“There is,” he said, “not the slightest possibility that Mrs. Greene is suffering from any disease other than an organic paralysis of both legs—a paraplegia, in fact, of the entire lower part of the body.”
“If you were to see Mrs. Greene move her legs, what would be your mental reaction?”
Von Blon stared at him incredulously. Then he forced a laugh.
“My mental reaction? I’d know my liver was out of order, and that I was having hallucinations.”
“And if you knew your liver was functioning perfectly—then what?”
“I’d immediately become a devout believer in miracles.”
Vance smiled pleasantly.
“I sincerely hope it won’t come to that. And yet so-called therapeutic miracles have happened.”
“I’ll admit that medical history is filled with what the uninitiated call miraculous cures. But there is sound pathology beneath all of them. In Mrs. Greene’s case, however, I can see no loophole for error. If she should move her legs, it would contravert all the known laws of physiology.”
“By the by, doctor”—Vance put the question abruptly—“are you familiar with Brügelmann’s ‘Über hysterische Dämmerzustände’?”