Vagaries Part 9

And when the birds are silent, I have only to look down among the gra.s.s and moss to light on other acquaintances to keep me company. Over waving gra.s.s and corn flies a dragon-fly on wings of sun-glitter and fairy-web, and deep down in the path, which winds between the mighty gra.s.s stems, a little ant struggles on with a dry fir-needle on her back. Rough is the road, now it goes up-hill and now it goes down-hill, now she pushes the heavy load like a sledge before her, now she carries it upon her slender shoulders. She pulls so hard up-hill that her whole little body stiffens, she rolls down the steep slopes with her burden clasped tightly in her arms; but she never lets go, and onward it goes, for the ant is in a hurry to get home. Soon the dew will fall, and then it is unsafe to be out in the trackless forest, and best to be home in peace after the day's work is ended. Now the road becomes mountainous and steep, and suddenly a mighty rock rises in front of her--what the name of that rock is the ant knows well enough; I know nothing, and to me it looks like an ordinary pebble. The ant stops short and ponders awhile, then she gives a signal with her antennae, which I am too stupid to understand but which others at once respond to, for from behind a dry leaf I see two other ants approach to the rescue. I watch how they hold a council of war, and how the new arrivals with great concern pull the log to try how heavy it is. Suddenly they stand quite still and listen--an ant-patrol marches by a little way off, and I see how a couple of ants are told off to lend a.s.sistance. Then they all take hold together, and like sailors they haul up the log with a long slow pull.

I understand it is to repair the havoc made by an earthquake that the log is to be used--how many hard-working lives were perhaps crushed under the ruins of the fallen houses, and what evil power was it that destroyed what so much patient labour built up? I dare not ask, for who knows if it were not a pa.s.sing man who amused himself by knocking down the ant-hill with his stick!

And all the other tiny creatures, whose name I do not know, but into whose small world I look with joy, they also are fellow-citizens in Creation's great society, and probably they fulfil their public duties far better than I fulfil mine!

And besides, when thus lying down and staring into the gra.s.s, one ends by becoming so very small oneself.

And at last it seems to me as if I were nothing but an ant myself, struggling on with my heavy load through the trackless forest. Now it goes up-hill and now it goes down-hill. But the thing is not to let go.

And if there is some one to help to give a pull where the hill seems too steep and the load too heavy, all goes well enough.

But suddenly Fate comes pa.s.sing by and knocks down all that has been built up with so much hard labour.

The ant struggles on with her heavy load deep in the trackless forest.

The way is long, and there is still some time before the day's work is over and the dew falls.

But high overhead flies the dream on wings of sun-glitter and fairy-web.

HYPOCHONDRIA

The study of micro-organisms has directed medical science into new channels, and thrown open a hitherto undreamt-of world for eager investigators. The list of recent discoveries in bacteriology is already a long one. Koch's researches in cholera and tuberculosis, and Pasteur's method of vaccination against hydrophobia, are but links in the chain which one day shall fetter the hydra-headed dragon of disease. Less known, but hardly less important, are the very latest studies of hypochondria, which have led to the discovery that this evil also belongs to infectious diseases.

Struck by the constant disorder of thought and sensibility which characterise the hypochondriac, the doctors have up till now placed this malady amongst the nervous diseases, and it is in the central organs of the nervous system, more especially the brain, that its seat and origin have been determined. We finally know that hypochondria is an infectious disease, caused by a microbe which has been isolated, and named _Bacillus niger_ (A. M.).

It is after all astonishing that this discovery has escaped so many investigators ever since Burton, whose _Anatomy of Melancholy_ still remains unparalleled--it is astonishing when one considers the many a.n.a.logies which connect this so-called nervous disease with some of the best-known bacterial diseases, such as hydrophobia, tuberculosis, and cholera. As in hydrophobia, so in hypochondria the virus spreads over the nervous system, produces constant and well-known disorders in the brain, and ends here also by paralysis, paralysis of the affected individual's intellectual and moral functions, and, at last, mental death. As in hydrophobia, one also notices by the bacillus niger infection cramp in certain groups of muscles--that of the muscles of laughter being, for instance, very common. This cramp, _risus sardonicus_, is excessively painful, and its prognostic signification is a bad one, for it is a characteristic of absolutely incurable cases (Heine).

