Chapter IV: Part 4

After dinner, of a sort, we sat on the penitential chairs and smoked, leaning our elbows on the table for our greater comfort. The doctor was eloquent upon his medical experiences in the district, upon his conflicts with pessimistic patients and his struggles with fanaticism and ignorance. The average sick man, he told me, had more confidence in a dried frog suspended from the neck in a bag than in the whole British Pharmacopœia. Most of his narratives have passed out of my memory, but one incident I had reason to remember.

It concerned a native from the adjacent village who was working as a stone-mason and whose eye was pierced by a minute splinter of stone. As a result the eye became inflamed and sightless, save that the man retained in the damaged organ an appreciation of light. As bearing upon the case and its sequel I must explain the circumstances of “sympathetic ophthalmia.” When an eye is damaged as this was, and inflammation ensues, it is not uncommon for the mischief to spread to the sound globe and destroy that also. In order to prevent such a catastrophe it is necessary to remove the injured and useless eye as promptly as possible. That was the uniform practice in my time. The operation in question was urged upon the native an order to prevent sympathetic ophthalmia in the sound eye, but he declined it, preferring to consult a magician who lived a day’s journey from the village. The consultation took place and the man returned to the local dispensary; for although he still had good vision in the sound eye it was beginning to trouble him.

The surgeon considered that the operation was now probably too late; but he yet urged it upon the ground that there was some prospect of success, while, on the other hand, failure could make the patient’s condition no more desperate. The man, persuaded against his will, at last consented, and the useless eyeball was removed. Unfortunately the operation _was_ too late; the sound eye became involved beyond recovery and the miserable native found himself totally blind. He ignorantly ascribed his loss of sight to the operation.

Before my friend left the station the man was brought into his room for the last time, and when it was explained to him that he was in the doctor’s presence he threw his arms aloft and, shrieking aloud, cursed the man of healing with a vehemence which should have brought down fire from heaven. He called upon every deity in the Indian mythology to pour torments upon this maimer of men, to blast his home and annihilate his family root and branch. He blackened the sky with curses because the darkness which engulfed him prevented him from tearing out with his nails the eyes of this murderous Englishman. Foaming and screaming, and almost voiceless from the violence of his speech, he was led away to stumble about his village, where for weeks he rent the air with his awful imprecations. Whether the poor man was now alive or dead the doctor could not say, for he had heard no more of him.

In due course we agreed that the time had come to go to bed. The doctor said that he always occupied the right-hand bedroom when he came to the bungalow, but as it was found that my servant had deposited my bedding and effects in this particular sepulchre, he retired to the chamber across the hall.

I did not look forward to a night in this so-called “Rest House.” The bedroom was as comfortless as a prison cell and as desolate as the one sound room in a ruin. There was some comfort in contemplating the familiar articles displayed on the dressing-table, yet they looked curiously out of place.

I locked the door leading to the common room, but found that the door to the bathroom had no lock; while there was merely a bolt to the outer door that led from the bathroom into the open. This bolt I shot, but left the intermediate door ajar, feeling that I should like to assure myself from time to time that the far room was empty. There was one small paraffin lamp provided, but the glass shade of it had been broken, so that it was only when the wick was very low that it would burn without smoking. By the glimmer of this malodorous flame I undressed and, blowing it out, got into bed.

The place was as black as a pit, as stifling and as silent. I lay awake a long time, for the stillness was oppressive. I found myself listening to it. It seemed to be made up of some faint, far-off sounds of mysterious import of which I imagined I could catch the rhythm. It was possible to believe that these half-imagined pulsations were produced by the rush of the earth through space, and that the stillness of the night made them audible.

I went to sleep in time and slept—as I afterwards discovered—for some hours, when I was aroused by a noise in the room. I was wideawake in an instant, with my head raised off the pillow, listening rigidly for the sound that I must have heard in my sleep. The place was in solid darkness. I felt that there was something alive in the room, something that moved.

At last the sound came again. It was the pattering of the feet of some animal. The creature was coming towards the bed. I could hear others moving along the floor, always from the bathroom, until the place seemed to be alive with invisible creatures. Such is the effect of imagination that I conceived these unknown animals to be about the size of retrievers. I wondered if their heads would reach the level of the couch, until I was relieved to hear that many were now running about under the bed. I resolved to shout at them but fancied that the noise of my own voice would be as unpleasant to hear as the voice of another and unknown human being in the room.

I noticed now a faint odour of musk, and was glad to think that these pattering feet belonged to musk-rats, and that these animals must have entered through the drain hole I had observed in the outer wall of the bathroom. I dislike rats, and especially rats in a bedroom. This prejudice was not made less when I felt that some of them were climbing up on to the bed. I was certain I could hear one crawling over my clothes which lay on the chair by the bedside. I was certain that others were searching about on the dressing-table, and recognized—or thought I did—the clatter of a shoe-horn that lay there. I recalled stories in which men had been attacked by hordes of rats, and I wondered when they would attack me, for, by this time, the whole room seemed to be full of rats, and I could picture legions swarming in from the plain outside in a long snake-like column.

