“I was really anxious, sir, to observe for myself the measures you have taken which have set your institution in the forefront of establishments of the kind,” he replied. “I have read with the very greatest interest your various communications to the transactions of learned societies. It is a great advantage for a practitioner like myself to be able to profit by the experience of a savant of your high standing.”
A few further compliments were exchanged and then Dr. Biron suggested a visit to the various wards, and led his guest out into the grounds of the institution.
If Dr. Biron did not possess that theoretical knowledge of insanity which has made French alienists famous throughout the world, he was certainly a first-rate organiser. His sanatorium was a model one. It was situated in one of the wealthiest, quietest and airiest quarters of Paris, and stood in a vast enclosure behind high walls; within this enclosure a number of small pavilions were built, all attractive in design, and communicating by broad flights of steps with a beautiful garden studded with trees and shrubs, but further subdivided into a series of little gardens separated from one another by white latticed palings.
“You see, Professor, I rely entirely on the isolation principle. A single block would have involved a deleterious collocation of various types of insanity, so I built this series of small pavilions, where my patients can be segregated according to their type of alienation. The system has great therapeutic advantages, and I am sure it is the explanation of my high percentage of cures.”
Professor Swelding nodded approval.
“We apply the system of segregation in Denmark,” he said, “but we have never carried it so far as to divide the general grounds. I see that each of your pavilions has its own private garden.”
“I regard that as indispensable,” Dr. Biron declared. He led his visitor to one of the little gardens, where a man of about fifty was walking about between two attendants. “This man is a megalomaniac,” he said: “he believes that he is the Almighty.”
“What is your treatment here?” Professor Swelding enquired. “I am aware that the books prescribe isolation, but that is not sufficient by itself.”
“I nurse the brain by nursing the body,” Dr. Biron replied. “I build up my patient’s system by careful attention to hygiene, diet, and rest, and I pretend to ignore his mental alienation. There is always a spark of sound sense in a diseased brain. This man imagines he is the Almighty, but when he is hungry he has to ask for something to eat, and then we pretend to wonder why he has any need to eat if he is the Almighty; he has to concoct some explanation, and very gradually his reasoning power is restored. A man ceases to be insane the moment he begins to comprehend that he is insane.”
The Professor followed the doctor, casting curious eyes at the various patients who were walking in their gardens.
“Have you many cures?”
“That is a difficult question to answer,” said Dr. Biron. “The statistics are so very different in the different categories of insanity.”
“Of course,” said Professor Swelding; “but take some particular type of dementia, say, hallucination of persecution. What percentage of cures can you show there?”
“Twenty percent absolute recoveries, and forty percent definite improvements,” the doctor replied promptly, and as the Professor evinced unmistakable astonishment at so high a percentage, Dr. Biron took him familiarly by the arm and drew him along. “I will show you a patient who actually is to be sent home in a day or two. I believe that she is completely cured, or on the very point of being completely cured.”
A woman of about forty was sitting in one of the gardens by the side of an attendant, quietly sewing. Dr. Biron paused to draw his visitor’s particular attention to her.
“That lady belongs to one of the best of our great merchant families. She is Mme. Alice Rambert, wife of Etienne Rambert, the rubber merchant. She has been under my care for nearly ten months. When she came here she was in the last stage of debility and anaemia and suffered from the most characteristic hallucination of all: she thought that assassins were all round her. I have built up her physical system, and now I have cured her mind. At the present moment that lady is not mad at all, in the proper sense of the term.”
“She never shows any symptoms of reverting to her morbid condition?” Professor Swelding enquired with interest.
“Never.”
“And would not, even if violently upset?”
“I do not think so.”
“May I talk to her?”
“Certainly,” and Dr. Biron led the visitor towards the seat on which the patient was sitting. “Madame Rambert,” he said, “may I present Professor Swelding to you? He has heard that you are here and would like to pay his respects.”
Mme. Rambert put down her needlework and rose and looked at the Danish professor.
“I am delighted to make the gentleman’s acquaintance,” she said, “but I should like to know how he was aware of my
