Dream's end — Story, Setting & Ideas

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Startling Stories, July 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_Risking his own life force to cure a patient’s psychosis, Dr. Robert Bruno learns of the true individualism of human minds!_

The sanitarium was never quiet. Even when night brought comparative stillness, there was an anticipatory tension in the air—for cyclic mental disorders are as inevitable, though not as regular, as the swing of a merry-go-round.

Earlier that evening Gregson, in Ward 13, had moved into the downswing of his manic-depressive curve, and there had been trouble. Before the orderlies could buckle him into a restraining jacket, he had managed to break the arm of a “frozen” catatonic patient, who had made no sound even as the bone snapped.

Under apomorphine, Gregson subsided. After a few days he would be at the bottom of his psychic curve, dumb, motionless, and disinterested. Nothing would be able to rouse him then, for a while.

Dr. Robert Bruno, Chief of Staff, waited till the nurse had gone out with the no longer sterile hypodermic. Then he nodded at the orderly.

“All right. Prepare the patient. I want him in Surgery Three in half an hour.”

He went out into the corridor, a tall, quiet man with cool blue eyes and firm lips. Dr. Kenneth Morrissey was waiting for him. The younger man looked troubled.

“Come on,” Bruno said. “We’ve got to get ready. How’s Wheeler?”

“Simple fracture of the radius, I think. I’m having plates made.”

“Turn him over to one of the other doctors,” Bruno suggested. “I need your help.” He used his key on the locked door. “Gregson’s in good shape for the experiment.”

Morrissey didn’t answer. Bruno laughed a little.

“What’s bothering you, Ken?”

“It’s the word experiment,” Morrissey said.

“Pentothal narcosynthesis was an experiment when they first tried it. So is this—empathy surrogate. If there’s a risk, I’ll be taking it, not Gregson.”

They stepped into the elevator.

“I _am_ sure,” Bruno said, with odd emphasis. “That’s been my rule all my life. I make sure. I’ve got to _be_ sure before I undertake anything new. This experiment can’t possibly fail. I don’t run risks with patients.”

“Come in here.” Bruno led the way from the elevator to an examination room. “I want a final check-up. Try my blood-pressure.” He stripped off his white coat and deftly wound the pneumatic rubber around his arm.

“I’ve explained the whole situation to Gregson’s wife.” Bruno went on as Morrissey squeezed the bulb. “She’s signed the authorization papers. She knows it’s the only chance to cure Gregson. After all, Ken, the man’s been insane for seven years. Cerebral deterioration’s beginning to set in.”

“Cellular, you mean? Um-m. I’m not worried about that. Blood-pressure okay. Heart—”

Morrissey picked up a stethoscope. After a while he nodded.

“A physician hasn’t any right to be afraid of the dark,” Bruno said.

“A physician isn’t charting unmapped territory,” Morrissey said abruptly. “You can dissect a cadaver, but you can’t do that to the psyche. As a psychiatrist you should be the first to admit that we don’t know all there is to know about the mind. Would you take a transfusion from a meningitis patient?”

Bruno chuckled. “Witchcraft, Ken—pure witchcraft! The germ theory of psychosis! Afraid I’ll catch Gregson’s insanity? I hate to disillusion you, but episodic disorders aren’t contagious.”

“Just because you can’t see a bug doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Morrissey growled. “What about a filterable virus? A few years ago nobody could conceive of liquid life.”

“Next you’ll be going back to Elizabethan times and talking about spleen and humors.” Bruno resumed his shirt and coat. He sobered. “In a way, though, this _is_ a transfusion. The only type of transfusion possible. I’ll admit no one knows all there is to know about psychoses. Nobody knows what makes a man think, either. But that’s where physics is beginning to meet medicine. Witchcraft and medicine isolated digitalin when they met. And scientists are beginning to know the nature of thought—an electronic pattern of energy.”