"Doctor," said he, "this disease must take its course. It never was designed for ordinary mortals, and I cannot believe that you or any medical man ever witnessed in another these excruciating tortures. There is nothing human about this visitation." "Nonsense," said I, "I know nothing of miraculous diseases." "Like the forked lightning," he proceeded, "it leaves no trace of its progress. There is no wound, no inflammation, no fever, not a spot in the skin, to tell that, under it, and, as it were, touching it, there exists agonies, in comparison of which the pain of red-hot irons applied to the skinless flesh (under which nature would claim the relief of sinking) is as nothing; for I cannot faint—I cannot get refuge in insensibility—I cannot die." "Still, all natural," said I. "No," he went on, "speak no more of remedies against Heaven's visitations; but let me suffer, that, by suffering, I may expiate. I shall immediately have another visit from my messenger. Oh, sir, who shall help him that is accursed of Heaven."
He turned his body from me, to hide his face, and I could perceive that he shook as if from a spasm of the heart. I told him that he talked like one under the dark veil of religious melancholy, or rather like one who had something on his conscience different from the ordinary burden of human frailty, making him attribute to retribution what was only a disease incident to mankind; that Heaven was not against the cure of any mortal; and that he would, for certainty, have no attack that day, nor, perhaps, for several days, especially if he used the lotion I recommended to him. He heard me in silence, shaking, at intervals, his head, solemnly and incredulously, turning his eyes to heaven, and clasping his hands as if in mental adjuration. "It will not do," he cried. "I have more faith in the language of this monitor than in that of frail man. I will have another attack instantly. Leave me! Why will you force me thus to brave heaven, between, whose dread powers and me there is a secret compact recorded here—here?"—striking his chest. "This disease I fear and tremble at; but it is not hell, and, by bearing the one, I may avoid the other. So do I claim these pangs, sharper than scorpions' tongues, as my right, my due, my redemption. Oh God! what a price do I pay for relief from eternal fire!"
He sat down as he concluded these mysterious words, in an attitude of expectation of the coming paroxysm, and I conceived that my best reply to his wild and incoherent ideas would be, the refuting fact of the absence of any attack at that time. I, therefore, left him; and, as I passed along the passage to the door, was met by his anxious wife, who inquired of me, with tears in her eyes, if I knew what this malady was, which, leaving no trace of its presence, yet produced such a pain as she never thought mortal was doomed to suffer; and, above all, she was solicitous to know if I had got any insight into her husband's mind, which was loaded with some awful burden in some degree connected with this calamity; for, since ever the first attack, she had got no rest at night, and no peace during day—his haunted vigils, his sleep-walking, his dreaming, his agonies, and prayers, being unremitting and heart-rending, as well to him as to her. She wept bitterly as she concluded this account of her sufferings.
I could give her little satisfaction beyond assuring her that the disease had nothing supernatural about it, as her husband thought, and giving it as my opinion that the unusual character of the complaint might, in a serious, contemplative-minded man, have given rise to the delusion that it came direct from heaven as a punishment of errors incident to fallen humanity. I informed her, also, of my expectation of removing this delusion, partly by impressing him with the disappointment he would likely feel that day in experiencing no attack consequent upon my remedial endeavours; and, in a short time, I might prevail upon him to allow me to perform the operation I had recommended.
I left the poor woman praying fervently that I might succeed; for, until some change was effected on her husband's mind, she could expect little peace, far less happiness, on earth. As I proceeded homewards, I had great misgivings as to my having exhausted the secret of this man's misery; yet my efforts at fathoming the true mystery of this unusual imputation of a disease to the avenging retribution of an offended God were unavailing, and I left to time to discover what was beyond my power.
As I expected, I found, on my next call, that no attack had followed my last visit. The patient was somewhat easier; yet his mind was apparently still greatly troubled. I impressed him with the vanity of the delusion under which he laboured, and prevailed upon him to consent to the application of the stimulating lotion to the scat of the disease. In yielding this consent, he underwent a great struggle; I noticed him several times in the attitude of silent prayer, and, as I was about to begin the application of the medicine, he recoiled from my grasp, turning up his eyes, muttering indistinct words, and trembling like one about to undergo a severe punishment. All this had nothing to do with the character of the simple stimulant I was about to apply, but was clearly the working of his terror at the application of a remedial process of any kind to a heaven-sent disease; and I was latterly obliged to use a degree of force, assisted by the energies of his wife, before I succeeded in my endeavours to get the medicine applied. His fears and tremors, silent prayers and murmurings, continued during the whole time I was occupied in rubbing in the liniment; and, when I had finished, he fell on his knees and prayed silently for several minutes, and then threw himself down exhausted on the couch.
Two days afterwards, I called again, and found that there had still been no new attack of the disease—a fact communicated to me, on my entrance, by Mrs. B——, who was auguring from it the happiest results. On the day following, however, he had a most violent onset immediately before I called; and I ascertained that, for two days previous, the liniment had been discontinued, in consequence of a return of the patient's conscientious scruples; so that I could now reverse upon him his own argument, which I did not fail to do, pointing out to him and impressing upon him that, in place of Heaven being offended at his using remedial measures, he had now experienced its displeasure at not adopting those means which Providence points out to man for arresting the progress of disease. I therefore urged him, with all the force of my reasoning and power of persuasion, to consent to undergoing the operation I had proposed, the dividing of the nerve—backing my arguments with the stated conviction that, if he did not consent, he might be a martyr for many years to the most painful of diseases, and be deprived of all comfort in this world. He heard me in vain; for his conscientious scruples had leagued with his former terror, and he rejected my advice; but he did it as one compelled by a secret power, which overawed him by its stern decrees, and scattered his opposing resolutions with the breath of its whisper.
Justice to myself and my profession required that I should not visit again a man who rejected my advice, and whose case seemed fitted rather for the ministrations of a servant of Christ than a disciple of Æsculapius. Several days passed without my hearing anything of the condition of the unhappy patient; but I had no hopes of his having got quit of his neuralgia, which too often adheres to its victim like a double-tongued adder.
One evening I was in my study, reading an old copy of Celsus, over a fire nearly exhausted, and by the light of a candle, whose long black wick indicated the attention I was devoting to the old physician. The night was dark and windy, and I was assured that, if no emergency demanded my presence out of doors (which I fervently wished), I stood little risk of being disturbed by any walking patients, generally deemed by us the most troublesome of all our employers. At my side hung my skeletons; and, among the rest, that of Walter T——; around were other monuments of the frailty and the agonies of human life, all too familiar to me to take off my attention from the old chronicler of diseases, their causes, symptoms, and cures.
While thus occupied, my bell rang with great violence and I started up from the study into which I had fallen. In an instant, my door was flung open. William B—— stood before me, the picture of a man who had broken out of bedlam: his eyes flashed the fire of an excruciating agony; his right hand was pressed convulsively on his cheek; his left made wild signs, intended to supply the want of words which his tongue could not utter; every symptom indicated that he was under the full grasp of his implacable enemy. Recovering his breath, he cried out, "I cannot bear this any longer." "Patience," said I. "No!" he proceeded, "the extent of human powers of suffering may be overrated by superior avengers. I must brave Heaven, or die under its exaction of the last pang of an overstrained retribution; death will not come to my prayer, and I am stung to rebellion. Will you, sir, use your operating knife against the wrath of Heaven? I am resolved. Though conscience cannot be amputated, this hell-scorched nerve may be severed. Come next what will, this must be ended. I am at last prepared."