The Man from Archangel, and Other Tales of AdventureDoyle, Arthur Conan
General
The Man from Archangel, and Other Tales of Adventure
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Adventure stories, English; Physicians -- Fiction
"I was in practice at the time. One morning a Mrs. Cooper called upon me
and informed me that her husband had shown signs of delusions lately.
They took the form of imagining that he had been in the army and had
distinguished himself very much. As a matter of fact he was a lawyer and
had never been out of England. Mrs. Cooper was of opinion that if I were
to call it might alarm him, so it was agreed between us that she should
send him up in the evening on some pretext to my consulting-room, which
would give me the opportunity of having a chat with him and, if I were
convinced of his insanity, of signing his certificate. Another doctor
had already signed, so that it only needed my concurrence to have him
placed under treatment. Well, Mr. Cooper arrived in the evening about
half an hour before I had expected him, and consulted me as to some
malarious symptoms from which he said that he suffered. According to his
account he had just returned from the Abyssinian Campaign, and had been
one of the first of the British forces to enter Magdala. No delusion
could possibly be more marked, for he would talk of little else, so I
filled in the papers without the slightest hesitation. When his wife
arrived, after he had left, I put some questions to her to complete the
forms. 'What is his age?' I asked. 'Fifty,' said she. 'Fifty!' I cried.
'Why, the man I examined could not have been more than thirty!' And so
it came out that the real Mr. Cooper had never called upon me at all,
but that by one of those coincidences which takes a man's breath away
another Cooper, who really was a very distinguished young officer of
artillery, had come in to consult me. My pen was wet to sign the paper
when I discovered it," says Dr. Manson, mopping his forehead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account