The tendency to bite, which characterises hydrophobia, is also encountered in certain forms of hypochondria (Schopenhauer). As a rule the affected individual is, however, inoffensive and resigned (Leopardi).

The cholera characteristic, _Stadium algidum_, is also to be found in bacillus niger infection--a Stadium algidum when the soul slowly grows cold, and at last reaches the zero of insensibility (Tiberius).

The curious, and, up till now, unexplained immunity which protects certain individuals from cholera, appears again in hypochondria--so, for instance, have idiots shown themselves absolutely refractory, _i.e._ not receptive of the bacillus niger infection. The explanation of the relative rarity of hypochondria is probably to be found in this fact... .

In a.n.a.logy with what experimental pathology has taught us about the microbes of cholera and tuberculosis, the bacillus niger does not seem to thrive on animals, though several exceptions to this rule are to be found, and as the tuberculosis bacillus is exceedingly common amongst cows, so may be pointed out the great diffusion of bacillus niger infection amongst old donkeys (Rosina). I do not believe, though, that here, as with the cows, one can speak of spontaneous infection--the virus has, in the case of the old donkey, more probably been introduced into the blood through a flogged back. Dogs seem, after a long contact with infected individuals, to be receptive of contagion (Puck).

Bacillus niger originates in the heart--there is no doubt about that--the disorders of the brain are secondary. The explanation why the seat of the evil has been supposed to be the brain is natural enough, because as a rule it is only since the infection has spread to the brain that the malady can be diagnosed. So long as bacillus niger has only attacked the heart, the diagnosis is much more difficult. The nature of the evil can, however, here, as in certain forms of tuberculosis, be easily enough detected at the back of the eyes. This is probably in relation with the morbid alteration of the organ of sight, which characterises the bacillus niger infection--_the patient sees life as it is_; when, on the contrary, as is well known, in the normal eye the vision of the outer world is reflected through certain media, illusions and never-dying hope, before it is transferred through the optic nerve to the brain.

As with microbes of the before-mentioned diseases, bacillus niger is also exceedingly tenacious of life. Its virulence can be temporarily reduced by alcohol, ink, and music. As for alcohol, its effect is indubitable, but unfortunately of very short duration. The microbe very soon--indeed, already the next morning, according to all experimentalists--regains its full vigour, and its temporary inactivity seems rather to have increased its virulence instead of decreasing it.

Like most of the other antimicrobic agents, alcohol is in itself a deadly poison, and its application in the treatment of the disease is therefore very limited. It is to be used with the greatest precaution, for there are numerous instances of the individual having followed his microbe to the grave.

May I here mention _en pa.s.sant_ a harmless old quack remedy--the common practice of smoking out the microbe. The home of the tobacco-plant is the same land where the poppy of oblivion blossoms, the silent sh.o.r.es between which flows the stream of Lethe. The fragrance of its leaf has deadened the microbe in more than one diseased brain, the clouds from an old pipe have hidden the reality from more than one sorrowful eye. (Do you remember Rodolphe in Henri Murger's _Vie de Boheme_?)

Ink as a bactericide is less known, but worth consideration. I know of a case, to which I shall return later, where a momentary amelioration was produced by an ink-cure. Contrary to alcohol, this specific can be used without any danger whatever to the individual himself--the danger being limited to his surroundings. The microbe is dipped in the ink-stand, and fixed on paper to dry. It maintains, however, its virulence long enough, and can, transplanted in a fertile soil, regain its vigour and grow.

The preparation must, therefore, be strictly locked up in the writing-desk, which now and then must be disinfected, the surest disinfectant being here, as always, fire.

As for music, this treatment was known even in the childhood of science; it was already highly esteemed by the ancients--hypochondria is, as is well known, one of the oldest of all diseases; it resounds already in the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides. The new world of bacteriology was then undreamt of, but the discoveries of thousands of years have done no more than verify the experience of the ancients. Music still remains the greatest consoler of sorrow-stricken man. Still to-day Saul seeks relief for his sombre soul from David's harp, still to-day does Orpheus conquer the shades of Hades by the sound of his lute; still to-day the song calls out for the Eurydice of our longing.

