THE PSYCHON
Dr. Paulin, advantageously known in the scientific world for the discovery of the telectroscope, the electroid and the black mirror, of which we will speak some day, arrived in this capital eight years ago, incognito, to avoid the displays that his modesty repudiated. Our doctors and scientists will correctly read the name of the character, which I hide under an assumed patronym, because I both lack authorization to publish it, and because the outcome of this story would cause controversy, which my ignorance would not know how to sustain in the scientific field.
A vulgar rheumatism, rebellious to all treatment, caused me to meet up with Dr. Paulin when he was still a stranger here. A certain friend, a member of a society for psychic studies to whom the doctor had been recommended from Australia, put us in contact. My rheumatism disappeared through an original heliotherapy treatment from the doctor; my the gratitude towards him, as well as the interest that his experiments generated in me, turned our friendly approach into what developed as a sincere affection.
A preliminary look at the aforementioned experiments will serve as an explanatory introduction, necessary for a better understanding of what follows.
Dr. Paulin was, above all, a distinguished physicist. A disciple of Wroblewski at the University of Krakow, he had devoted himself to the study of the liquefaction of gases, a problem which, imaginatively posed by Lavoisier, was later to be solved by Faraday, Cagniard-Latour and Thilorier. But this was not the only type of investigation in which the doctor excelled. His profession was the specialization in the poorly understood field of suggestive therapy, being a worthy emulator of the Charcots, the Dumontpalliers, the Landolts, the Luys; and apart from the heliotherapeutic system cited above, he earned consultations by Guimbail and Branly repeatedly, on subjects as delicate as the conductivity of neurons, whose law, recently determined by both scholars, was an exciting case in science. [Translators note: Brief biographical notes of the many scientists and engineers mentioned in this story will be provided in an appendix at the end.]
It is necessary to confess, however, that Dr. Paulin suffered from a serious defect. He was a spiritualist, having, to greater sorrows, the frankness to confess it. In this regard, I will always remember the end of a letter that he addressed in July of '98 to Professor Elmer Gates of Washington, answering the other in which he particularly communicated his experiments on the suggestion of dogs and about "dirigation", that is, the modifying action exerted by the will on certain parts of the organism.
"Well, yes," said the doctor; "you are correct in your conclusions, which I've just seen published together with the account of your experiments in the New York Medical Times. The spirit is that governs the organic tissues and the physiological functions, because it is the spirit that creates these tissues and ensures their vital faculty. You know if I am inclined to share your opinion," etc.
Thus, Dr. Paulin was looked upon distrustfully by academia. Like Crookes, like de Rochas, they accepted him with an acute suspicion. The only thing missing was the materialist stamp for him to be issued his diploma as a sage.
Why was Dr. Paulin in Buenos Aires? It seems that this was due to a scientific expedition with which he sought to finish a series of botanical studies which applied to medicine. Some plants, which he obtained through me, among others, the Jarilla whose emmenagogue properties I had described to him, gave rise to a plea to which his kindness willingly deferred. I asked him for permission to attend his experiments, and have been a witness to them ever since.
The doctor had, in alleyway X, a laboratory that was reached by a consulting room. All who knew him will perfectly remember this and other details, because our man was as wise as he was frank and did not make any mysteries about his existence. It was in that laboratory that one night, speaking with the doctor about the ritual prescriptions that affect the entire world's clergy, I obtained a singular explanation of a certain fact, which had kept me very busy.
We were discussing the tonsure, the explanation of which I could not find, when the doctor suddenly threw out this argument at me that I did not intend to dispute:
- "You know that the fluidic exhalations of man, are perceived by sensitive people in the form of a radiance, reds, those that emerge from the right side, blues, those that are emitted from the left. This law is constant, except in the left-handed whose polarity is reversed, naturally, the same is for the sensitive as is for the magnet. Shortly before becoming acquainted with this, while experimenting with this fact with Antonia, the sleepwalker who helped us to test the electroid, I found myself in the presence of a factor which extraordinarily caught my attention. This sensitive woman saw a yellow flame detach from my occiput, which undulated, lengthening up to a foot in height. The persistence with which the girl affirmed this fact filled me with astonishment. She could not even presume an involuntary suggestion, because in this kind of research the method of Dr. Luys was employed, hypnotizing only the retinas to free the rational faculty."
