The doctor heaved a patient sigh and put his fingertips together.
“The word ‘exactly,’ ” he replied, with a faint smile, “makes your question a little difficult to answer. There are so many things the matter with him. For the last twenty years, on and off, I have attended him, and during the whole of that time his health has been unsatisfactory—most unsatisfactory. His digestion has always been defective, his circulation feeble, he has had functional trouble with his heart, and throughout the winter months, more or less continuous respiratory troubles—nasal and pulmonary catarrh and sometimes rather severe bronchitis.”
The Reverend Amos nodded impatiently. “Quite so, quite so. But, to come from the past to the present, what is the matter with him now?”
“That,” the doctor replied suavely, “is what I was coming to. I mentioned the antecedents to account for the consequents. The complaints from which your brother has suffered in the past have been what are called functional complaints. But functional disease—if there really is such a thing—must, in the end, if it goes on long enough, develop into organic disease. Its effects are cumulative. Each slight illness leaves the bodily organs a little less fit.”
“Yes?”
“Well, that is, I fear, what is happening in your brother’s case. The functional illnesses of the past are tending to take on an organic character.”
“Ha!” snorted the Reverend Amos. “But what is his actual condition now? To put it bluntly, supposing he were to die to-night, what would you write on the death certificate?”
“Dear me!” said the doctor. “That is putting it very bluntly. I hope the occasion will not arise.”
“Still, I suppose you don’t regard his death as an impossible contingency?”
“Oh, by no means. Chronic illness confers no immortality, as I have just been pointing out.”