I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.

To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness.

He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge." "Very right too." "Yes, but it may be pushed to excess.

When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape." "Beating the subjects!" "Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death.

I saw him at it with my own eyes." "And yet you say he is not a medical student ?" "No.