Jack London was deeply interested in the world of men. Far from being a recluse, he lived an active life with his fellows. He left his college class in order to go with other adventurers into the Klondike; he went to Japan, and seal hunting in the Behring Sea as a sailor before the mast; he tramped about the country; he traveled as a war correspondent, and went on an adventurous voyage into the South Seas in a 55-foot yacht. He wrote a great number of books, all of which show a quick understanding of the needs of humanity. Some of his works are thoughtful studies of social conditions. His best known books are: The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and The Mutiny of the Elsinore. He was born in San Francisco in 1876, and died in 1916.
THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS
By MORGAN ROBERTSON
In this day when science plays so great a part in life it is only natural that many stories should be based on scientific knowledge. Since such stories must almost always more or less distort scientific truth in order to make the facts have story-interest they are usually called “pseudo-scientific,” that is, falsely scientific.
Edgar Allan Poe, who did so much for the short story, was one of the first to write pseudo-scientific stories, his Descent into the Maelström, and A Tale of the Ragged Mountains being good examples of his peculiar power.
The Battle of the Monsters is a wonderfully clever pseudo-scientific story. In it we enter the minute world of the microscope, every character being infinitesimally small.
The story tells how a microbe of Asiatic cholera enters the veins of John Anderson at the same moment when he is bitten by a rabid dog. The “white, corrugated wall” is the dog’s tooth; the army of dog-faced creatures is composed of the microbes of rabies, or hydrophobia. The vibrant roar heard from time to time, is the beat of the man’s heart. In the veins the cholera microbe finds the red corpuscles and other cells and microbes that exist in the blood, and also the white corpuscles that, according to Metschnikoff, act as destroyers of the microbes of disease. We go with the cholera microbe through the series of blood vessels into the heart and thence back into the arteries and veins, all the time seeing the struggle between the beneficent white corpuscles and the deadly microbes of rabies. We see the desperate efforts to keep the microbes of rabies from entering the cells and finding their way to the brain. As the microbes of rabies reproduce they begin to win the battle. The cholera microbe, himself fighting the hosts of rabies, is about to be overcome, when the physician’s injection of antitoxin brings a new army to fight the dog-faced creatures. Now that the danger of rabies has been overcome attention is paid to the hero of the story, who declares himself to be the microbe of Asiatic cholera. At once the police guardians of the blood, the white corpuscles, close on him and destroy him. Thus John Anderson escapes all danger from rabies and from cholera, to both of which he had been exposed. The battle, if microscopic, had been real, had been on a grand scale, and had been of tremendous importance.
The pseudo-scientific story could have no better illustration. Every detail is clear, vivid with action, and tense with interest. There is no turning aside to give scientific information—nothing that is dry-as-dust. The microbes and corpuscles, without losing their essential characteristics, speak and act in ways that we can understand. That is why the story is so successful. It is a human story, based upon human interest. Familiar language, familiar ways of thought, events that we can understand, convey to us information on a learned scientific subject—the work of the white blood corpuscles.
Morgan Robertson, 1861-1915, was born in Oswego, N. Y. From 1877 to 1886 he lived the life of a sailor at sea. Gifted with natural literary ability he turned to writing, and wrote a number of distinctly original stories, most of them about the sea, such as Spun Yarn, Masters of Men, Shipmates, and Down to the Sea.
Metschnikoff’s theory. The great Russian physiologist, Iliya Metschnikoff, 1845-1916, taught that the white blood corpuscles act as destroyers of disease microbes.
The wounds of Milton’s warring angels. In Milton’s Paradise Lost the angels, wounded in the war in heaven, at once recovered.