The doctor rose from his seat and began to pace around the room.
- "With an interest that can be explained by one in the face of such an unexpected phenomenon, the next day I tried an experiment with five paid boys. Antonia did not see the mysterious flame in any of them, although she did see ordinary halos; but what was not to my surprise, hearing her exclaim in the presence of the porter Don Francisco, you know, called by me as a last resort: 'The man does have it, clearly but less brilliant.' I pondered for two days about this phenomenon: until suddenly, due to that acquired habit in such studies of not wasting any detail, an idea occurred to me, that, slightly ridiculous at first, soon became acceptable."
He sucked vigorously on his cigar and continued:
- "I have the habit of working while wearing my homemade fez; baldness obliges me to this fault ... When Antonia saw the yellow glow over my head, it was without the hat, having taken it off because of the excessive heat. Wouldn't it have been the boys' hair that prevented an emission of the flame? According to Fugairon, the horned layer that constitutes the epidermis is a poor conductor of animal magnetism; so that hair, a horned substance also, has the same property. Furthermore, Don Francisco is bald like me, and the coincidence of this phenomenon in both of us, permitted this reasonable presumption. My subsequent research had fully confirmed it; and now you will understand the reason for the tonsure. The primitive priests, would observe over the heads of some electric generator apostles, we'll say, accepting a term of recent creation, the radiance that Antonia perceived over ours. This fact, of Moses there, is not rare in the legendary chronologies. Later, the obstacle presented by the hair would be noticed, and the habit of shaving that point of the skull where the glow arose would be established, so that this phenomenon, whose prestige is inferred, could manifest itself with all intensity. Do you find my explanation convincing?"
- "It seems to me, at least; as ingenious as Volney's, for whom the tonsure is the symbol of the sun..."
I was in the habit of contradicting him thus, indirectly, so that he would arrive at the end of his explanation.
- "You could likewise also cite, the one in Brillat-Savarin, according to which the tonsure has been prescribed to monks so that they may keep their heads fresh," replied the doctor, between being stung and smiling.
- "However, there is something else," he continued, encouraging himself. "Since a long time ago, I have been projecting a poor experiment on those fluidic emanations, on the lohé, to use the expression of Reichenbach, its discoverer: I wanted to obtain the spectrum of those flashes. I tried, making myself describe through those sensitive, in detail, all the phenomena ..." [Translators note: "Lohe", German for 'great flame', the accented "é" in Lugones' text is not present in the German word]
- "... And what was the result?" I asked excitedly.
- "The result was one green line in the indigo for the red coloration, and two black ones in the green for the blue coloration. As for the yellow one I discovered, the result is extraordinary. Antonia says she sees a violet line in the red."
- "Absurd!"
- "Believe what you like; but I have already presented her with the spectrum, and she has indicated to me the position of the line that she sees or thinks she sees in it. Based on these data, and with all possible assumptions of error, I think that line is number 5567. If so, it would be a curious identity; because the line 5567, would exactly coincide with the beautiful line number 4 of the northern lights ..."
- "But doctor, this is all pure fantasy!" I exclaimed, alarmed by these dizzying ideas.
- "No, my friend. This would simply mean that the pole is something like the crown of the planet (!)."
Shortly after the conversation I have referred to, the last sentence of which concluded with the most affable smile of Dr. Paulin, he read to me one excited afternoon, the first news about the liquefaction of hydrogen carried out by Dewar in May of that year, and about the discovery made a few days later by Travers and Ramsay, of three new elements in the air: krypton, neon and metargon, precisely applying the gas liquefaction procedure; and with regard to these facts, I still remember his phrase of work and combat.[Translators note: Metargon was a presumed noble gas that was proposed in 1898 by William Ramsay as existing in small amounts in the atmosphere.]
