Electric Life

by Albert Robida

  Sulfatin and Philox Lorris had both rushed forward, trying to discover the place from which the miasmas were escaping; it was Philox Lorris who found it. A valve that Sulfatin, in his preoccupation, had disturbed slightly, was letting out a thin jet of deleterious vapors. Philox Lorris and Sulfatin, with sweat on their brows, strove to repair the slight and imperceptible damage, which was no great thing and soon done—but they were just in time; if they had taken any longer, frightful misfortunes would have been the consequence of Sulfatin’s fatal distraction.

  However, the fearful attitude of Monsieur des Marettes, who was striving to penetrate the crowd in order to reach an elevator, had caused alarm among the guests and interrupted a piece in mid-performance. A few people in the group of serious people who were not passionate about music rose to their feet; running at their head were Doctress Bardoz and Senatress Coupard, of the Sarthe.

  “What is it, my dear Master?” asked the doctress. “Are you ill? What a singular odor!”

  “Don’t worry—there’s no longer any danger,” said Philox Lorris. “But my head’s spinning. Don’t say anything about the accident. Quickly, everyone, go to bed as soon as possible…that’s the safest thing...”

  “Don’t alarm anyone,” said Sulfatin. “It’s nothing serious; the leak has been located and stopped. Oh, I don’t feel well!”

  “What accident?” said a few frightened voices “What leak?”

  “The reservoir of miasmas!” moaned Monsieur des Marettes, who came back to collapse on a divan.

  “Calm down!” cried Philox Loris, wiping his forehead. “It won’t be anything much—we’ll have a slight epidemic…a very slight epidemic. Aah, my head!”

  “An epidemic!”

  Already, the panic had spread into the great hall; the concert was abandoned. People were crowding forward and jostling one another in order to discover what had happened. On the word “epidemic” everyone went pale and a few people were on the point of fainting.

  “A very tiny epidemic! I’ll answer for everything—the leak was insignificant...”

  “I don’t feel well either,” said Mademoiselle Doctress Bardoz, taking her pulse.

  “Keep calm! Keep calm!”

  In less than five minutes, the small drawing room where the accident had occurred was full of people, who were running around, asking questions, surrounding the people who felt ill, and feeling indisposed themselves shortly afterwards. There was soon a concert of indignant complaints against Monsieur Lorris. Pale and listless guests were lying down helplessly on all the items of furniture; others, by contrast, agitated and overexcited, seemed to be prey to veritable attacks of nerves.

  Philox Lorris, badly affected, did not have the strength to have the small drawing room—which was particularly dangerous—evacuated, or even to open the windows to let the miasmas escape; it was Monsieur La Héronnière who, seeing that people were continuing to accumulate in the infected room, had the presence of mind to open them wide.

  La Héronnière examined himself anxiously and took his pulse; alone among all those present, however, he was unaffected, and did not feel the slightest indisposition. Reassured on his own account, the ex-invalid was anxious nevertheless, on thinking that his physician had been afflicted, and went to offer his aid and his care to Sulfatin.

  “You told me that my treatment wasn’t finished,” he said to him. “Don’t play the mean trick of leaving it incomplete! It’s me who’ll look after you now; I ought to demand a fee, or a reduction in my bill! How is it that I’m unaffected when everyone else here is ill?”

  “You can withstand the miasmas thanks to the inoculations that you’ve been given,” Sulfatin replied, in a halting voice. “Have the house evacuated—the people who haven’t entered this room will have a slight headache, at the most...”

  Thus, La Héronnière continued to be a living advertisement, and had just added the weight of a further experiment to the beautiful theory of obligatory inoculations that Philox Lorris had explained to Monsieur des Marettes. Thus far, it had been established that Sulfatin’s remedy was curative; now, it was certain that its inoculation rendered one resistant to the millions of microbes that the accident in the Philox Lorris laboratory was about to spread through the atmosphere.

