Advanced Chemistry

: Advanced Chemistry

There is a lot of entertainment and also a great

deal of truth in this story. We recommend it highly.





Professor Carbonic was diligently at work in his spacious laboratory,

analyzing, mixing and experimenting. He had been employed for more than

fifteen years in the same pursuit of happiness, in the same house, same

laboratory, and attended by the same servant woman, who in her long

period of service had attained the plumpness and respectability of two

hundred and ninety pounds.






"Mag Nesia," called the professor. The servant's name was Maggie

Nesia--Professor Carbonic had contracted the title to save time, for in

fifteen years he had not mounted the heights of greatness; he must work

harder and faster as life is short, and eliminate such shameful waste

of time as putting the "gie" on Maggie.



"Mag Nesia!" the professor repeated.



The old woman rolled slowly into the room.



"Get rid of these and bring the one the boy brought today."



He handed her a tray containing three dead rats, whose brains had been

subjected to analysis.



"Yes, Marse," answered Mag Nesia in a tone like citrate.



The professor busied himself with a new preparation of zinc oxide and

copper sulphate and sal ammoniac, his latest concoction, which was about

to be used and, like its predecessors, to be abandoned.



Mag Nesia appeared bringing another rat, dead. The professor made no

experiments on live animals. He had hired a boy in the neighborhood to

bring him fresh dead rats at twenty-five cents per head.



Taking the tray he prepared a hypodermic filled with the new

preparation. Carefully he made an incision above the right eye of the

carcass through the bone. He lifted the hypodermic, half hopelessly,

half expectantly. The old woman watched him, as she had done many times

before, with always the same pitiful expression. Pitiful, either for the

man himself or for the dead rat. Mag Nesia seldom expressed her views.



Inserting the hypodermic needle and injecting the contents of the

syringe, Professor Carbonic stepped back.





Prof. Carbonic Makes a Great Discovery



"Great Saints!" His voice could have been heard a mile. Slowly the rat's

tail began to point skyward; and as slowly Mag Nesia began to turn

white. Professor Carbonic stood as paralyzed. The rat trembled and moved

his feet. The man of sixty years made one jump with the alacrity of a

boy of sixteen, he grabbed the enlivened animal, and held it high above

his head as he jumped about the room.



Spying the servant, who until now had seemed unable to move, he threw

both arms around her, bringing the rat close to her face. Around the

laboratory they danced to the tune of the woman's shrieks. The professor

held on, and the woman yelled. Up and down spasmodically on the

laboratory floor came the two hundred and ninety pounds with the

professor thrown in.



Bottles tumbled from the shelves. Furniture was upset. Precious liquids

flowed unrestrained and unnoticed. Finally the professor dropped with

exhaustion and the rat and Mag Nesia made a dash for freedom.



Early in the morning pedestrians on Arlington Avenue were attracted by a

sign in brilliant letters.



Professor Carbonic early in the morning betook himself to the nearest

hardware store and purchased the tools necessary for his new profession.

He was an M.D. and his recently acquired knowledge put him in a position

to startle the world. Having procured what he needed he returned home.



* * * * *



Things were developing fast. Mag Nesia met him at the door and told him

that Sally Soda, who was known to the neighborhood as Sal or Sal Soda

generally, had fallen down two flights of stairs, and to use her own

words was "Putty bad." Sal Soda's mother, in sending for a doctor, had

read the elaborate sign of the new enemy of death, and begged that he

come to see Sal as soon as he returned.



Bidding Mag Nesia to accompany him, he went to the laboratory and

secured his precious preparation. Professor Carbonic and the unwilling

Mag Nesia started out to put new life into a little Sal Soda who lived

in the same block.



Reaching the house they met the family physician then attendant on

little Sal. Doctor X. Ray had also read the sign of the professor and

his greeting was very chilly.



"How is the child?" asked the professor.



"Fatally hurt and can live but an hour." Then he added, "I have done all

that can be done."



"All that you can do," corrected the professor.



With a withering glance, Doctor X. Ray left the room and the house. His

reputation was such as to admit of no intrusion.



* * * * *



"I am sorry she is not dead, it would be easier to work, and also a more

reasonable charge." Giving Mag Nesia his instruments he administered a

local anesthetic; this done he selected a brace and bit that he had

procured that morning. With these instruments he bored a small hole into

the child's head. Inserting his hypodermic needle, he injected the

immortal fluid, then cutting the end off a dowel, which he had also

procured that morning, he hammered it into the hole until it wedged

itself tight.



Professor Carbonic seated himself comfortably and awaited the action of

his injection, while the plump Mag Nesia paced or rather waddled the

floor with a bag of carpenter's tools under her arm.



The fluid worked. The child came to and sat up. Sal Soda had regained

her pep.



"It will be one dollar and twenty-five cents, Mrs. Soda," apologized the

professor. "I have to make that charge as it is so inconvenient to work

on them when they are still alive."



Having collected his fee, the professor and Mag Nesia departed, amid the

ever rising blessings of the Soda family.



* * * * *



At 3:30 P.M. Mag Nesia sought her employer, who was asleep in the

sitting room.



"Marse Paul, a gentleman to see you."



The professor awoke and had her send the man in.



