Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/50

  Purely reasonless—the organ acting on the cell; an inversion of effect on cause. In our own case, if one presumed that our diet, or water, or the fever, or any other extrinsic cause had deranged the organ—perhaps the liver—and thus poisoned the cell—the single center of Fear—as some drugs affect other centers—murderous—erotic as Charcot, I believe it is, demonstrates that the odor of certain perfumes will throw the hypnotized patient into paroxysms of fear

"I never did a thing so difficult as to get on my feet and walk to the hammock of that poor girl. She was quite dead and the wet frost of the fear which had killed her lay moist and chill on face and breast. I did not dare to light a match to look at her; there is a limit, Doctor, to the courage of every man. I was never really frightened before; I can never remember being really frightened since; and my profession is one of countless risks to life. This was something far, far worse the reason stampeding with the will [ 34 ]