Lefevre was not a materialistic physician; indeed, in the opinion of
many of his brethren, he erred on the other side, and was too much
inclined to mysticism. It may at least be said that he had an open mind,
and a modest estimate of the discoveries of modern medical science. He
had perceived while still a young man (he was now about forty) that all
medical practice--as distinct from surgical--is inexact and empirical,
that, like English common law, it is based merely on custom, and a
narrow range of experience; and he had therefore argued that a wider
experience and research, especially among decaying nations, might lead
to the discovery of a guiding principle in pathology. That conviction
had taken him as medical officer to Egypt and India, where, amid the
relics of civilisations half as old as time, he found traditions of a
great scientific practice; and thence it had brought him back to study
such foreign medical writers as Du Bois-Reymond, Nobili, Matteucci, and
Müller, and to observe the method of the famous physicians of the
Salpétrière. Like the great Charbon, he made nervous and hysterical
disorders his specialty, in the treatment of which he was much given to
the use of electricity. He had very pronounced "views," though he seldom
troubled his brethren with them; for he was not of those who can hold a
belief firmly only if it is also held by others.

More than a week had passed without discovery or promise of light, when
one afternoon he went to the hospital resolved to compass some
explanation.

He walked at once, on entering the ward, to the bedside of his puzzling
patient, who still lay limp as a dish-clout and drowsy as a sloth. He
tested--as he had done almost daily--his nervous and respiratory powers
with the exact instruments adapted for the purpose, and then, still
unenlightened, he questioned him closely about his sensations. The young