- "No; It is not possible that I can die without attaching my name to one of these discoveries, which are the glory of life. Tomorrow I will continue my experiments."
From the following day forward, he went to work with a feverish ardor; and although I must have been cured of astonishment at his successes, I could not help but shudder when one afternoon he said to me in a calm voice:
- "Do you believe that I have seen that line in the neon spectrum with my own eyes?"
- "Really?" I said with an obvious rudeness.
- "Really. I think that such a line has put me on the right track. But in order to satisfy your curiosity, it is necessary for me to tell you about certain inquiries that I have kept confidential."
I thanked him warmly and eagerly prepared to listen. The doctor began:
- "Although the news about the liquefaction of hydrogen was very brief, my knowledge of the matter allowed me to complete it, it was enough for me to modify the Olzewski apparatus, which I used in the preparation of liquid air. Then applying the principle of fractional distillation, like Travers and Ramsay, I obtained the spectra of krypton, neon, and metargon. Then I decided to extract these bodies, in case a new spectrum appeared in the residue, and indeed, when there was no more left, I saw the aforementioned line appear."
- "And how is the extraction performed?"
- "By making the liquid air evaporate slowly, and collecting the gas released by that evaporation in a container. If I had a Linde machine here that would supply me with sixty kilograms of liquid air per hour, it could operate on a large scale; but I must be content with a production of eight hundred cubic centimeters.
"Obtaining the gas in the container, I treat it by heated copper to remove oxygen, and by a mixture of lime with magnesium to absorb the nitrogen. Isolated, therefore, is the argon; and that's when the double green line of krypton appears, discovered by Ramsay. By liquefying the isolated argon, and subjecting it to slow evaporation, the products of the distillation in the Geissler tube supply a red-orange light, with new lines, which by the interposition of a Leyden jar increase, characterizing the spectrum of neon. If the distillation continues, a solid product of the very slow evaporation is obtained, whose spectrum is characterized by two lines, one green and the other yellow, predicting the existence of the metargon or cesium, as proposed by Berthelot. So far, that is all that is known."
- "And the violent line?"
- "We will see it in a few moments.
"In the meantime, you should know that in order to achieve the same results, I proceeded differently. I removed oxygen and nitrogen by means of the indicated substances; then argon and metargon with soda hyposulfite; krypton followed by zinc phosphide, and finally neon with potassium ferrocyanide. This method is empirical. There is still a residue comparable to frost in the container, which evaporates very slowly. The resulting gas is my discovery."
I bowed to those solemn words.
- "I have studied its physical constants, even determining some. Its density is 25.03, oxygen level being 16 as is known. I have also determined the frequency of the soundwave in that fluid, and the number found permitted me to evaluate the ratio of its specific heats, which has indicated that it is monatomic. But the surprising result is in its spectrum, characterized by a violet line in red, line 5567 coinciding with the number 4 of the Northern Lights, the same one that presented the yellow glow perceived by Antonia above my head."
Faced with such a statement, I blurted out this innocent question:
- "And what could this matter be, doctor?"
To my great surprise, the sage smirked.
- "This matter... hmm! This matter could well be volatilized thought."
I jumped in the chair, but the doctor imposed silence upon me with a gesture.
- "Why not?" he continued speaking. "The brain radiates thought in the form of mechanical force, with a high probability that it also does so in a fluidic form. The yellow flame would, in this case, be nothing more than the product of cerebral combustion, and the analogy of its spectrum with that of the substance I discovered makes me believe that they would be somewhat identical. Imagine, from the daily consumption of thought, the enormous radiation that must be produced. What would be, in fact, the useless or strange thoughts, the creations of the imaginative, the ecstasies of the mystics, the daydreams of the hysterics, the projects of the illogical, all those forces whose action does not manifest itself due to lack of immediate application? The astrologers said that thoughts live in the astral light, as latent forces capable of acting under certain conditions. Wouldn't this be an insight into the phenomenon that science is on its way to discovering? For the rest, thought as a psychic entity is immaterial: but its manifestations must be fluidic, and this is perhaps what I have come to obtain as a laboratory product."