In a while I was sure that a rat was on the pillow close to my head. My hair seemed to be flicked by the whiskers of one of these fœtid brutes. This was more than I could tolerate, so I sprang up in bed and shouted. There was a general scuttle for the far door; but it was some time before I ventured to pass my hand over the pillow to assure myself that a rat was not still there.

I had a mind to get out of bed and light the lamp; but to do this seemed to be like taking a step into a black pit. I lay down again. For a while all was quiet. Then came once more the pattering of feet from the direction of the bathroom, the sickly odour of musk and a conviction that at least a hundred rats were pouring into the room. They crept up to the bed and ran about beneath it with increasing boldness. I was meditating another shout when there came a sound in the room that made every vein in my body tingle. It arose from under the bed, a hollow scraping sound which I felt sure was due to the movement of a human being. I thought it was caused by the scraping of a belt buckle on the cement floor, the belt being worn by a man who was crawling on his stomach. I disliked this sound more than the rats.

At this moment, to add to my discomfort, I felt a rat crawling across my bare foot, a beast with small, cold paws and hot fur. I kicked it off so that it fell with a thud on the floor. I shouted again and, driven to desperation, jumped out of bed. I half expected to tread on a mass of rats, but felt the hard floor instead. I went to the dressing-table and struck a light. The place was empty, but I could not see under the bed. The match went out and in the blackness I expected some fresh surprise to develop. I managed to strike another match and to light the lamp.

I placed it on the floor and looked under the bed. What I saw there I took at first to be a piece of a human skull. I got a stick and touched it. It seemed lighter than a dried bone. I dragged it out into the room. It was a cake of unleavened bread, much used by the natives—dried up into a large curled chip. The rats had been dragging this away and had so produced the scraping sound which I had exaggerated into something sinister.

Having convinced myself that the room was empty I blocked up the drain hole in the outer wall by placing the bath in front of it and, feeling secure from any further disturbance, returned to bed, leaving the lamp alight on the table.

For a long time I kept awake, watching every now and then the bathroom door to satisfy myself that I had succeeded in keeping the beastly animals out. During this vigil I fell asleep and then at once embarked upon a dream, the vividness and reality of which were certainly remarkable.

The most convincing feature was this. The dream, without a break, continued the happenings of the night. The scene was this identical bedroom at this identical moment. The dream, as it were, took up the story from the moment that I lost it. Owing to my close scrutiny every detail of the vile chamber had already become as clearly impressed upon my brain as if it had been fixed by a photographic plate. I had not—in my dream—fallen asleep again, but was still wideawake and still keeping a watch over the bathroom door for the incoming of the rats.

The bathroom door was just ajar, but the very faint glimmer of the lamp did not enable me to penetrate the darkness that filled it. I kept my eye fixed on the entry when, in a moment, to my horror, the door began to open. The sight was terrifying in the extreme. My heart was thumping to such a degree that I thought its beats must be audible. I felt a deadly sinking in my stomach, while the skin of my back and neck seemed to be wrinkling and to be dragged up as might be a shirt a man is drawing over his head. There is no panic like the panic felt in a dream.

A brown hand appeared on the edge of the door. It was almost a relief to see that it was a human hand. The door was then opened to its utmost. Out of the dark there crept a middle-aged man, a native, lean and sinewy, without a vestige of clothing on his body. His skin shone in the uncertain light, and it was evident that his body, from head to foot, was smeared with oil. The most noticeable point about the man was that he was blind. His eyelids were closed, but the sockets of his eyes were sunken as are those of a corpse. With his left hand he felt for the wall, while in his right hand he carried a small stone-mason’s pick. His face was expressionless. This was the most terrible thing about it, for his face was as the face of the dead. He crept into the room as Death himself might creep into the chamber of the dying.

I realized at once in my dream that this was the native about whom my friend had been speaking before we had retired for the night. This man had heard of the doctor’s arrival, would know my room as the one he usually occupied, and had now come there to murder him.

I was so fascinated by the sight of this unhuman creature moving towards me that I could not stir a muscle. I was raised up in bed, and was leaning on one elbow like an image on a tomb. I was so filled with the sense of a final calamity that I felt I had ceased to breathe. There were, indeed, such a clutching at my throat and such a bursting at my heart that the act of breathing seemed wellnigh impossible. Had I been awake I should, without doubt, have shouted at the uncanny intruder and attacked him, but in the dream I was unable to stir, and the longer I remained motionless the more impossible did it appear that I could move. My limbs might have been turned into stone.