As was to be expected, the discovery of the microbe of hypochondria gave quite a new direction to the study of the treatment of this disease. To relate here the far-reaching experiences which followed the isolation of the bacillus niger would carry us too far--enough to say that the results of these investigations have unfortunately up till now been hopelessly negative. We, however, find it expedient to mention in a few words the experiments in air-therapeutics by which the discoverer of the microbe hoped to find a remedy for the evil--true that the result was even here negative, but there is a certain amount of interest still attached to these experiments which, pursued with more patience, might perhaps have led to a more satisfactory result. Starting from the a.n.a.logy between the bacillus niger infection and tuberculosis, the doctor emitted his hypothesis of a region of immunity from hypochondria as well as from consumption, of a possibility of finding in the pure air of the high alt.i.tudes a medium where the development of bacillus niger in the mind would cease, as well as the development of the tuberculosis-bacilli in the lungs. It was in the domain of experimental pathology--the field where Pasteur and Koch reaped their laurels--that the solution of the problem was to be looked for, and the bacterium in question living almost exclusively on mankind, the suitable animal for experiment had in this case necessarily to be a man. The doctor had for several years attended an individual affected with the complaint in question. It was a fine case. We quote here from the notes of the doctor: "Man about thirty. The patient maintains an obstinate silence as to the origin of his sufferings; it is, however, evident that the evil dates from several years back. External examination nothing remarkable--on the contrary. Big dog at his heels. Energy but little developed. Active impulses wanting. Ambition rudimentary. Intelligence mediocre--maybe slightly above. Sense of humour well defined, as usual in these cases. Sensibility abnormally developed. Heart perhaps rather large. Tendency for idealism. Patient has hallucinations--fancies, for instance, he is surrounded by people who suffer and hunger; imagines seeing all sorts of animals oppressed and tortured to death." The doctor had in vain prescribed several things in order to calm and distract his diseased mind, rest-cure in Anacapri for a whole year; earthquake in Ischia, cholera in Naples, etc. etc., but without any enduring result.

Returned to Paris, the patient had, though with visible aversion, gone through a cure of ink-treatment, and in the beginning had felt a little better for it, but had soon fallen back to his normal condition of hopeless dejection. The doctor was at his wit's end, and began to be bored to death by the continual lamentations of his patient. The unfortunate man was perpetually hanging about in the doctor's consulting-room, and ended by taking up nearly his whole day, to the great detriment of his other practice. It was then the doctor communicated to his patient his hypothesis of the possibility of a region of immunity from hypochondria, as from consumption, and the desirability of finding a fitting animal for experiment, for the purpose of studying the influence of high alt.i.tudes on hypochondria.

The patient placed himself at the doctor's absolute disposal.

On the top of Mont Blanc (4810 metres) the doctor still found a considerable quant.i.ty of microbes in the thoughts of his patient. The patient complained that he felt so small and forlorn up there on the pinnacles of Nature's temple, where all around him the Alps raised their marble-shining arch of triumph over the silent cloud-heavy earth. With awe he bent his eyes before the beaming majesty of the sun, where, indomitable and unconscious, the Almighty Ruler trod his course over the shade and light of the valleys, over the sorrow and joy of man.

Chained to the ice-axe firmly riveted in the frozen snow, did the doctor leave his patient for a whole night on a projecting rock, under the shoulder of the Matterhorn (4273 metres), while the snowstorm pa.s.sed.

Now and then a flash of lightning flamed through the icy night of the desolate precipices; like combating t.i.tans, giant-shaped crags stood out between storm-driven clouds, and the mighty mountain shook, while the thunder rolled over the snow-fields. Then everything became still; the storm pa.s.sed by, and like silent birds of the night heavy flakes of snow floated through the darkness. With stiff-frozen limbs, half-covered with snow, sat the patient in mute wonder, looking out over Matterhorn's sombre cliffs, over Monte Rosa's desolate glaciers. The patient complained of feeling so utterly helpless before the magnificent force which had built up this, the proudest monument of the Alps, so crushed before the time-defying t.i.tan, who, it seemed to him, was only going to fall with the world, which was his footstool... . He listened with awe to the mountains answer; high above his head he heard the thunder of loosening rocks, and while the echo replied from the Ebihorn cliffs, an avalanche of rattling stones rolled along the flank of the mountain to break into fragments and disappear deep down amongst the crevices of the Zmutt glacier--mute testimonies that even the mightiest mountain of the Alps was condemned to crumble away into grains of sand in the hour-gla.s.s of the Eternal, broken fragments from the oldest monument of creation, teaching, like the modern hieroglyphics from the Nile, that all shall perish.