The man entered hurriedly, hat in hand. "Are you Professor Carbonic?"



"I am, what can I do for you?"



"Can you----?" the man hesitated. "My friend has just been killed in an

accident. You couldn't----" he hesitated again.



"I know that it is unbelievable," answered the professor. "But I can."



* * * * *



Professor Carbonic for some years had suffered from the effects of a

weak heart. His fears on this score had recently been entirely relieved.

He now had the prescription--Death no more! The startling discovery, and

the happenings of the last twenty-four hours had begun to take effect on

him, and he did not wish to make another call until he was feeling

better.



"I'll go," said the professor after a period of musing. "My discoveries

are for the benefit of the human race, I must not consider myself."



He satisfied himself that he had all his tools. He had just sufficient

of the preparation for one injection; this, he thought, would be enough;

however, he placed in his case, two vials of different solutions, which

were the basis of his discovery. These fluids had but to be mixed, and

after the chemical reaction had taken place the preparation was ready

for use.



He searched the house for Mag Nesia, but the old servant had made it

certain that she did not intend to act as nurse to dead men on their

journey back to life. Reluctantly he decided to go without her.



"How is it possible!" exclaimed the stranger, as they climbed into the

waiting machine.



"I have worked for fifteen years before I found the solution," answered

the professor slowly.



"I cannot understand on what you could have based a theory for

experimenting on something that has been universally accepted as

impossible of solution."



"With electricity, all is possible; as I have proved." Seeing the

skeptical look his companion assumed, he continued, "Electricity is the

basis of every motive power we have; it is the base of every formation

that we know." The professor was warming to the subject.



"Go on," said the stranger, "I am extremely interested."



"Every sort of heat that is known, whether dormant or active, is only

one arm of the gigantic force electricity. The most of our knowledge of

electricity has been gained through its offspring, magnetism. A body

entirely devoid of electricity, is a body dead. Magnetism is apparent in

many things including the human race, and its presence in many people is

prominent."



"But how did this lead to your experiments?"



"If magnetism or motive force, is the offspring of electricity, the

human body must, and does contain electricity. That we use more

electricity than the human body will induce is a fact; it is apparent

therefore that a certain amount of electricity must be generated within

the human body, and without aid of any outside forces. Science has known

for years that the body's power is brought into action through the

brain. The brain is our generator. The little cells and the fluid that

separate them, have the same action as the liquid of a wet battery; like

a wet battery this fluid wears out and we must replace the fluid or the

sal ammoniac or we lose the use of the battery or body. I have

discovered what fluid to use that will produce the electricity in the

brain cells which the human body is unable to induce."



"We are here," said the stranger as he brought the car to a stop at the

curb.



"You are still a skeptic," noting the voice of the man. "But you shall

see shortly."



The man led him into the house and introduced him to Mrs. Murray Attic,

who conducted him to the room where the deceased Murray Attic was laid.



Without a word the professor began his preparations. He was ill, and

would have preferred to have been at rest in his own comfortable house.

He would do the work quickly and get away.



* * * * *



Selecting a gimlet, he bored a hole through the skull of the dead man;

inserting his hypodermic he injected all the fluid he had mixed. He had

not calculated on the size of the gimlet and the dowels he carried would

not fit the hole. As a last resource he drove in his lead pencil, broke

it off close, and carefully cut the splinters smooth with the head.



"It will be seventy-five cents, madam," said the professor as he

finished the work.



* * * * *



Mrs. Murray Attic paid the money unconsciously; she did not know whether

he was embalming her husband or just trying the keenness of his new

tools. The death had been too much for her.



The minutes passed and still the dead man showed no signs of reviving.

Professor Carbonic paced the floor in an agitated manner. He began to be

doubtful of his ability to bring the man back. Worried, he continued his

tramp up and down the room. His heart was affecting him. He was tempted

to return the seventy-five cents to the prostrate wife when--THE DEAD

MAN MOVED!



The professor clasped his hands to his throat, and with his head thrown

back dropped to the floor. A fatal attack of the heart.



He became conscious quickly. "The bottles there," he whispered. "Mix--,

make injection." He became unconscious again.



The stranger found the gimlet and bored a hole in the professor's head,

hastily seizing one of the vials, he poured the contents into the deeply

made hole. He then realized that there was another bottle.



"Mix them!" shrieked the almost hysterical woman.



It was too late, the one vial was empty, and the professor's body lay

lifeless.



In mental agony the stranger grasped the second vial and emptied its

contents also into the professor's head, and stopped the hole with the

cork.



Miraculously Professor Carbonic opened his eyes, and rose to his feet.

His eyes were like balls of fire; his lips moved inaudibly, and as they

moved little blue sparks were seen to pass from one to another. His hair

stood out from his head. The chemical reaction was going on in the

professor's brain, with a dose powerful enough to restore ten men. He

tottered slightly.



Murray Attic, now thoroughly alive, sat up straight in bed. He grasped

the brass bed post with one hand and stretched out the other to aid the

staggering man.



He caught his hand; both bodies stiffened; a slight crackling sound was

audible; a blue flash shot from where Attic's had made contact with the

bed post; then a dull thud as both bodies struck the floor. Both men

were electrocuted, and the formula is still a secret.