The figure crept on, feeling his way by the wall. There was a sense of an oncoming, irresistible fate. Every time that a horrible bare foot was lifted, advanced and brought to the ground I felt that I was one step nearer to the end. The figure seemed to grow larger as it approached me. The hand, with outstretched fingers, that groped its way along the wall was like a claw. I could hear the breathing of the creature, the breath being drawn in between the closed teeth. I could see the muscles of the arm that held the pick contract and relax. There was now in the air the loathsome smell of the unclean native mixed with the odour of oil.

One more step and he was so near that I could see the faint light glimmer on his teeth and could notice that they were dry. The outstretched, claw-like hand that felt its way along the wall was now nearly over my head. In another moment that awful pick would crash into my skull or plunge into my neck. I bowed my head instinctively so that I should not see the blow coming, and at the same time I thought it would be less terrible if the iron were driven into my back rather than into my head or face.

The evil creature was now close to the bed. The extended arm was clawing along the wall above my pillow, for I had now shrunken as low as I could. With my head bent I could now see nothing of the man but his wizened thigh, upon which the muscles rose and fell. A bony knee-cap was advanced slowly, and then I saw a shadow move on the floor. This I felt was the shadow of the arm with the pick raised to strike.

I was mesmerized as would be a rabbit in a corner within a foot of a snake. Suddenly the lamp flame gave a little crackle. The sound, breaking the silence, was intensified into an explosion. It seemed to call me to my senses. With one maddened half-conscious effort I rolled gently off the bed, away from the pursuer, and slipped, between the couch and the wall, on to the floor.

I made little noise in doing this, for my body was uncovered, the bed was very low, and the space between it and the wall so narrow that I was let slowly down to the ground. To the blind man I may merely have turned in bed.

As I lay there on the floor I could see the two sinewy feet close to the couch and could hear the awful hand moving stealthily over the very pillow. I next knew that he was bending over the couch to find what was between the bed and the wall. Turning my head, I saw a shadowy hand descend on the far side of the bed, the fingers extended as if feeling the air. In a moment he would reach me. His hand moved to and fro like the head of a cobra, while I felt that with a touch of his tentacle-like fingers I should die. The climax of the dream was reached.

I was now well under the bed. In a paroxysm of despair I seized the two skinny ankles and jerked them towards me, at the same moment lifting the frail bed bodily with my back so that it turned over on its side away from the wall. The wretch’s feet being suddenly drawn away from him, he fell heavily backwards upon the bare floor, his head striking the stone with a hollow sound. The edge of the bedstead lay across him. The feet, which I still held, were nerveless, and he made no movement to withdraw them. I crept back clear of the bed and, jumping upright against the wall, bolted through the bathroom and out into the plain. I had a glimpse of the man as I went by. He was motionless and his mouth hung open.

I ran some way from the bungalow before I stopped. I was like a man saved from the scaffold as the very axe was about to drop. There was a gentle air blowing, cool and kindly. Above was a sky of stars, while in the east the faint light of the dawn was appearing behind the Indian village.

For a moment or two I watched the door leading from the bathroom, expecting to see the man with the pick creep out, but the anticipation of the sight was so dread that I turned away and walked to the other side of the bungalow. Here my greatest joy was merely to breathe, for I seemed to have been for hours in a suffocating pit.

The relief did not last for long. I was seized with another panic. Had I killed the man? I felt compelled to return to the abhorred room and learn the worst. I approached it with trembling. So curious are the details of a dream that I found—as I expected—the bolt on the outer door wrenched off and hanging by a nail. I stepped into the disgusting place, full of anxiety as to what further horror I had to endure. The little lamp was still alight. The bedstead was on its edge as I left it, but the man was gone. There was a small patch of blood where his head had struck the floor, but that was the sole relic of the tragedy.

I awoke feeling exhausted, alarmed and very cold. I looked at once at the floor for the patch of blood, and, seeing nothing, realized, to my extreme relief, that I had been merely dreaming. It was almost impossible to believe that the events of the latter part of the night, after the departure of the rats, had not been real. At breakfast I retailed to my companion the very vivid and dramatic nightmare in which I had taken part. At the end he expressed regret for the mistake the servants had made in allotting us our rooms overnight, but I am not sure that that regret was perfectly sincere.

IX

IN ARTICULO MORTIS

The recent work on “Death and its Mystery,”[2] by Camille Flammarion, the eminent astronomer, cannot fail to be of supreme interest. The second volume of the series, entitled “At the Moment of Death,” will more especially appeal to medical men, and it is with this volume and with the reminiscences it has aroused that I am at present concerned.

