"Don't you think it very wonderful, doctor?" inquired M'Garry, speaking somewhat thickly.
"They say, sir, the man--that is, the subject--when under the influence of the battery, absolutely twiddled his left foot, and raised his right arm."
"And raised it to some purpose, too," said the doctor; "for he raised a contusion on the Surgeon-General's eye, having hit him over the same."
"It is true, however," said the doctor; "and that gives you an idea of the power of the galvanic influence, for you know the Surgeon-General is a powerful man, and yet he could not hold him down."
"But that's nothing to what happened in London," continued the doctor. "They experimented there the other day with a battery of such power, that the man who was hanged absolutely jumped up, seized a scalpel from the table, and making a rush on the assembled Faculty of London, cleared the theatre in less than no time; dashed into the hall; stabbed the porter who attempted to stop him; made a chevy down the south side of Leicester Square; and as he reached the corner, a woman, who was carrying tracts published by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, shrieked at beholding a man in so startling a condition, and fainted; he, with a presence of mind perfectly admirable, whipped the cloak from her back, and threw it round him, and scudding through the tortuous alleys which abound in that neighbourhood, made his way to the house where the learned Society of Noviomagians hold their convivial meetings, and, telling the landlord that he was invited there to dinner as a curiosity, he gained admittance, and, it is supposed, took his opportunity for escaping, for he has not since been heard of."
"Good Heaven!" gasped M'Garry; "and do you believe that, doctor?"
"Most firmly, sir! My belief is, that galvanism is, in fact, the original principle of vitality."
"Should we not rejoice, doctor," cried M'Garry, "at this triumph of science?"
"I don't think you should, Mister M'Garry," said the doctor, gravely; "for it would utterly destroy _your_ branch of the profession: pharmacopolists, instead of compounding medicine, must compound with their creditors; they are utterly ruined. Mercury is no longer in the ascendent; all doctors have to do now is to carry a small battery about them, a sort of galvanic pocket-pistol, I may say, and restore the vital principle by its application."