This was a simple machine contrived by Lefevre, on the model of the
electric cylinder of Du Bois-Reymond, and worked on the theory that the
electricity stored in the human body can be driven out by the human will
along a prepared channel into another human body.

"I understand," said the assistant promptly. He apprehended his chief's
meaning more fully than the reader can; for he was deeply interested and
fairly skilled in that strange annex of modern medical science which his
chief called psycho-dynamics, and which old-fashioned practitioners
decline to recognise.

"Get me the machine and the insulating sheet," said Lefevre.

While his assistant was gone on his errand, Lefevre with his right hand
gently stroked along the main lines of nerve and muscle in the upper
part of his patient's body; and it was strange to note how the features
and limbs lost a certain constriction and rigidity which it was manifest
they had had only by their disappearance. When the house-physician
returned, the sheet (a preparation of spun-glass invented by Lefevre)
was drawn under the patient, and the machine, with its vessels of
chemical mixture and its conducting wires, was placed close to the bed.
The handles attached to the wires were put into the patient's hands.

"Now," said Lefevre, "this is a trying experiment. Give me your
hand--your left; you know how to do; yes, the other hand on the machine,
with the fingers touching the chemicals. When you feel strength--virtue,
so to say--going out of you, don't be alarmed: let it go; use no effort
of the will to keep it back, or we shall probably fail."