  VII

  Philox Lorris’ house has been converted into a field hospital. Thirty-four people came into the room of the miasmas; thirty three are ill. Only Adrien La Héronnière has felt no ill-effects. Philox Lorris’ other guests have been able to go home, with a slight indisposition what dissipated rapidly the next day.

  The invalids have remained in the house, the ladies in bedrooms, the men in the drawing-rooms, subdivided by mobile screens into little hospital cubicles. The malady is not serious, fortunately, but it presents a singular variety of symptoms, which all duplicate those of other known diseases.

  By a stroke of good luck, Georges Lorris, Estelle and Madame Lorris were at the other extremity of the house when the epidemic broke out, so they only felt a slight headache accompanied by dizziness. They have been able to take charge of the field hospital and devote all their care to the patients.

  Philox Lorris, Sulfatin and Monsieur des Marettes are lying in the same room, prey to a rather violent fever. As they absorbed the deleterious vapors for longer than anyone else, they are the worst affected.

  Philox Lorris and Sulfatin pass their time quarreling. The illustrious scientist, excited by the fever, is heaping his collaborator with sarcasms and his wrath.

  “You’re an ass! Does a true man of science have such distractions? My son Georges, that futile and frivolous young man, isn’t as bad as that! I thought you were cut from better cloth! What disillusionment! What a come-down! Our great project will fail, and it’s your fault. You’ve covered me with ridicule in the eyes of the scientific world—but you’ll pay me back! I’m going to sue you and demand enormous damages and compensation for the spoiled project...”

  As for Monsieur des Marettes, he declaimed bits of his old speeches in the Chambre, in a vague delirium, or entire chapters of his History of Annoyances Caused to Men by Women, or even thought that he was at home, and argued with Sulfatin, whom he mistook for Madame des Marettes.

  “Oho! Ridiculous and superannuated woman! So you’re back again…you want to get hold of your prey again and subject me to new torments...”

  Mademoiselle Doctress Bardoz had fully recovered after a week. She had been furious at first and had sworn to drag Philox Lorris before the courts, but when she was able to study the disease, first in herself and then in others, her anger faded away. The malady was extremely interesting; there was no means of connecting it with any known and classified fever; in the first phase, it participated in all possible fevers, combining the most various symptoms, complicated and overlapping, with the most bizarre anomalies; then its evolution became completely original and absolutely unprecedented.

  There was no doubt about it; it was a new disease, created from scratch in the Philox Lorris laboratory, which was gradually beginning to spread from there, epidemically, throughout Paris. A few cases were identified here and there, in the most various quarters; it was necessary to attribute that contamination either to miasmas carried by the wind when the windows of the infected room had been opened or by guests who had only felt an insignificant malaise themselves. And from those epidemic nuclei, the disease gradually spread, taking on a more obvious character as it went.

  On the basis of the reports of Mademoiselle Doctress Bardoz, engineer in medicine and holder of doctorates in all sciences, the Académie de Médicine delegated a commission of physicians to study the new disease at close range, classify it so far as was possible and give it a name. There was no agreement on that, and every member of the committee was already drafting a paper in which he formulated different conclusions and proposed a different name. The discord threatened to split the medical establishment, for there was no more agreement on the question of treatment.

  Fortunately, Philox
Lorris eventually felt better. When the fever allowed him the faculty of reflection, the immunity of Adrien La Héronnière, treated with the great National Medicament, furnished him with a precise indication; he inoculated himself by way of a trial. In two days, he was completely cured. He was careful to say nothing to the medical committee; leaving them to argue and squabble over the name to be given to the disease and the treatment to apply, he inoculated all the invalids and got them back on their feet, to the great astonishment of the Faculty.

  The affair, which caused an enormous fuss for a fortnight, to the detriment of the credit and renown of the illustrious scientist, suddenly took a new turn. His enemies had had free rein for a few days to smear him, with regard to the project, and had tried to pour ridicule on the accident—but when Philox Lorris and his collaborator Sulfatin were seen to get out of their sick-beds, cure themselves in no time and cure all their patients, while the Faculty continued to flounder in the most contradictory hypotheses and to develop the most bizarre theories on the entirely unknown disease, public opinion abruptly changed. They were proclaimed to be martyrs of science! Congratulations arrived from every direction.