About the act or process of dying there is no mystery. The pathologist can explain precisely how death comes to pass, while the physiologist can describe the exact physical and chemical processes that ensue when a living thing ceases to live. Furthermore, he can demonstrate how the material of the body is finally resolved into the elements from which it was formed.

The mystery begins in the moment of death, and that mystery has engaged the thoughts and imaginations of men since the dawn of human existence. It was probably the first problem that presented itself to the inquisitive and ingenious mind, and it may be that it will be the last to occupy it. Beyond the barrier of death is “the undiscovered country” where a kindly light falls upon Elysian Fields or happy hunting grounds, or fills with splendour the streets of an eternal city. To some, on the other hand, there is no such country but only an impenetrable void, a blank, a mere ceasing to be. Certain who read these works of the learned astronomer may perhaps feel that he has thrown light upon the great mystery. Others may affirm that he leaves that mystery still unillumined and wholly unsolved, while others again may think that he makes the mystery still more mysterious and more complex.

M. Flammarion deals with the manifestations of the dying, with agencies set in action by the dying, and with events which attend upon the moment of death. He affirms that in addition to the physical body there is an astral body or “psychic element” which is “imponderable and gifted with special, intrinsic faculties, capable of functioning apart from the physical organism, and of manifesting itself at a distance.”

This leads to the theory of bilocation where the actual body (at the point of death) may be in one place and the astral body in another. It is this power of bilocation which explains the phantasms and apparitions of which the book gives many detailed records. These apparitions may be objective—that is to say, may be visible to several people at the same time—or they may be subjective or capable of being perceived only by the subject or seer. “These apparitions,” the author states, “are projections emanating from the soul of the dying.” They are astral bodies detached for the moment from the physical body of which they are part. “It is,” the author continues, “at the hour of death that transmissions of images and of sensations are most frequent” (p. 108).

These phantasms appear, either in dreams or in broad daylight, to the friends of dying persons. They may announce in words, “I am dying,” or “I am dead.” They may merely appear with signs upon their faces of alarm or of impending dissolution. They may appear as bodies lying dead upon a couch or in a coffin. They may predict the hour of their death, but more usually their appearance coincides with the exact moment at which their physical bodies ceased to exist.

M. Flammarion gives numerous instances of these apparitions seen under such varying circumstances as have been named. In certain examples the phantom appears to have substance and to be capable of making its presence actually felt. Thus in one case the subject saw the apparition of her sister who was dying in a place far away, and at the same time “felt a hand brush lightly against the sheets.” The subject, when questioned, said: “No, no, it wasn’t a dream! I heard her steps; they made the floor creak. I’m sure of it; I wasn’t dreaming; she came; I saw her” (p. 345).

It may be further noted that persons who announce their deaths to others by visions or by spoken words may at the time of such warning be in perfect health. Moreover, the apparition may announce to the dreamer the exact date of the speaker’s own death many days in advance. In one such instance a man—then in sound health—appeared to a friend in a dream on August 2 and informed him that he (the subject of the apparition) would die on August 15. The event happened as foretold. An instance which involved an interval of years is recorded by Robert Browning the poet. Seven years after his wife’s death she appeared in a dream to her sister, Miss Arabel Barrett. Miss Barrett asked the apparition, “When will the day come on which we shall be reunited?” The dead woman answered, “My dear, in five years.” Five years, lacking a month, after this vision, Miss Barrett died of heart disease.

In messages or warnings from the dying M. Flammarion affirms that telepathy (or the transmission of thought to a distance) plays an important part. More than this, he says: “It is beyond doubt that at the moment of death a subtle shock, unknown in its nature, at times affects those at a distance who are connected with the dying person in some way. This connexion is not always that of sympathy.” The method in which telepathy acts is explained by the author in the following words: “It is admitted that a kind of radiation emanates from the dying person’s brain, from his spirit, still in his body, and is dispersed into space in ether waves—successive, spherical waves, like those of sound in the atmosphere. When this wave, this emanation, this effluvium, comes into contact with a brain attuned to receive it, as in the case of a wireless-telegraph apparatus, the brain comprehends it—feels, hears, sees” (p. 284).

The manifestations produced by these passages between the living and those who are on the point of death are very varied. They may take the form of warnings, predictions or notifications of death. They may be conveyed vast distances and are usually received at the very moment at which the body from which they emanate ceases to be. Warnings or announcements may be conveyed by voices or by visions of various kinds. The voices may be recognized as those of the dying, or the actual death scene, “visioned from a distance,” may be presented complete in every detail. Some of the manifestations may take a physical form, such as knockings upon doors and windows, the sound of footsteps or of gliding feet, the moving of articles of furniture, the falling of portraits from the wall, the opening of doors, the passage of a gust of wind.

