Medical College Sketches

The Chemist’s Story or Science Versus Murder

by Euri Byades

I am the Chemist of the Medical College at C—. Man, doubtless would find it difficult to define what the duties of a chemist are, if asked. To such, I may say, a chemist is a collector of facts. It is the business of his life to aid in unmasking, for the world’s benefit, the good and evil hovering even in the air we  breathe; burrowing in the earth we tread, mingling with the food we eat; swimming in what we drink.

The miner comes to the chemist with his lumps of gold and silver, to be assured his precious treasures are pure and good. The health officers call to him to examine the atmosphere that surrounds and the earth that makes up the plague ground of cholera. The physicians show him the food and drink of their stricken patients, and beg for aid. Sometimes, but, alas, not as often as he would wish, the chemist has a gift or charm to give that is powerful for good.

In short the chemist must know the whys and wherefores in everything in the outward phenomena of life, as far as feeble man can know. The composition of the ocean he must be familiar with; he must be able to name the gasses of the air; and capable of resolving the human body itself into invisible vapors! I am the occupant of this responsible positon and important Professorship in the Medical College at C—.

It was about half past ten o’clock on a stormy evening, that I bade good night to my student, John Powell, at the door of my laboratory, at the north end of the college building.

“Good night, Professor,” said John. “We are going to have a fall of hydrogen, oxygen, and a trace of saline.”

“I hope,” I said in answer to John’s playful words, “that it will not commence to rain before I can get home.”

“Oh, no; it won’t rain for an hour yet,” said John.

“Then,” I… Read More