Let me be sick myself if sometimes the malady of my patient be not a disease to me. I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own necessities.—Sir Thomas Browne.

As Mr. Crowe had evidently been for many months engaged in this particular branch of research, it occurred to his assistant that it would be a good idea to take up the same line himself. He was piqued that any new discoveries should be kept from him; and as he had devoted himself heartily to the interests of his chief, he felt he should have been permitted to share in so interesting a study as this promised to be. He had done much valuable microscopical work for the school and the curator of the museum, and here was an opportunity of still further glory. He got his firm of translators to write him an order to the Russian agents for the drugs and the fungi from which they were manufactured, and had the journals and books which recorded Professor Oppenheim’s discoveries sent to his private address. He went further than this. He had often rendered services to one Dr. Newberry Sones, an analyst and specialist in toxicology, who lived in a turning out of Wardour Street, and he determined to enlist him as a partner in the chemical part of his work.

Dr. Sones was not in any way connected with St. Bernard’s, nor did he even know Mr. Crowe, except by repute.

Dr. Sones was the parish surgeon of his district, and had a large and lucrative practice amongst the poor folk of his neighbourhood. He was an energetic man, and got through an amount of work in the course of his long day which amazed less active men. He had a hobby as every one has who is good for anything, more especially every medical man. If he has none, his mind becomes unhealthy from the nature of his calling. This hobby was analytical chemistry. When his day’s work was done he retired with a sigh of relief to his well-ordered laboratory at the top of his house, where he could carry on his experiments without fear of interruption. Much good work had been done in this place, for its owner was no amateur. He had written papers for half the chemical journals of Europe, and had earned an honourable name for the accuracy and utility of his research. He always declined work of a medico-legal nature, as he detested law and police courts, which would have interfered with his pursuits, in which he was perfectly happy; and, as he knew that change of work was as good as play, he never repined when a sick call took him from an interesting bit of research to help some poor sufferer. As he grew in prosperity he could afford to keep a qualified assistant, who did his night work for him; there being one thing in life which he dreaded—the sound of the night-bell. He loved his well-earned sleep, and thought it only fair that he should be able to count upon enjoying a good night’s repose if he did an honest day’s work. The room where the speaking-tube and night-bell communicated with the outer world was occupied by a gentleman who had no objection whatever to being called up, and seemed as happy tramping about at night as his employer was miserable at the bare idea of the proceeding. Every man to his taste. It is lucky for folk who are taken ill at ungodly hours that some body can be found to attend with cheerfulness and promptitude at, say, three a.m., when the snow is falling in January, or it is raining cats and dogs; or a genuine pea-soup fog makes the red lamp scarcely visible over the doctor’s door. The poorer the neighbourhood the more these night calls are the rule, because the indigent are often compelled to defer calling in medical aid till the most urgent necessity arises. In addition to this reason, they are more nervous, as they are usually unskilled nurses, and symptoms not really serious often cause the greatest alarm to ignorant persons.

Dr. Sones was beloved by his pauper patients, who knew how to secure his influence with the relieving officer when they wanted “nourishments,” which the doctor knew well were generally more efficient in effecting a cure of their little ailments than the physic he prescribed. His genial way with the poor creatures, his pleasant smile and his hopeful, cheering words were not the least effective armamentaria he bore with him in the treatment of disease. Crabbe’s well-known and admirable description of the consequential parish apothecary, “whose most tender mercy is neglect,” did not apply to Doctor Sones, who was as beloved by his poor clients as he was skilled in aiding them. He had the virtues which the poor always appreciate—sympathy and patience. No tale of impossible affections of disturbed organs in impossible situations ever caused him to speak irritably or hastily, so they poured out their troubles into his willing ears, and were always satisfied with his courtesy, if not relieved by his skill.