Many of the phenomena appear to me to be hardly worthy of being recorded. As illustrations I may quote the movement of a hat on a hat peg used by the deceased, the violent shaking of an iron fender to announce a daughter’s death, the fact that about the time of a relative’s decease a table became “split completely along its whole length,” while on another like occasion a gas jet went out in a room in which a party was sitting, playing cards.

The following circumstance will not commend itself to the reasonable as one that was dependent upon a supernatural agency. “My grandmother,” a student writes, “died in 1913. At the hour of her death the clock which hung in her room stopped, and no one could make it go again. Some years afterwards her son died, and the very day of his death the clock again began to go without anyone having touched it.” “It is strange,” comments M. Flammarion, “that the spirit of someone dying or dead should be able to stop a clock or start it again.” Assuredly it is more than strange. The same comment might apply to the following testimony provided by a gardener in Lunéville. “A friend, when one day cleaning vegetables, seated in a chair, was struck on the knee by a turnip which was on the ground, and heard at the same instant two cries: ‘Mother! Mother!’ That same day her son, a soldier, was dying in our colony of Guiana; she did not hear of his death until very much later.”

M. Flammarion’s work is probably the most orderly, temperate and exact that has appeared on the subject of death from the point of view of the spiritualist. It has been the work of many years and its conclusions are based upon hundreds of reports, letters and declarations collected by the writer. To many readers the book will, no doubt, be convincing and inspiring, while possibly to a larger number of people the author’s position will appear to be untenable, and much of the evidence upon which his conclusions are based to be either incredible or impossible. With those who may hold this latter opinion I am entirely in accord.

Many of the so-called manifestations, such as the spirit visitants, the visions and the voices, can be as fitly claimed to be illusions and hallucinations as affirmed to be due to the action of the psychic element or astral body. The tricks of the senses are innumerable. The imagination, stimulated and intensified, can effect strange things in sensitive subjects; while, on the other hand, the powers of self-deception are almost beyond belief, as the experience of any physician will attest. Belief in the supernatural and the miraculous has a fascination for many minds, and especially for minds of not too stable an order. Such persons seem to prefer a transcendental explanation to one that is commonplace. Apparitions are not apt to appear to those who are healthy both in body and in mind. Dreams, it will be admitted by all, are more often due to indigestion than to a supernatural or a spiritual agency. Voices are heard and non-existing things are seen by those whose minds are deranged, and it must be allowed that not a few of the men and women upon whose evidence M. Flammarion depends exhibit a degree of emotional excitement or exaltation which borders on the abnormal.

I think, moreover, it would not be unjust to suggest that certain of the narratives are exaggerated and that an element of invention is possible and, indeed, probable in many of them. There is an impression also that some of the circumstances detailed have been misinterpreted or misapplied or have been modified by events which have followed later and to which they have been adapted as an afterthought. Above all I am reluctant to believe that the dying, in the solemn and supreme moment of passing away from the earth, can be occupied by the trivialities—and, indeed, I would say by the paltry tricks—which are accredited to their action in this book.

It is only fair to point out that the volume now discussed is written by an eminent man of science who has been trained all his life in methods of precision, in the judicial examination of reported facts and in the close scrutiny of evidence. Further it may be said that the terms “incredible” and “impossible” would have been applied a few years ago to any account of the telephone or of wireless telegraphy, while the same expressions would assuredly be employed by a medical man when told, not so long since, that there was a ray capable of making a human body so transparent as to render visible not only the bones but the details of their internal construction.

In common with others who have been for many years on the staff of a large hospital, I have seen much of death and have heard even more from those who have been in attendance on the dying. In this experience of a lifetime I have never met with a single circumstance which would confirm or support the propositions advanced by M. Flammarion. This is obviously no argument. It is merely a record of negative experience. The only two events, within my personal knowledge, which bear even remotely upon the present subject are the following.

I was, as a youth, on a walking tour in the south of England with a cousin. We put up one night at a certain inn. In the morning my companion came down to breakfast much excited and perturbed. He declared that his father was dead, that in a vivid dream he had seen him stretched out dead upon the couch in his familiar bedroom at home. He had awakened suddenly and noted that the hour was 2 A.M. That his father had expired at that moment he was assured, so assured that he proposed to return home at once, since his mother was alone. Inasmuch as the journey would have occupied a whole day, I suggested that, before starting, he should telegraph and seek news of his father. With great reluctance he consented to this course and the telegram was dispatched. A reply was received in due course. It was from the father himself expressing surprise at the inquiry and stating that he was never better in his life. Nothing, it transpired, had disturbed the father’s rest at 2 A.M. on this particular night. Nothing untoward happened. My uncle lived for many years, and finally died one afternoon, and not, therefore, at 2 A.M.