Straddling his theory, the doctor boldly threw himself into those regions, developing a fearful logic which I tried in vain to resist.
- "I have given my matter the name of Psychon," he concluded; "you already understand why. Tomorrow we will conduct an experiment: we will liquefy thought. (The doctor added me, as it can be seen, to his experiments, and I was careful to not refuse). Then we will calculate if it is possible to make its occlusion in a metal, and we will then mint psychic medals. Medals of genius, poetry, audacity, sadness... Then we will determine its place in the atmosphere, calling the corresponding layer "psychosphere", if this expression can be permitted ... Until tomorrow at two o'clock, then, and we will see what results from all of this."
At two o'clock we were at work.
The doctor showed me his new apparatus. It consisted of three concentric spirals formed by copper tubes which communicated with each other. The gas flowed into the outer spiral, under a pressure of six hundred and forty-three atmospheres, and a temperature of -136°C obtained by the evaporation of ethylene, according to the Pictet circulatory system; traveling through the other two serpentines, it was to spread out at the lower end of the inner spiral, and successively passing through the annular compartments in which they were found, it emptied out by its starting point at the upper end of the other. The whole apparatus measures 70 cm in height, and 175 cm in diameter. The distension of the compressed fluid, caused the decrease in temperature required for its liquefaction, by the so-called cascade method, also belonging to Professor Pictet.
The experiment began, after proceedings of the matter which only interest the professionals, and have therefore been omitted.
While the doctor was operating, I prepared to write down the results he dictated to me on a form. I will now give these annotations just as I wrote them, for the sake of indispensable precision. The doctor said:
"When the distension reaches four hundred atmospheres, a temperature of -237.3º is obtained and the fluid flows into a double-walled vessel separated by an empty space of air; the inner wall is silver, to prevent heat contribution by convection or radiation".
"The product is a transparent and colorless liquid that has a certain analogy with alcohol."
"The critical constants of psychon are, then, four hundred atmospheres and -237.3°."
"A platinum wire whose resistance is 5038 ohms in the melting ice, does not present more than 0.119 in the boiling psychon. The law of variation of the resistance with temperature of this wire allows me to fix the one of the boiling of the psychon at -265°".
- "Do you know what this means?" he asked me, abruptly stopping the dictation.
I did not respond to him; the situation was too dire.
- "This means," he continued as if talking to himself, "that we would not be more than eight degrees from absolute zero."
I had gotten up, and with the anxiety that is to be expected, I was examining the liquid whose meniscus stood out clearly in the glass. The thought!... Absolute zero!... I wandered with a certain lucid intoxication in the world of impossible temperatures.
If it could be translated, I thought, what would this little bit of clear water in my eyes say? What pure child's prayer, what criminal intent, what projects will be locked in this container? Or maybe some ill-fated creation of art, some discovery lost in the darkness of illogism?...
The doctor, meanwhile, seized by an emotion that he tried in vain to suppress, measured the room with long steps. He finally approached the apparatus saying:
- "The experiment has been concluded. Now let's break the container so that this liquid can escape by evaporating. Who knows if by retaining it we do not cause the distress of some soul..."
A hole was made in the upper wall of the vessel, and the liquid began to descend, while the dull noise of a leak was distinctly perceived.
