His teeth were closed tightly as he watched me.
“It is almost unaccountable,” he gasped in an awed voice, when I had withdrawn the needle after the injection. “I was cold as ice—just as though my legs were in a refrigerator!”
“Your feet are benumbed?” I said.
“Yes,” he responded. “The sensation is just exactly as you have described it. Like the touch of an icy hand.”
I felt his pulse; it was intermittent and feeble. I told him so.
“Look at your watch, and in three minutes give me the second injection. There’s ether there in the larger bottle.”
I glanced at the time, and, holding my watch in my hand, waited until the three minutes had passed. We were silent, all three of us, until I took up a piece of cotton wool, and, saturating it with ether, nibbed it carefully on the flesh. Then I gave him the second injection.
“Good!” he said approvingly. “It acts marvellously. I shall be better in a few moments. Did you feel your head reeling and your strength failing?”
I responded in the affirmative.
“And so did I,” he answered. “The seizure is sharp and sudden, the brain becoming paralysed. That is the condition of the young lady: paralysis of the brain and heart, coma and collapse.”