  Martyrs of science! And all the guests at the soirée were in the same company. They had all been afflicted, to a greater or lesser extent, and they all had the right to the same laurels.

  Let us listen to the most important newspapers—those most authorized to render public homage, after describing their suffering:

  “At the very moment when the illustrious inventor, the great Philox Lorris,” said L’Époque, the telephonoscopic newspaper of Monsieur Hector Piquepol, a guest at the great soirée and a martyr of science himself, “had crowned his career by enabling France first, and humanity thereafter, to profit from not one, as they say, but two immense discoveries, he almost perished, a victim of his courageous trials, and the elite of Parisian society with him...

  “Not one, but two immense discoveries, the first of which will completely revolutionize the art of war and force it out of its eternal routine, and the second of which will similarly revolutionize the medical art and force it out of the eternal bad habits in which it has been stuck since Hippocrates.

  “Two veritably sublime discoveries, which are connected in spite of their apparent opposition!

  “The first will lead to the suppression of ancient armies and the complete rejection of ancient military systems; it will permit the organization of medical warfare, waged solely by the Offensive Medical Corps, in possession of machines that will carry the most deleterious miasmas into enemy territory, No more explosives, as of old, and no more chemical artillery, but simply miasmal artillery, microbes and bacilli dispatched electrically into enemy territory.

  “A marvelous transformation! A gigantic step forward! Bellona will no longer stain her laurels with blood. Immense progress!

  “The second discovery, which places the illustrious scientist in the ranks of the benefactors of humanity, is the Great National Medicament, acting by inoculation and ingestion—a medicament whose formula is still a secret, but which will render sudden vigor and health to an overstressed people, to a blood impoverished by all the fatigues of the electric life that we all lead...

  “The sublime Philox Lorris is, therefore, a benefactor of humanity twice over: by virtue of the health and the physical and mental energy rendered to everyone by means of the miraculous philter that the great modern magician has concocted; and by virtue of his powerful conception of the medical warfare that will bring to a close forever the bloody era of explosives projected from afar and the bloody debris of innumerable battalions brought to the battlefields. Medical warfare—O progress!—having the sole objective of making combat impossible, will unleash upon belligerents diseases that will lie entire populations low for a given time, but will only kill those whose organisms are already in a poor state!

  “In the same way that the inventor of gunpowder, the monk Schwartz, fell victim to his own discovery, however, Philox Lorris, the pioneer of the era of medical warfare, the inventor of its marvelous method and machinery, nearly perished in his laboratory, in the theater of his victory, stricken along with his collaborator Sulfatin by a leak of concentrated miasmas collected for his studies!

  “He almost perished, but he is alive, to ensure the triumph of science, to usher humankind into a new phase of development, to enable a decisive step forward in the scared cause of progress and civilization!

  “He almost perished, but he is alive. Lying on a sick-bed, he has paid with his cruel but nobly-borne suffering the ransom of genius...”

  And in the great telephonoscope of L’Époque, the one that displays sensational events to Parisians outside the newspaper’s headquarters, the invalid’s bedroom appeared, every morning and every evening, with the illustrious scientist in bed, prey to the famous unknown fever. Along with the bulletin issued every morning and every evening by illustrious physicians one saw:

  The illustrious scientist prey to a fit of delirium...

  The illustrious scientist feeling a little better...

  The illustrious scientist suffering a relapse...

  Until the day when one could see the martyr of science out of bed in his convalescent’s dressing-gown, already at work.