As the night pa.s.sed on the patient felt more and more downcast and miserable. The doctor had already given up the experiment as hopeless, when towards daybreak, to his great astonishment, symptoms of an unmistakable amelioration showed themselves. The patient's head had fallen on the guide's shoulder; a painless repose crept over his stiffening limbs, and with utmost interest the doctor found an almost complete absence of bacillus niger in the benumbed thought of his patient. The doctor watched for a while in great excitement the patient's pale face, while the darkness of the night vanished more and more, and the dawn of a new day flew over the horizon. He was just going to make a new test on bacillus niger, when one of the guides suddenly leaned his ear against the patient's breast, and then anxiously began to rub his nostrils and half-open eyelids with brandy, and to pull his arms and legs... .

When he shortly afterwards slowly opened his eyes, he was more depressed than ever, and remained decidedly worse for several days.

After renewed experiments on Monte Rosa, Schreckhorn, Die Jungfrau, and a prolonged observation in a creva.s.se under the Mont Maudit cliffs of Mont Blanc (1471 metres), the doctor had to give up his hypothesis of immunity from hypochondria. In spite of the isolation of the microbe, we are obliged to admit that no positive result has been gained up till now as to the treatment of the affected individual--the a.n.a.logy with cholera and even tuberculosis can, alas! be applied even here. We continue to remain powerless to cure hypochondria. We are able to soothe the sufferings of the hypochondriac, because we are able to deaden his microbe--kill it, we cannot. After more or less time the bacillus niger recovers his virulence, and the diseased individual retakes his momentary interrupted course towards the sombre land whence no traveller returns, and over whose doors are written those words of the great seer:

"Lasciate ogni Speranza, voi ch'entrate!"

A severe scientific critic might, however, object that the above-mentioned experiment on the influence of high alt.i.tude on hypochondria was not pursued long enough to make its negative result absolutely conclusive. Who knows if the solution of the problem did not slip out of the doctor's hands that night on the Matterhorn? Who knows if the patient might not for all time have been freed from his bacillus, if he had been allowed to remain a little longer up there on the Matterhorn's cliff, under the cover of the falling snow, while the darkness of the night vanished more and more from his benumbed thought, and the dawn of a new day flew past his half-opened eye?

LA MADONNA DEL BUON CAMMINO

Naples, 1884.

The doctor had often seen him at the door of the sanctuary looking out over the dirty lane, and, even when a long distance from each other, friendly salutations were exchanged between them in the usual Neapolitan fashion of waving hands, with "_Buon giorno, Don Dionisio!_" "_Ben venuto, Signor Dottore!_"

Often, too, he had looked in at the old deserted cloister garden, with its dried-up fountain and a few pale autumn roses against the wall of the little chapel. And Don Dionisio had related to him many of the miracles of the Madonna of Buon Cammino. The Madonna of Buon Cammino stood there quite alone in her half-ruined sanctuary, and only one tiny little oil-lamp struggled with the darkness within. With great solemnity Don Dionisio had drawn aside the curtain which veiled his Madonna from profane eyes; and tenderly as a mother he had arranged the tattered fringes of her robe, which threatened to fall to pieces altogether. And the doctor had looked with compa.s.sionate wonder upon the pale waxen image with the impa.s.sive smile on the rigid features, which to Don Dionisio's eyes reflected the highest physical and spiritual beauty. "_Come e bella, come e simpatica!_"[34] said he, looking up at his Madonna.

Inside the old church of Santa Maria del Carmine, close by, hundreds of votive candles were burning before the altars, and night and day the people flocked in there to implore the mighty Madonna's protection.

