The Mountain of Fears. Henry C. Rowland

      “DOCTOR,” said my shipmate, Dr. Leyden, “have you ever made any especial study of nervous diseases—central nervous diseases—morbid conditions resulting from a derangement of the central cells?”

      I told him that I had done only such work in this branch as a general practice would require, but that I had observed some few cases of especial interest during a military surgical service in the East, and proceeded to cite one or two instances of mental vagaries resulting from gunshot wounds in the head.

      Leyden leaned both elbows on the taffrail and listened restlessly. Our little ship swashed through the short sling of the Spanish Main, the Pole star gleaming ahead, the Southern Cross blazing astern, and all about the white, flashing crests of the phosphorescent sea. Usually Leyden was a good listener, but this night he seemed impatient, restive, to such an extent that I finally paused, annoyed, for nothing is so irritating as lack of attention to a solicited reply.

      “Ach! but those cases are in the line of the ordinary!” he exclaimed.

      “Pardon me,” I replied, “but the last case I have given was distinctly out of the ordinary.”

      “I am awkward, Doctor,” said Leyden, apologetically. “I mean that the relations of cause and effect follow the usual course—the histological changes in the cell produced impaired function of the organ and these primary changes were the result of trauma. But have you ever had occasion to observe the reverse of this condition—the action of the organ on the center—like a nightmare, where one has the liver poisoning the central cells——”

      I interrupted in my turn. Leyden was no doubt a skilled naturalist, a close observer and a man of deep power of thought and analysis, but he was not a physician, had never made a regular study of physiological chemistry, and was, therefore, scarcely in a position to argue with a person who had.

      “Such cases are not infrequent,” I answered. “The ancient Greeks understood that much, as we see from their terms. ‘Hypochondria’; under the ribs—the liver probably poisoning the brain, if you like; then there is the condition of hysteria often accompanying a movable kidney; the action of certain drugs on special centers——”

      “Such as cannabis indica?” interrupted Leyden, “which affects the sense of elapsed time and makes the subject happy—or—what is that principle, Doctor, which produces xanthopsia, or yellow vision, and makes one sluggish and depressed?”

      “Xanthopsia is an early symptom of santonin poisoning,” I answered. “The alkaloid is obtained from the unexpanded flower-heads of the——”

      “Artemisia maritima—yes—I know the plant—but the active principle might occur elsewhere?”

      “Possibly——”

      “It is wonderful,” mused Leyden, in the self-communicative tone that was often difficult to follow—“the microscopic filament that makes or unmakes a man; the minute neurons which carry such a potent impulse—like the flash crossing a continent on a tiny wire to send two great nations to war. The wire is short-circuited, the nation disgraced; the neuron short-circuited, the individual disgraced. Such a thing once happened to me, Doctor.

      “This was in Papua, an awesome country which holds in its dark recesses many of the things one wants—and most of those which one does not. I had gone there with two other white men to look for gold. It is a marvelous country, Doctor; I do not think there is any other like it; such a country as was pictured in the old imaginative school of painting; a valley, through which winds a mist river flowing intangibly from a mirage through a canyon bridged by a rainbow; travelers’ palms, tree-ferns, lianas, dream-trees heavy with strange fruits and brilliant blossoms, in the distance mystic mountains rising as they recede, green yet forbidding, the homes of genii; their summits fantastic—the whole a beautiful, impossible, frightfully fascinating fairyland. This was that place where we went to look for gold.

      “My two companions were failures—most gold-seekers are. I was not old enough to be a failure myself. No matter what the faults of these others, one did not deny their virtues. One was a Hollander, Vinckers, an engineer, a brilliant man, but one ready to step over the edge of heaven in sheer restlessness and a desire to see what was held by the abyss; the other was a Scotchman, disagreeable, morose, taciturn, harsh of speech and visage. Both held hearts of steel; they were the most quietly courageous men that I have ever known. I ask you to remember this, Doctor, in consideration of what came later. Their courage had been tried and proved in many desperate situations. … Ach!”—Leyden began to mutter again, shaping his thoughts with his tongue until I could with difficulty catch this thought—“the filament—the neuron—cut the sympathetic nerve in the neck of a horse and the animal begins to sweat upon the affected side; puncture the floor of the fourth ventricle of a dog—diabetes.” He raised his voice. “There is a little center of thermogenesis, is there not, Doctor, the irritation of which will raise the temperature——

      “We wandered through this shadow-land, this illusory place of promise whose inhabitants were ofttimes starving. Cannibals?—yes; many white men have been that through acute starvation; chronic only tends to confirm the vice. They were a strange, shy, kindly people—to us,