ably situated to reap the benefit of our work and enjoy the credit
of our discovery, but a curious chance gave us exactly what we were
in search of, at the instant when we were about to despair. It was
Yorke-Bannerman who came to me in my laboratory one day to tell me that
he had in his private practice the very condition of which we were in
search.

"'The patient,' said he, 'is my uncle, Admiral Scott Prideaux.'

"'Your uncle!' I cried, in amazement. 'But how came he to develop such a
condition?'

"'His last commission in the Navy was spent upon the Malabar Coast,
where the disease is endemic. There can be do doubt that it has been
latent in his system ever since, and that the irritability of temper
and indecision of character, of which his family have so often had to
complain, were really among the symptoms of his complaint.'

"I examined the Admiral in consultation with my colleague, and I
confirmed his diagnosis. But, to my surprise, Yorke-Bannerman showed
the most invincible and reprehensible objection to experiment upon his
relative. In vain I assured him that he must place his duty to science
high above all other considerations. It was only after great pressure
that I could persuade him to add an infinitesimal portion of aconitine
to his prescriptions. The drug was a deadly one, he said, and the toxic
dose was still to be determined. He could not push it in the case of a
relative who trusted himself to his care. I tried to shake him in what I
regarded as his absurd squeamishness--but in vain.

"But I had another resource. Bannerman's prescriptions were made up by
a fellow named Barclay, who had been dispenser at Nathaniel's and
afterwards set up as a chemist in Sackville Street. This man was
absolutely in my power. I had discovered him at Nathaniel's in dishonest
practices, and I held evidence which would have sent him to gaol. I held
this over him now, and I made him, unknown to Bannerman, increase the
doses of aconitine in the medicine until they were sufficient for my
experimental purposes. I will not enter into figures, but suffice it
that Bannerman was giving more than ten times what he imagined.

"You know the sequel. I was called in, and suddenly found that I had
Bannerman in my power. There had been a very keen rivalry between us in
science. He was the only man in England whose career might impinge upon
mine. I had this supreme chance of putting him out of my way. He could
not deny that he had been