  The Stateman great orator and historian des Marettes, proud to be also counted among the martyrs of science, made haste, as soon as he was back on his feet, to propose in the Chambre, pleading urgency, the law relating to the Great National Medicament. For a fortnight, there was no talk of anything but the Philox Loris project; it was the great topic of the day in all conversations, the subject of all the discussions in the scientific Academies. The des Marettes proposal was not left to languish in the offices; it was examined by a committee, its articles were debated with the illustrious scientist, discussed in advance by all the newspapers, and when it was put before the Chambres, almost everyone supported it, government and opposition alike. Even the Feminist Party, thanks to the support of Madame Ponto in the Chambre and Senatress Coupard, of the Sarthe, in the Senate, found themselves entirely in accord with the Masculinist Partty, the adherents of the League for the Emancipation of Men, led by Monsieur des Marettes, and voted the same way for the first time.

  The law was passed with an enormous majority.

  The following articles thus came into force:

  Firstly, the inoculation of the Great Medicament became obligatory once a month for all French citizens over the age of three.

  Secondly, the monopoly of the manufacture of the microbiocidal and purificatory, anti-anemic and restorative Great National Medicament was granted for fifty years to Philox Lorris, Inc.

  Thirdly, a national recompense was unanimously voted to the illustrious Philox Lorris.

  Let us say right away that the latter only accepted a large gold medal, a remarkable work of art that represented the illustrious scientist as Hercules, vanquisher of modern Hydras, on one side, with an inscription commemorating the great discovery on the other.

  The secondary questions, relative to the organization of services, remained to be settled, but that was the concern of Philox Lorris, named as Administrator General with full powers.

  In addition, on the advice of Philox Lorris, it was decided to create a new Ministry; it was entitled the Ministry of Public Health. The portfolio was given to an eminent advocate and politician, Mademoiselle Senatress Coupard, of the Sarthe, who had been the mover of the law relating to the Great National Medicament in the Senate. That regimentation of everything concerning public health and hygiene will considerably simplify things and render immense services to the population.

  In many cases, the Great National Medicament will be perfectly sufficient to reestablish the failing health of individuals, in restoring damaged or fatigued constitutions to good condition without any intervention by physicians. Anemias, dyspepsias, gastralgias, liver diseases, etc., will be very easily relieved. There will be no further need to take meals, as many people have become resigned to doin
g, in the pharmaceutical restaurants founded with so much success in recent years, medical kitchens where meals are prepared on prescription by qualified pharmacists, disciples of both Monsieur Purgon8 and Brillat-Savarin, inventors of hygienically renowned but, in sum, rather costly dishes.

  Philox Lorris thus found himself liberated from the preoccupations of his great medicament project. It was high time, for he was beginning to feel that his brain was horribly fatigued. He too, during the formidable labor of recent days, had had moments of distraction, when he had been on the point of confusing the flasks of the great national medicament with those of the miasmas. Now he was free, and following his habit of resting from one fatigue by means of another, and one hard labor by means of another, the novelty of which would stimulate his faculties, he was able to devote himself entirely to the final studies on the concentration of miasmas and their generalized employment in military operations.

  A committee of engineer generals appointed by the Ministry of War had been charged with carrying out, in the greatest secrecy, the organization of the Offensive Medical Corps. It met every afternoon under the chairmanship of the illustrious scientist.

  Estelle Lacombe was rarely seen in the laboratory; on arriving every morning, after having made her presence known to Monsieur Sulfatin, the young woman the young woman hastened to Madame Lorris’ apartment, into which none of Philox Lorris’ friends and acquaintances, who were all scientists, businessmen or politicians, ever penetrated. Madame Philox Lorris was so busy, it was thought, always lost in her profound philosophical meditations, repeatedly turning over the most nebulous problems of metaphysics for her great work.

  George Lorris’ fiancée, having completely gained the confidence and friendship of her future mother-in-law, was finally brought into the confidence of this endeavor, the mere thought of which made her tremble almost as much as the vast scientific conceptions of Philox Lorris. One day, Madame Lorris introduced her mysteriously into a little room that Philox Lorris called “Madame’s study.”