Of course, Sones entered with delight into the scheme as unfolded by Mr. Mole. He dearly loved a new line of research; but as he refused to have anything to do with the physiological part of the business, ridiculing the idea as unscientific that the alkaloids to be found would act in the same manner on animals as humans, Mr. Mole had to content himself with getting his chemical work done in the best way possible. And this was really all he wanted. The task was not an easy one, but Sones was just the man for it. When a matter like this took his fancy, he threw his whole soul into the work. He isolated a number of active principles from the hundreds of poisonous fungi which Mr. Mole brought to him, and put them into separate glass tubes, carefully marked with signs corresponding to those which he kept in a register. Mr. Mole was so interested in his pursuit that he actually tested some of these dreadful agents upon himself, after he had tried them on some dogs which had been reserved for the purpose.

Apart from the business he had with the analyst, Mr. Mole always enjoyed his visits to Wardour Street. Those who had once met Newberry Sones and his witty, clever sister Mary, in that hospitable home of theirs in Mulberry Lane, were always glad to go again; and so in the course of a few years they had gathered round them a society of charming people, in whose company the hours flew pleasantly by with high talk of poetry, literature, and with the refining influences of art and music. Mr. Mole found plenty of food for discussion and investigation in the mushroom question, and Sones had worked at little else of late than the isolation of the alkaloids in fungi. His laboratory had long been stocked with baskets full of agarics, morels, and puff-balls; every known poisonous species which collectors could bring in was rigidly submitted to analysis. Especial attention was directed by Mr. Mole to the species which are commonly eaten in Prussia and Russia, but which are never eaten in France, and to those which, though eaten with impunity in France, are considered poisonous in England. The great questions they desired to settle were the circumstances that modify the action of fungi, e.g. cooking, idiosyncrasy, climate, weather, and seasons; all of which are known very greatly to influence the behaviour of mushrooms in the human stomach.

Dr. Sones had nothing to do with the physiological part of the question, and Mr. Mole was dependent mainly for the chemical side of the business on Sones. When Mr. Crowe started on his annual holiday, the various poisonous alkaloids in the fungi had just been isolated by our chemist, and it only awaited a series of experiments on animals to verify the facts which had been discussed relative to their operation. During his absence Dr. Sones had prepared a considerable quantity of these deadly poisons for the use of his friend. The porter at St. Bernard’s had collected a sufficient number of animals of various ages and sizes for Mr. Mole, so that nothing was wanting but the remaining links in the chain of proof to settle once and for all the great question of the causes of mushroom poisoning. One terrible fact greatly impressed Dr. Sones as the result of these determinations: namely, that if the poisonous alkaloid became readily procurable, nothing would be easier than for a criminal to prepare a dish in such a manner that the eater thereof would die, without much chance of detection, owing to the bad reputation of the fungi for terminating life suddenly. He laboured, therefore, long and anxiously to find some reagent or means of detecting the presence of the different alkaloids he had discovered which were capable of causing death in the human species; but hitherto without success.

Dr. Sones had bought his practice of an aged surgeon who had occupied the house over fifty years. He often showed his friends a curious collection of old drugs and medicines that were in actual use in pharmacy in the time of his predecessor. There was a bottle labelled “Moss off a dead man’s skull,” but it was not known how or for what complaint it was administered. There was another horrible mess called “Oil of earth-worms,” besides “Oil of bricks,” and “Powdered tapeworms,” actually administered for those parasites on the similia similibus principle. “Cobwebs,” “Crabs’ eyes,” and “Crabs’ claws,” were at that time regularly used in medicine, the two latter being merely chalk, sold under those names. If one were disposed to laugh at the therapeutic folly of the past generation of doctors, Sones would remind you that quite as absurd and disgusting things have been “strongly recommended by the faculty” in the present day. A prominent medical journal only recently had several articles on the virtues of an “Essence of Cockroaches” of all loathsome remedies! What is there that has not at one time been either a deity or a drug? One of these old bottles contained a preparation from some Russian fungi, which he had not hitherto noticed, and in that he found an important clue to his tests.