The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-03-25
PART IT.

Gripping the arms of my seat WIN
both hands and leaning forward with
face from which j felt all the blood had
vanished. j stammered out:
You do not-you cannot think that
.-tha"
.That what?" he asked, eyeing me
closely. -,
THAT these people have been
but for the life of me l could not get
the word out.
"Murdered:" he Queried, calmly.
Poisoned" i at last managed to
calculate.
Well" said Prof. Fournier, cross
ing one leg over the other and leaning
back among the cushions, ' we shall
see. / confess that l have certain
ideas on the subject which l am hardly
ready to formulate just yet. This
much l will say for your guidance:
that ! do not suspect the presence OF
any ordinary poison administered by
any ordinary DOisoner In fact. the
case is such that. II ] find my ideas
substantiated. / shall consider it my
duty to humanity to take upon myself
the punishment rather than the eX-
posure Of the criminal"
From this time until our arrival at
Arteuil no conversation passed be-
tween us. Fournier seemed wrapped
in thought, and my own mind was busy
with the awful suspicion his words
had suggested. ! could not but ac-
knowledge that the facts strongly
favored my companions apparent the
ory, but the difficulty was to realize
what poison could have been used,
and how any poison could have been
administered i'm such a vast number
of cases. 1t seemed to argue Il con-
spiracy of impossible dimensions. and
at this point ! was iloundering hope
lessly when our train drew into the
station.
Our coming had been duly heralded.
Several physicians were waiting on
the platform, and, among them. I
saw the handsome and intellectual
face of Toedt. He rushed forward to
embrace us
At the same moment, but whether
by accident or design / could not
fethom, Fournier turned to give some
direction to a porter and ignored the
friendly greeting. ] saw a queer look
come over Toedt's face. but he made
no motion to renew his advance and
the incident would have left little or
no impression on me. had it not re-
called tn my memory that scene in the
Paris cafe.
M matter vi IdCt, loNeNti' 'h'
professional situation was of a nature
to Danish everything else from our
minds. The condition was indeed
frightful Hardly a family of wealth
or standing but had lost one or more
of Its members. and in some instances,
the entire household. including the
servants, had been simply obliterated.
The symptoms were horrible in the ex-
treme, but you are not a medical man
and 20 describe them in detail would
not make my story any the more COM
prehensible to you. Suffice to state
that they indicated malignant decay
of the mucous tissues OF the body. and,
worse than all, there was not single
record OF q cure. Night and day we
worked.-at first with feverish en-
thusiasm, then with logged persever-
ance: while our efforts slowly dwindled
from attempts to save down to mere
endeavors to alleviate the sufferings
Of the stricken ones until the great
alleviator of all human suffering
should press his cooling hand upon
their brows. Meanwhile, strange to
relate. the business and laboring quar-
ters Of the town still remained exempt,
but for few sporadic cases.
l had rather imagined, at first, that
Fournier might have observed in the
symptoms something akin to those
produced by the new pOisons with
which had believed him to be expert
menting, but l soon saw that this sup
position was groundless. The APP
parently natural death of the Guinea
pig was as far as anything could he
from the horrors of these dissolutions.
We had attempted no autopsies. The
physician who, before the coming OF
the pest, shared with Toedt the fash
ionable practice of Arteuil. had es-
sayed one, been taken down himself,
and died. Later one of the first of the
visiting men had braved the same
danger. with the same result to him
self and his assistants. Since then au-
topsies had been abandoned.
| had had several conversations with
my former classmate when relieved
for few moments from my labors
and found to my surprise that he had
not entirely yielded to the despair
which the rest of us felt He had at
first believed, he said, that the best
practice was to fOrtify against the
contagion, and. with this point in
view. had made it point to visit most
of his patients at the time Of the out
break of the epidemic. He admitted
however, that his efforts to ward of
had thus far, proved about as unavail.
ing as ours to cure
II confess to you" he said at the
conclusion of one of these talks, that
have little or no hope which is not
based upon discovery of the true ma
ture and causes of the disease itself
facts which can be gotten at only
through an exhaustive autopsy of q
well-defined case. made by a leading
pathOlogist. That the experiment Is