Mothers took the rings off their hands and hung them as sacred offerings round the Madonna's neck, girls drew the strings of coral out of their dark plaits to adorn the rich robe of the statue, and, with brows pressed against the worn marble floor, strong men knelt, murmuring prayers for help and mercy.

Death dwelt in the slums of Naples. Three times the wonder-working image of the Madonna del Carmine had been carried round the quarter in solemn procession to protect the people of the Mercato from the dreaded plague, and many miracles were reported of dying people brought back to life on being permitted to kiss the hem of the garment of the blessed Maria del Carmine.

The doctor had seen Don Dionisio disappear into his little portico with a disdainful shrug when the procession of Maria del Carmine pa.s.sed by, and he had more than once heard the old priest express his doubts about the far-famed Madonna's wonder-working power to one gossip or another, whom he had succeeded in stopping on her way to the church of the Madonna.

"What, after all, has your Madonna done for you, you people of Mercato?"

he called out mockingly. "If she is so powerful, why has she not saved Naples from the cholera? And here, in the midst of her own quarter in Mercato, whose inhabitants for centuries have knelt before her, what has she done to prevent the disease spreading here? Do not people die every day round her own sanctuary, round the very Piazza del Mercato, in spite of all your prayers, in spite of all your votive candles? _Altro che la Madonna del Carmine!_[35]

"And as the cholera has never reached this side of the Piazza, and never will reach it, whom do you suppose you have to thank for that, if not the holy Madonna del Buon Cammino, who stretches her protecting hand over you although you do not deserve it, although you leave her sanctuary dark and take all your offerings to the other Madonnas, whatever their names may be! And yet you cannot see in your blindness that the blessed Madonna del Buon Cammino is far more powerful than all your Madonnas put together! _Altro che la Madonna del Carmine!_"

But no one seemed to take any heed of the old man's words, no votive candles dispersed the darkness within the chapel of the blessed Madonna del Buon Cammino, and no lips murmured her name in their prayers for help and protection against the dreaded sickness. Had they not Santa Maria del Carmine close by, who from all time had been the patron saint of the quarter, who had helped them through so much distress, and consoled them in so much misery? Was there not in her church that miraculous crucifix out of whose pierced side blood trickled every Good Friday, and whose hair the priests solemnly cut every Christmas,--that same crucifix which had bowed its head to avoid the enemy's bullet, and sent death to the besieger's camp and victory to Naples? And if the Madonna del Carmine could not give sufficient protection to all of them in these days of distress, had they not the venerable Madonna del Colera, who saved their city in the year 1834 from the same sickness which now raged amongst them? And in the Harbour quarter close by, did not the Madonna del Porto Salvo stand in her sumptuous chapel dressed in silk and gold brocade, ready to listen to their prayers? Was there not to be found by the Banchi Nuovi the far-famed Madonna dell'Aiuto, who would certainly not belie her name of Helper in the hour of need? Had they not La Madonna dell'Addolorata with the mantle of solid silver and the black velvet robe, whose folds no one had ever kissed without gaining comfort and peace? Had they not La Madonna dell'Immacolata, whose sky-blue garment was strewn with gold stars from the vault of heaven itself? Had they not La Madonna di Salette in her purple skirt dyed with the blood of martyrs? And did not San Gennaro himself stand in his shining dome above,--he, the patron saint of Naples, whose congealed blood flows anew every year,--he who protected the city of his care from plague and famine, and commanded the flowing lava of Vesuvius to stop before its gates? But La Madonna del Buon Cammino--who knew anything of her? Who knew whence she came or who had seen with their own eyes a single miracle worked by her hand? What kind of Madonna was that whose shrine remained without candles or flowers, and whose mantle was in rags? "_Non tiene neppure capelli, la vostra Madonna!_"[36] an old woman had once shouted in Don Dionisio's face, to the great joy of the crowd.

The effect of this argument had been crushing, and Don Dionisio had disappeared in great fury inside his portico, and had not been seen again for several days.

The doctor's road lay in that direction one evening, and he determined to visit his old friend. From inside the chapel he heard Don Dionisio with mighty voice singing an old Latin hymn in honour of his Madonna.