The other incident is associated with an actual death and with a strange announcement, but the announcement is not to be explained by any of the theories propounded by M. Flammarion. The facts are these. I was on a steamship which was making a passage along that coast known in old days as the Spanish Main. We put in at Colon, and remained there for about a day and a half. I took advantage of this break in the voyage to cross the Isthmus by train to Panama. The names of those who were travelling by the train had been telegraphed to that city, which will explain how it came about that on reaching the station I was accosted by one of the medical officers of the famous American hospital of the place. He begged me to see with him a patient under his care. The sick man was an Englishman who was travelling for pleasure, who was quite alone and who had been taken ill shortly after his arrival on the Pacific. He was the only Englishman, he said, on that side of the Isthmus.

I found the gentleman in a private ward. He was a stranger to me, was very gravely ill, but still perfectly conscious. I had nothing fresh to suggest in the way of treatment. The case was obviously hopeless, and we agreed that his life could not be extended beyond a few days and certainly not for a week. It was a satisfaction to feel that the patient was as well cared for as if he had been in his own home in England. I returned to Colon. Travelling with me was a retired general of the Indian Army. He had remained at Colon during my absence. I told him my experience. He did not know the patient even by name, but was much distressed at the thought of a fellow-countryman dying alone in this somewhat remote part of the world. This idea, I noticed, impressed him greatly.

Two days after my return from Panama we were on the high seas, having touched at no port since leaving Colon. On the third day after my visit to the hospital the general made a curious communication to me. The hour for lunch on the steamer was 12.15. My friend, as he sat down to the table, said abruptly, “Your patient at Panama is dead. He has just died. He died at 12 o’clock.” I naturally asked how he had acquired this knowledge, since we had called nowhere, there was no wireless installation on the ship, and we had received no message from any passing vessel. Apart from all this was the question of time, for the death, he maintained, had only just occurred. He replied, “I cannot say. I was not even thinking of the poor man. I only know that as the ship’s bell was striking twelve I was suddenly aware that he had, at that moment, died.” The general, I may say, was a man of sturdy common sense who had no belief in the supernatural, nor in emanations from the dying, nor in warnings, nor in what he called generally “all that nonsense.” Telepathy—in which also he did not believe—was out of the question, since he and the dead man were entirely unknown to one another. My friend was merely aware that the news had reached him. It was useless for me to say that I did not think the patient could have died so soon, for the general remained unmoved. He only knew that the man was dead whether I expected the event or whether I did not.

When we reached Trinidad I proposed to go ashore to ascertain if any news had arrived of the death at Panama. The general said it was waste of time. The man was dead, and had died at noon. Nevertheless, I landed and found that a telegram had appeared in which the death of this lonely gentleman was noted as having taken place on the day I have named. The hour of his death was not mentioned, but on my return to England I was shown by his relatives the actual cablegram which had conveyed to them the news. It stated that he had died at Panama on that particular day at twelve o’clock noon. No coincidence could have been more precise.

The general, to whom the event was as mysterious as it was unique in his experience, ventured one comment. He said that during his long residence in India he had heard rumours of the transmission of news from natives in one part of India to natives in another, which reports—if true—could not be explained by the feats of runners nor by any system of signalling, since the distances traversed were often hundreds of miles. We were both aware of the rumour, current at the time, that the news of the defeat at Colenso was known in a certain Indian bazaar a few hours after the guns had ceased firing. This, we agreed, was assuredly an example of loose babble—started by a native who hoped to hear of the failure of the British—and that this gossip had become, by repetition, converted into a prophecy after the occurrence.

For my own part I must regard the Panama incident as nothing but a remarkable coincidence of thought and event. My friend was inclined to regard it as an example of the sudden transmission of news of the kind suggested by his Indian experience. Why he of all people should have been the recipient of the message was beyond his speculation, since he had no more concern with the happenings at Panama than had the captain of the ship, to whom I had also spoken of the occurrence.

A further subject of some interest, suggested by M. Flammarion’s work, may be touched upon. In the contemplation of the mystery of death it may be reasonable to conjecture that at the moment of dying, or in the first moment after death, the great secret would be, in whole or in part, revealed. There are those who believe that after death there is merely the void of nonexistence, the impenetrable and eternal night of nothingness. Others conceive the spirit of the dead as wandering, somewhere and somehow, beyond the limits of the world. It is this belief which has induced many a mother, after the death of her child, to leave the cottage door open and to put a light in the window with some hope that the wandering feet might find a way home. Others, again, hold to the conviction that those who die pass at once into a new state of existence, the conditions of which vary according to the faith of the believer.

In the face of the great mystery it would be thought that those who have returned to life after having been, for an appreciable time, apparently dead might have gained some insight into the unknown that lies beyond. Cases of such recovery are not uncommon, and not a few must have come within the experience of most medical men of large practice. I have watched certain of such cases with much interest. Among them the most pronounced example of apparent lifelessness was afforded by the following occasion.

