My Library

half of the diseases of civilization result from the waste of phosphorus from the system, and for thirty years medical chemistry had sought to so prepare the article that it would at once assimilate with the tissues and fluids. It had not succeeded. True, La Brière had, but then his secret was dead. I resolved to restore it; and after a hundred failures, produced what he had named Phymyle. “I tried its effects upon myself; then several physicians on themselves; and finally, it was tried upon patients at their own request, and the result left not a nail to hang a doubt on, that I was perfectly justified in crying ‘Eureka!’ This preface is essential to the understanding of what follows. “Now, it so happened that a few days before I saw Mrs. Graham, that I had placed about four pounds of phosphorus, together with about five times that weight of other materials, in a strong glass vessel, in a sand-bath, ready for the production of, perhaps, one quart of the precious medicine; and the first thing I did on entering my office from the dentist’s, was to light the gas beneath it. For a few minutes I stood watching the rich and beautiful scarlet and purple vapor as it rose and curled through the neck of the retort, and the long glass pipes leading to the condensing apparatus. “While thus intently engaged, I was suddenly