“Meanwhile,” said he, “the strength of the child decreased perceptibly. For two years he had taken no solid food. It was only at great expense, by means of a liquid nourishment in preparing which all our ingenuity had been taxed that it might be substantial, and by most extraordinary care, that we had been able to prolong his life. He had become frightfully thin. His pallor was extreme; he had no blood showing under his skin; you would have said he was a statue of wax. It was evident that death was coming on apace. It was not only certain, but imminent. And, though the uselessness of medical science in the case had certainly been clearly shown, I could not help knocking once again at its door. I knew of no other in this world. “I applied to the most eminent physician in Bordeaux, Dr. Gintrac. Dr. Gintrac examined his throat, sounded it, and found, besides the mere contraction which had almost entirely closed the alimentary canal, some most threatening roughnesses or small swellings. “He shook his head, and gave me little hope. He saw my terrible anxiety. “‘I do not say that his cure is impossible,’ said he; ‘_but he is very ill_.’ “These were his exact words. “He considered it absolutely necessary to employ local remedies; first injections, then the application of a cloth soaked in ether. But this treatment prostrated the child; in view of the result, the surgeon himself, M. Sentex, employed in the hospital, advised us to discontinue it. “In one of my visits to Dr. Gintrac, I communicated to him an idea which had occurred to me. “‘It seems to me,’ said I, ‘that if Jules _had the will_, he could swallow. Does not this difficulty perhaps come from fear? Is it not perhaps that he does not swallow to-day merely because he did not yesterday? If so, it is a mental malady, which can only be cured by moral means.’ “But the doctor dispelled this my last illusion. “‘You are mistaken,’ said he. ‘The disease is in the organs themselves, which are only too really and seriously affected. I have 104 not contented myself with looking at them, for the eye may easily be deceived; but I have sounded them with an instrument, and felt of them carefully with my fingers. The œsophagus is covered with little swellings, and the passage has become so small that it is _materially impossible_ for the boy to take any food whatever, except liquids, which can accommodate themselves to the size of the opening, and pass through the pin-hole, as I may call it, which still remains. If the enlargement of the tissues proceeds a few millimetres further, the patient cannot live. The beginning of the trouble, the alternations which characterized it, and its occasional interruptions also bear out the result of my examination. Your child, having once recovered, would have continued well if the difficulty had been in his imagination. Unfortunately, it is organic.’