A middle-aged man, in good general health, was brought into the theatre of the London Hospital to undergo an operation of a moderate degree of severity. The administration of an anæsthetic was commenced, but long before the moment for operating arrived the man collapsed and appeared to be dead. His pulse had stopped, or at least no pulse could be detected, the heartbeat could not be felt, he had ceased to breathe, all traces of sensation had vanished, and his countenance was the countenance of the dead. Artificial respiration was at once employed, injections of various kinds were given, electricity was made extended use of, while the heat of the body was maintained by hot bottles liberally disposed.

The man remained without evidence of life for a period so long that it seemed to be impossible that he could be other than dead. In the intense anxiety that prevailed, and in the excitement aroused, I have no doubt that this period of time was exaggerated and that seconds might have been counted as minutes; but it represented, in my own experience, the longest stretch of time during which a patient has remained apparently without life. Feeble indications of respiration returned and a flutter at the wrist could again be felt, but it was long before the man was well enough to be moved back to the ward, the operation having been, of course, abandoned.

I determined to watch the recovery of consciousness in this instance, for here was a man who had been so far dead that, for a period almost incredible to believe, he had been without the signs and evidences of life. If life be indicated by certain manifestations, he had ceased to live. He was, without question, apparently dead. It seemed to me that this man must have penetrated so far into the Valley of the Shadow of Death that he should have seen something of what was beyond, some part, at least, of the way, some trace of a path, some sight of a country. The door that separates life from death was in his case surely opening. Had he no glimpse as it stood ajar?

He became conscious very slowly. He looked at me, but I evidently conveyed no meaning to his mind. He seemed gradually to take in the details of the ward, and at last his eye fell upon the nurse. He recognized her, and after some little time said, with a smile, “Nurse, you never told me what you heard at the music hall last night.” I questioned him later as to any experience he may have had while in the operating theatre. He replied that, except for the first unpleasantness of breathing chloroform, he remembered nothing. He had dreamed nothing.

At a recent meeting (1922) of the British Medical Association at Glasgow Sir William MacEwen reports an even more remarkable case of a man who was brought into the hospital as “dead.” He had ceased to breathe before admission. An operation upon the brain was performed without the use of an anæsthetic of any kind. During the procedure artificial respiration was maintained. The man recovered consciousness and, looking round with amazement at the operating theatre and the strange gathering of surgeons, dressers and nurses, broke his death-like silence by exclaiming, “What’s all this fuss about?” It is evident from cases such as these that no light upon the mystery is likely to be shed by the testimony of those who have even advanced so far as to reach at least the borderland of the “undiscovered country.”

I might conclude this fragment with some comment on the Fear of Death. The dread of death is an instinct common to all humanity. Its counterpart is the instinct of self-preservation, the resolve to live. It is not concerned with the question of physical pain or distress, but is the fear of extinction, a dread of leaving the world, with its loves, its friendships and its cherished individual affairs, with perhaps hopes unrealized and projects incomplete. It is a dread of which the young know little. To them life is eternal.

The adventure is before them. Death and old age are as far away as the blue haze of the horizon. It is about middle age that the realization dawns upon men that life does not last for ever and that things must come to an end. As the past grows vaster and more distant and the future lessens to a mere span, the dread of death diminishes, so that in extreme old age it may be actually welcomed.

Quite apart from this natural and instinctive attitude of mind there is with many a poignant fear of death itself, of the actual act of dying and of the terror and suffering that may be thereby involved. This fear is ill-founded. The last moments of life are more distressing to witness than to endure. What is termed “the agony of death” concerns the watcher by the bedside rather than the being who is the subject of pity. A last illness may be long, wearisome and painful, but the closing moments of it are, as a rule, free from suffering. There may appear to be a terrible struggle at the end, but of this struggle the subject is unconscious. It is the onlooker who bears the misery of it. To the subject there is merely a moment—

“When something like a white wave of the sea
Breaks o’er the brain and buries us in sleep.”

Death is often sudden, may often come during sleep, or may approach so gradually as to be almost unperceived. Those who resent the drawbacks of old age may take some consolation from the fact that the longer a man lives the easier he dies.

A medical friend of mine had among his patients a very old couple who, having few remaining interests in the world, had taken up the study and arrangement of their health as a kind of hobby or diversion. To them the subject was like a game of “Patience,” and was treated in somewhat the same way. They had made an arrangement with the doctor that he should look in and see them every morning. He would find them, in the winter, in a cosy, old-fashioned room, sitting round the fire in two spacious arm-chairs which were precisely alike and were precisely placed, one on the right hand and one on the left. The old lady, with a bright ribbon in her lace cap and a shawl around her shoulders, would generally have some knitting on her knees, while the old gentleman, in a black biretta, would be fumbling with a newspaper and a pair of horn spectacles.