Suddenly I noticed on the doctor's face a sardonic expression entirely out of the circumstances; and almost at the same time, the idea that it would be a stupid inconvenience to jump over the table, came to my mind; but I had hardly thought about it, when the furniture passed under my legs, not without giving me time to see that the doctor threw his cat into the air like a ball, a legitimate Siamese, a true apple of his eyes. The notebook came to an halt with a great burst of laughter in the doctor's nose, causing a formidable pirouette on his part in my honor. The truth is that for an hour, we were committing the greatest extravagances, to the great astonishment of the neighbors who were attracted by the tumult and who did not know how to explain the matter. I barely remember that in the midst of laughter, ideas of crime assailed me among a dizzying enunciation of mathematical problems. The cat mingled himself with our capering with an ardor strange to his tropical apathy, and that did not cease until the spectators threw open the doors; for the pure thought that we had absorbed was surely the elixir of madness.
Dr. Paulin disappeared the next day, without leaving any time to find out his whereabouts.
Yesterday, for the first time, exact news of him reached me. He seems to have repeated his experiment, as he is now in Germany in an asylum.
APPENDIX: GLOSSARY OF MENTIONED NAMES
Berthelot, Pierre Eugène Marcellin (1827 - 1907), French chemist who synthesized organic compounds from inorganic substances
Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme (1755 - 1826), author of "The Physiology of Taste".
Branly, Édouard (1844 - 1940), French physicist, inventor of the coherer, and other early radio advancements
Cagniard-Latour, Charles (1777 - 1859), French physicist who performed pioneering work on acoustics
Charcot, Jean-Martin (1825 - 1893), French neurologist, known as "the founder of modern neurology"
Crookes, William (1832 - 1919), British chemist and vacuum tube pioneer
Dewar, James (1842 - 1923), Scottish chemist who worked with liquid oxygen and hydrogen
Dumontpallier, Amédée (1826 - 1899), French gynecologist who conducted research on hypnotism
Faraday, Michael (1791 - 1867), English scientist who discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction
Fugairon, Louis-Sophrone (1846 - 1922), French physician and Bishop of the French Gnostic Church, author of "Essay on the electrical phenomena of living beings including the scientific explanation of so-called spiritualist phenomena"
Gates, Elmer (1859 - 1923), American inventor, conducted research into "psychotaxis", which were frequently misinterpreted by the public
Geissler, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm (1814 - 1879), German physicist, inventory of an early gas discharge tube
Guimbail, Henri (1859-19??), French physicist, author of "Therapy with physical agents, hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, thermotherapy: frigotherapy, physiotherapy, climatotherapy, thalassotherapy"
Landolt, Hans Heinrich (1831 - 1910), Swiss chemist, discoverer of iodine clock reaction
Lavoisier, Antoine (1743 - 1794), French chemist considered "father of modern chemistry"
Linde, Carl Paul Gottfried (1842 - 1934), German chemist, invented the first industrial-scale air separation and gas liquefaction processes
Luys, Jules Bernard (1828 - 1897), French neurologist, author of the text "The brain and its functions"
Olszewski, Karol (1846 - 1915), Polish chemist, with Wróblewski, the first to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state.
Pictet, Amé (1857 - 1937), Swiss chemist, co-discoverer of Pictet-Spengler reaction
Ramsay, William (1852 - 1916), Scottish chemist, recipient of the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air"
von Reichenbach, Karl Ludwig (1788 - 1869), German chemist, dedicating his final years to the study of energy and mesmerism
de Rochas, Albert (1837 - 1914), French parapsychologist, attempted to research scientific basis for occult phenomenon
Thilorier, Adrien-Jean-Pierre (1790 - 1844), French chemist who was the first to produce dry ice
Travers, Morris (1872 - 1961), English chemist, co-discoverer of xenon, neon and krypton with William Ramsay
Volney, comte de, Constantin François de Chassebœuf (1757 - 1820), French philosopher, from his 1789 work "The Ruins": "Ye priests! who murmur at this relation, you wear his emblems all over your bodies; your tonsure is the disk of the sun; your stole is his zodiac; your rosaries are symbols of the stars and planets. Ye pontiffs and prelates!"
Wróblewski, Zygmunt Florenty (1845 - 1888), Polish chemist who studied the effects of various gasses. With Olszewski, the first to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state. Killed in a laboratory accident.
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