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abandoned, but they were severely curtailed. This slow cessation of my research into reanimation was the result of a combination of factors, not the least of which was the overwhelming success of my practice. I had made astounding progress in the reanimation of rats, but I had failed miserably in translating that success to humans. This failure had seriously impacted my desire to continue any experiments, whether human or rat. Still, this failure-driven frustration was overshadowed by the results of my two human experiments, which had both ended in the tragic death of an innocent child. Given all of these factors, it was not surprising that my drive to understand the reanimation process had waned. The fires of revenge that had fueled my experiments in reanimation had been doused by failure and disaster, while at the same time my career as a physician was fueling feelings of wondrous accomplishment. This new direction slowly stultified my need to keep my secret laboratory and associated activities, and by the spring of 1908 I resigned myself to the destruction of my reagent, the termination of my rats, and the wholesale dismantling of my secret laboratory. Sadly, or serendipitously depending on your point of view, the dismantling of my laboratory and my research was derailed by events beyond my immediate understanding, but events that would nevertheless cascade through the next two decades of my life.
    On the morning of May 14 th Pr. Nathaniel Peaslee, my neighbor and the principal architect of my financial success, appeared on my doorstep. He was suffering from a massive headache, which I diagnosed as a migraine and administered an appropriate analgesic. Peaslee also complained of disturbing mental images that had seemed to haunt his dreams of the previous night, but had not dissipated with his waking. These chaotic vistas were coupled with a gnawing sense of alienation or displacement, which he had difficulty expressing. He was, he related, reminded of his childhood when the family dog would gently whine and scratch at the kitchen door, before eventually jumping up and with full force pop the lock on the door and barrel into the house in a clumsy and uncontrolled chaos of paws and fur. While such feelings were unusual for Peaslee, they were not inconsistent with the symptoms of a migraine, the victims of which often suffer delusional feelings of persecution, alienation, paranoia or emotional sensitivity. I made sure that Peaslee had a sufficient supply of painkillers and suggested that if the pain continued that he curtail his daily schedule, and regardless of his condition, visit me in the early evening. When Peaslee left my care, he was feeling somewhat better and appeared fully cognizant of his own condition and whereabouts. Consequently, it came as a great surprise to me when at approximately 11:00, I and Dr. Wilson were summoned to the Peaslee home to attend to the head of the house, who had summarily collapsed while giving a lecture.
    Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee was unresponsive to a variety of stimuli, and Wilson and I quickly realized that our friend had somehow slipped into a profound state of unconsciousness. I feared at first that Peaslee’s condition had been initiated by an overdose of the analgesic I had given him. Fortunately, I found the bottle unopened. Wilson quickly ran through the other possible causes of coma including diabetic response, stroke or physical trauma, all of which were quickly rejected. Peaslee’s condition was consistent with exposure to a high level of carbon dioxide, but the inability to locate a source, and the lack of similar symptoms in his students, made this an unlikely causative agent. In the end we physicians were left with little to do but collect blood and tissue samples and make the professor comfortable.
    Mary cleared our appointments for the rest of the day and the next as well. Early in the evening, when it became apparent that there was to be no improvement in our