The doctor’s conversation every morning was, of necessity, monotonous. He would listen to accounts of the food consumed, of the medicine taken and of the quantity of sleep secured, just as he would listen to the details of a game of “Patience.” Now and then there would be some startling “move,” some such adventure as a walk to the garden gate or the bold act of sitting for an hour at the open window. After having received this report he would compliment the lady on her knitting and on the singing of her canary and would discuss with the gentleman such items of news as he had read in the paper.

On one morning visit he found them as usual. The wife was asleep, with her spectacles still in place and her hands folded over her knitting. The canary was full of song. The midday beef tea was warming on the hob. The old gentleman, having dealt with his health, became very heated on the subject of certain grievances, such as the noise of the church bells and the unseemly sounds which issued from the village inn. He characterized these and like disturbances of the peace as “outrages which were a disgrace to the country.” After he had made his denunciation he said he felt better.

“Your wife, I see, is asleep,” said the doctor. “Yes,” replied the old man; “she has been asleep, I am glad to say, for quite two hours, because the poor dear had a bad night last night.” The doctor crossed the room to look at the old lady. She was dead, and had, indeed, been dead for two hours. Such may be the last moments of the very old.

Quite commonly the actual instant of death is preceded, for hours or days, by total unconsciousness. In other instances a state of semi-consciousness may exist up to almost the last moment of life. It is a dreamy condition, free of all anxiety, a state of twilight when the familiar landscape of the world is becoming very indistinct. In this penumbra friends are recognized, automatic acts are performed, and remarks are uttered which show, or seem to show, both purpose and reason. It is, however, so hazy a mental mood that could the individual return to life again no recollection of the period would, I think, survive. It is a condition not only free from uneasiness and from any suspicion of alarm, but is one suggestive even of content.

I was with a friend of mine—a solicitor—at the moment of his death. Although pulseless and rapidly sinking, he was conscious, and in the quite happy condition just described. I suggested that I should rearrange his pillows and put him in a more comfortable position. He replied, “Don’t trouble, my dear fellow; a lawyer is comfortable in any position.” After that he never spoke again.

In connexion with this semi-somnolent state it is interesting to note how certain traits of character which have been dominant during life may still survive and assert themselves—it may be automatically—in those whose general consciousness is fading away in the haze of death. The persistence of this ruling passion or phase of mind was illustrated during the last moments of an eminent literary man at whose death-bed I was present. This friend of mine had attained a position of great prominence as a journalist. He had commenced his career as a reporter, and the reporter’s spirit never ceased to mark the intellectual activities of his later life. He was always seeking for information, for news, for some matter of interest, something to report. His conversation, as one acquaintance said, consisted largely of questions. He always wanted to know. When he was _in extremis_, but still capable of recognizing those around him, the dire sound of rattling in his throat commenced. He indicated that he wanted to speak to me. I went to his bedside. He said, in what little voice remained, “Tell me: Is that the death rattle?” I replied that it was. “Thank you,” he said, with a faint shadow of a smile; “I thought so.”

X

THE IDOL WITH HANDS OF CLAY

The good surgeon is born, not made. He is a complex product in any case, and often something of a prodigy. His qualities cannot be expressed by diplomas nor appraised by university degrees. It may be possible to ascertain what he knows, but no examination can elicit what he can do. He must know the human body as a forester knows his wood; must know it even better than he, must know the roots and branches of every tree, the source and wanderings of every rivulet, the banks of every alley, the flowers of every glade. As a surgeon, moreover, he must be learned in the moods and troubles of the wood, must know of the wild winds that may rend it, of the savage things that lurk in its secret haunts, of the strangling creepers that may throttle its sturdiest growth, of the rot and mould that may make dust of its very heart. As an operator, moreover, he must be a deft handicraftsman and a master of touch.

He may have all these acquirements and yet be found wanting; just as a man may succeed when shooting at a target, but fail when faced by a charging lion. He may be a clever manipulator and yet be mentally clumsy. He may even be brilliant, but Heaven help the poor soul who has to be operated upon by a brilliant surgeon. Brilliancy is out of place in surgery. It is pleasing in the juggler who plays with knives in the air, but it causes anxiety in an operating theatre.

The surgeon’s hands must be delicate, but they must also be strong. He needs a lace-maker’s fingers and a seaman’s grip. He must have courage, be quick to think and prompt to act, be sure of himself and captain of the venture he commands. The surgeon has often to fight for another’s life. I conceive of him then not as a massive Hercules wrestling ponderously with Death for the body of Alcestis, but as a nimble man in doublet and hose who, over a prostrate form, fights Death with a rapier.