Free A Deadly Affection by Cuyler Overholt Page B

them.”
    His other eyebrow rose to join the first. “How very…novel.”
    â€œIt’s fairly well established that emotional trauma can affect the nervous system on a physiological level,” I countered. “In the same way that unhappy thoughts can decrease gastric secretions, leading to digestive disease, unhappy emotions elicited by trauma can negatively affect the nervous system, leading to physical symptoms. It follows that if you change the emotions that are linked to the trauma, you should be able to make those symptoms go away.” I realized that, as so often happened in his presence, I was talking too fast and too much in an attempt to forestall his ridicule.
    â€œAnd you expect to accomplish all that with several patients at once?” he drawled.
    â€œIt’s been done before in other contexts. With depressive consumptives, for instance. Cassell’s class model is tailor-made for people who’ve shared similar traumas.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure your precedents are sound. May I congratulate you, then, on a successful venture so far?”
    I blinked at him, knowing he couldn’t possibly have found out about Eliza but feeling somehow exposed nonetheless. “Well, it…it’s really too early to say,” I finally answered. “Yesterday was my first class.”
    â€œYes, yes, your first class!” exclaimed Professor Bogard, glancing at the clock. “Tell us, Genevieve, how did it go?”
    The ticking of the clock filled the silence as they waited for my response. I couldn’t possibly tell the professor about Eliza’s arrest in front of Mayhew. But I needed to hear his advice, and I didn’t know when I’d have another opportunity. I decided I would have to try to present the core problem without giving too much away.
    I began with a brief description of the class members and their symptoms, before casually mentioning that one patient in particular had caught my interest. Trying my best to ignore Mayhew, who was now sprawled sideways in his chair with his chin propped skeptically on his palm, I sketched Eliza’s history and her private revelations to me after class. I didn’t tell them the name of the doctor, or that I had encouraged Eliza to confront him. Nor did I mention that the doctor had been murdered just a few hours before.
    â€œWhat did you make of her statements about the baby girl?” Professor Bogard asked when I was done.
    â€œI suppose what concerned me most was her overwhelming guilt. I felt it was important to suggest that she wasn’t the only one responsible for what happened.”
    â€œFor what she says happened, you mean,” Mayhew interjected. “You didn’t accept it at face value, I hope.”
    So he was no longer content to belittle just me, I thought; now he sought to discredit my patients as well. “Are you suggesting that there is no daughter?” I asked him. “That she’s making it all up?”
    â€œI’m suggesting that it may be a product of her unconscious, Dr. Summerford,” he corrected. “You do remember the unconscious?”
    I stared at him in surprise. When the unconscious motive theories had started trickling in from abroad during my first years at medical school, Mayhew had been their loudest detractor, pronouncing them “factually unsupported” and “prone to luridly sexual interpretation.” Now that the great Stanley Hall had taken up the cause, however, calling for a grand symposium to formally introduce the theories to America, he seemed to have changed his tune. I turned to Professor Bogard, waiting for him to pooh-pooh Mayhew’s farfetched assertion. But to my surprise, he was nodding in agreement.
    â€œWe’d certainly have to question the truth of her story,” the professor said. “You say the Reverend never mentioned a daughter?”
    â€œWell, no,” I said, scrambling to follow this