the human will along a prepared channel into another human body.
"I understand," said the assistant promptly. He apprehended his chief's meaning more fully than the reader can; for he was deeply interested and fairly skilled in that strange annex of modern medical science which his chief called psycho-dynamics, and which old-fashioned practitioners decline to recognise.