ot
merely death which confronted him, but death by the most mysterious
and agonizing of human ailments. In June, 1848, he wrote to a friend:
"I have a strong conviction that my earthly career will soon come to a
close, and that I shall never lecture again."

And then, gradually, to the ever-increasing agony of the body, came
the anguish of REMORSE. He remembered the trembling little creatures
which again and again he had lifted to their bed of torment, and "made
to struggle," that he might observe how the heart-beats of a mutilated
animal were quickened "from the emotion of terror"; and now, in the
gloom of horrible imaginings, TERROR held HIM with a grasp that would
never loosen or lessen while his consciousness remained. He
remembered the the evidence of "severe suffering" he had so often
evoked by the "pinching and cutting and stretching" of nerves; the
creatures he had first "caressed to calm their fears"--and then
vivisected; the eyes that so often had appealed for respite from
agony--and appealed in vain; and now, NATURA MALIGNA, to whom pity is
unknown, was slowly torturing him to death. He pointed to the seat of
his suffering as being "THE SAME NERVES on which he had made so many
experiments, and added: `THIS IS A JUDGMENT UPON ME FOR THE SUFFERING
I HAVE INFLICTED ON ANIMALS'"[1]

[1] "Life of John Reid," by Dr. G. Wilson, p. 273.

More than once during the last months of his life he recurred to the
same subject.

His biographer says:

"He could not divest his mind of the feeling that there was a special
Providence in the way in which he had been afflicted. He had devoted
peculiar attention to the functions of certain nerves, and had
inflicted suffering on many dumb creatures that he might discover the
office of those nerves; and HE COULD NOT BUT REGARD THE CANCER WHICH
PREYED UPON THEM--IN HIS OWN BODY--AS A SIGNIFICANT MESSAGE FROM
GOD."[2]

[2] Ibid., p. 250.

Again and again he repeated the conviction to which his mind
continually reverted in the midst of his torment. To him conscience
brought no message of Divine approbation, but only a sentence of
condemnation upon his past pursuits. Nor was Reid alone in this
feeling of apprehension and questioning. We are told by his medical
friend and biographer that many of his brother physicians were
startled by learning

"that Dr. Reid is doomed to die by a disease WHICH REPEATS UPON HIS
OWN BODY NOT IN ONE, BUT IN MANY WAYS, the pains which he h