The Beginning of a Strange Story—A Friendless Scientist
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he death of the student Vinton, and Professor Murtha’s suicide following, brought the University a good deal of unwelcome prominence. In fact, the newspapers demanded investigation; and President Archer asked me to prepare a statement of the facts for general publication, because I know them better than anyone now living.
Circumstances forced me into the very heart of the affair. I am glad of the opportunity to explain it, for my own name was rather unpleasantly mentioned on recent front pages. I worked with Murtha for months; perhaps I helped him somewhat in developing the remarkable instruments which tempted him to crime; I introduced him to Vinton; I was with him the night of his death, and heard his confession; and for the validity of his notes I am his sole witness to science. It is said that I was his only friend.
This last is not quite true. Murtha had no friends—he was not a man who could or would undertake the ordinary human relations. Up to his last days he was self-sufficient—impersonal—official—unbendingly scientific. The first evening I met him an incident occurred which illustrates very well why he was rather outside the general fellowship of the faculty.
We were introduced at the club by Jedney, Murtha’s department head. “Here’s a new chap we’re extra proud to have in the psychology department,” he said, and then with a twinkle, “Look out for him, Harvey, for he’s dabbling with your specialty and he’ll show up all of us old boys if we don’t hustle.” He went on to say the usual amiable things about my electrical work and the more recent X-ray research with crystals. Then he moved away leaving us together.
I made conversation, since Professor Murtha seemed inclined to leave me the duty and I studied him. He was ill-at-ease. There was clearly no humor there, for he made no attempt to respond to Jedney’s joviality. He was of medium height, with rather an academic face beneath red hair, and his speech was clipped and formal. He dressed with almost conspicuous quietness. A typical assistant professor, you might judge from the description—and yet somehow the man was set off from the rest of us as an arrow is distinguished in a rack of walking sticks. It was not poise or strength, it was rather a kind of fierce concentration on some hidden purpose. It was the most noticeable thing about him.
The possibility of maintaining life in an organ separated from the body to which it belongs is claimed to have been approached by Dr. Flexner, a celebrated scientist. The insertion of tissue from one live animal into another, even the transfusion of blood, which of course, is comparatively simple, suggests endless possibilities to the creative surgeon. And in this story, our author depicts such a surgeon—a wonderful genius, wrapt up in his science, self-contained, aloof from the rest of humanity—and tells of his work upon living subjects and leads to a denouement that is only reached at the very end of the story, which compares favorably with Edgar A. Poe’s tales. It is an interesting successor to the wonderful story, “The Case of M. Valdemar.”
Testing the Psychological Reactions Unknown to the Subject of the Experiment
We talked of trivialities, and then I rose to go. Uninvited, he was beside me at once, with a light flowing step, and we passed out onto the dimming campus beneath the sturdy elms. Opposite Carson Hall he said in a hesitant way, which he seemed to try to make cordial, “Could you come up to my rooms for a few minutes, Professor Harvey? I’d like very much to have your help with this new electro-neural work I’m undertaking. Professor Jedney says you know more about the action of weak electric currents than anyone else on this side of the Atlantic. I want to ask a few questions.”
I was idle that evening, and I went. He installed me by an open fire—it was September, but chilly—and left me, after pushing a box of cigarettes to my elbow. I had time to receive an impression of austere richness—handsome books, the glint of mahogany, etchings—before he returned with a small box that trailed wires. He set it on the table beside me, took the chair opposite, and lighted a cigarette.
The box contained a galvanometer with a recording dial, and two wrist straps were in the circuit. He explained that he wanted to get some records of the body’s resistance to electric currents, and asked if I would mind his taking one while we talked. All that was required was that I should wear the straps. I consented.
We discussed currents and resistances. He spoke intelligently, and betrayed a good knowledge of the physical side of the subject, although he was weak in mathematics. It was interesting to see how he came to life in the talk. Shyness and self-consciousness vanished as soon as he spoke of technicalities. He was vital, interested, assured. But suddenly he seemed to remember something. He checked himself, rose, and picked a book from the table near at hand. It fell open to a familiar passage.
The Shakespearean Test
“Here’s something I’d like to read you,” he said abruptly. We had been talking about hysteresis and Steinmetz’s formulae, and I blinked a bit with surprise when he began to read from Shakespeare—the scene in “King John” where little Prince Arthur pleads with Hubert for his eyesight. The King, you remember, has ordered Hubert to blind the child. Some of the passages are so poignant they hurt.
“Arthur: Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?
Hubert: Young boy, I must.
Arthur: And will you?
Hubert: And I will.
Arthur: Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkercher about your brows,
(The best I had, a princess wrought it me)
And I did never ask it you again.
And with my hand at midnight held your head,
And like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheered up the heavy time.”
They were two suffering people together, man
