11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved.
My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac. What he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps?
It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge of the brain?
Had I even the secret of one such mind, did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic, I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted. A good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally?
How well the man reasoned. Lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?
To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it shall be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss.
Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours, but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! Work!
If I could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good, unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness.
“He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause.”
However, Seward’s experiment of giving Renfield would have been of little scientific value, as he was studying only one patient. His observations would amount to a case report, which is the least useful type of scientific evidence.
https://thelogicofscience.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/hierarchy-of-evidence2.png
Posted by: Most Significant | July 20, 2022 at 11:18 PM
Of course, the above comments are looking at it from a 21st Century point of view about evidence. Some pseudoscientific theories were based on just one case report: chiropractic’s origin was a single patient, while iridology was based on an observation of an owl!
Chiropractic’s roots: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Harvey_Lillard
Iridology origins: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/pseudoscience-history/looking-iridology
Posted by: Most Significant | July 21, 2022 at 12:49 PM
Good point. There's still something of the single-person, romantic, heroic scientist at the time.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | July 21, 2022 at 12:57 PM
Yes, there are lots of examples: Lister, Pasteur, Freud, Bell, Edison — even when they were really running a team of researchers, they were lauded as lone geniuses. It took a few generations before partnerships became a common and accepted model: Banting & Best, Watson & Crick. Even those were (and are) oversimplifications. “Banting and Best” should really be Banting, Best, Macleod, and Collip, while “Watson and Crick” probably should be Watson, Crick, and Franklin.
Posted by: Most Significant | July 22, 2022 at 09:17 PM
Exactly. And then things kept getting bigger.
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | July 23, 2022 at 02:51 PM