The experiment of Dr. Delaware
The experiment of Dr. Delaware is a scientific and fantastic novel by the German writer and parapsychologist Rudolf Schwarz , which was published under his pseudonym Ralph Black in 1950 by Karl Mayer Verlag in Stuttgart.
action
Dr. Arno Delaware is assistant to the chief physician Professor Glaser at the small hospital in Burgheim. They are supported during the consultation by Sister Edith Rieger, who secretly visits Dr. Delaware is in love. All are heavily overworked due to lack of staff and space. When a representative, a certain Eberhard Koch, businessman , called in at the end of the consultation , he was no longer admitted, but Dr. Delaware whose card in his pocket.
The great passion of Dr. Delaware is brain research, focusing on the role and functioning of the pineal gland , the epiphysis. He considers this to be the seat of a forward-looking memory , i.e. a view of the future that, in his opinion, was available to man in the distant past. In animal experiments he has already carried out several operations in which the pineal gland was connected in place of the brain regions that are otherwise considered the seat of memory. The behavioral changes observed in the experimental animals seem to confirm his theory. In his view, a person operated in the same way would lose all memory of the past, but gain a complete view of the future. His great goal is to have his theories tested by performing an operation on humans.
Shortly thereafter, another young doctor, Dr. Oskar Klaiber, admitted to the Burgheim hospital with a broken leg after a car accident. Dr. Klaiber is a neurologist and as such is interested in brain research, at the same time he is grateful for the successful treatment. He works as his father's assistant, who runs a large nerve sanatorium in a city on the Danube, and would like to Dr. Delaware is happy to help with its studies. It is fortunate that the sanatorium treats a patient whose memory has already been destroyed by a necessary operation. Instead of taking the opportunity, however, Dr. Delaware for ethical reasons to have the intervention done on itself. Before he leaves, there is a discussion with Sister Edith, in which they both confess their love and secretly get engaged.
A few days later, Dr. Delaware discusses the operation and its possible ramifications with his friend, who tries to dissuade him first. However, after an agreement has been reached, he finally agrees to reverse the operation in six months, if necessary against the patient's will. The next day the operation takes place in secret, after which the patient remains in a twilight state for a few days. He is slowly regaining his strength, but can remember the past including the operation or the friendship with Dr. Klaiber no longer remember. On the other hand, after a short time he begins to predict the future with certainty. Unsure about how to proceed, Dr. Klaiber to visit Professor Glaser in Burgheim with his patient and ask for advice. However, on the way there is a car accident that Dr. Delaware predicts: He throws himself out of the moving car before it is pulled into the depths by a landslide. Only slightly injured, he sets out on foot for the nearby town.
A little later, a young man with a battered wardrobe enters a lottery shop on the Burgheim market. He unerringly lets himself be given two lots; when asked for his name, after a brief perplexity, he pulls a worn card with the inscription Eberhard Koch, Kaufmann out of his pocket. Mr. Koch takes a room in the Hotel Krone, both tickets soon prove to be a profit for a total of seventy thousand marks. In the following time, Mr. Koch gave several tests of his skills, so he prevented several traffic accidents and even correctly predicts a train accident, which nevertheless occurs due to the unbelief of those responsible. What is noticeable is his constant use of a notebook, in which he himself records small things. He is introduced by the manager of his hotel to the Thursday evening regulars' table of some leading citizens. These include the bank director Bartenhauer, the machine manufacturer Kettler, the doctor Dr. Waidner, the businessman Altbüßer and the editor Pfaidler from the "Burgheimer Zeitung". He was first impressed when Mr. Koch not only gave the correct ending of a serial novel that appeared in the newspaper, but was also able to identify Mr. Pfaidler himself as its author, who had previously been kept secret. That same evening, Dr. Waidner opened the optimal further development of a therapy devised by him, predicted the development of the tableware market for the merchant Altbüßer and showed the manufacturer Kettler the way to get a lost box back. All predictions come true.
Sister Edith is now completely desperate, not only is every message missing from her fiancé, also her message to Dr. Letters directed to clumsy remained unanswered. Suddenly she is on the street facing a man whom she initially for Dr. Delaware holds. However, this passes without a sign of recognition, which is why she believes in an error. In the hospital she looks after the young circus artist Jan Baré, who has to stay in the city after an accident with his sister Lona and will probably never be able to work in his profession again. Jan is very much in love with Sister Edith and shows this steadily with gifts and compliments. Because of her feelings for Dr. Delaware, however, returned all advances.
At a subsequent Thursday regulars table, Mr. Koch's latest achievements are discussed in his absence . With bank director Bartenhauer he made a lot of money by speculating with industrial stocks. For editor Pfaidler, who did not get anywhere with his new novel, he dictated the entire second half of the book in a few hours, exactly as he would have written it himself! Dr. Waidner has since tried the recommended changes in his therapy and found them to be optimal. For manufacturer Kettler, who has already recovered his lost box thanks to Mr. Koch's recommendation , he solved a design problem on a new aircraft engine. Only the merchant Altbüßer did not benefit, as he relied more on his own experience than on Mr Koch's suggestions , but he too now has a high opinion of him.
Mr. Koch now decides to buy a house and takes Jan and Lona into his service. To everyone's surprise, the allegedly unsalable house is also for sale on the specified date, it is being renovated and refurbished according to plan. At the same time, rumors began to circulate among the nurses in the hospital that Dr. Delaware lives in a hotel with a strange woman. Determined to confront him, Sister Edith goes to the hotel bar, where she first comes across Jan, who is in love. A little later, Mr. Koch appears accompanied by Lona , but he doesn't seem to recognize her. Edith is more and more convinced that she has Arno in front of her because of a bracelet that looks familiar and a few peculiarities. Since the latter completely ignores it, Jan can now do it. During a trip to the Landestheater, Mr. Koch was able to prevent an accident once again when he braked his car in good time before a tanker truck exploded. During the performance, however, a negative side of the future perspective becomes apparent, because Mr. Koch cannot laugh at any of the jokes he is already familiar with, and books and magazines only bore him. At the first evening party he gives in his new villa on the mountain, Professor Glaser also thinks he recognizes his former assistant in him.
The company with Mr. Koch is no longer quite as happy when he, as a guest at a reception, prophesies all kinds of misfortunes and diseases to those present there. He even warns one guest, Professor Jeremias Kauderer, of his imminent suicide. Shortly afterwards, however, editor Pfaidler turns to him with a request for a donation for the construction of a new hospital. Instead of opening the collection as the first donor, however, Mr. Koch assures him the entire required sum of half a million marks within four weeks. Lona is developing more and more to support her employer, for whom she not only runs the household, but also partially replaces the missing memory in everyday life. A few days later he suddenly drives to Baden-Baden with Jan and Lona, where he wins six hundred thousand marks in the casino within a short time. With this the promised donation for the hospital construction is secured, which gives the reputation of Mr. Koch a further boost. The next evening party in the villa will therefore be celebrated particularly brilliantly. The landlord, always swarmed by women, also kisses Elvira Braun, the friend of assessor Kauderer, several times.
The morning after the party, a dead person is found in the study, according to the papers, Mr. Eberhard Koch. Jan Baré, on the other hand, cannot be found, and pistol ammunition of the caliber of the murder weapon can be found in his room. The criminal police, namely Detective Inspector Sichtig and his assistant Ruoff, start the investigation. The study assessor Kauderer is also found dead in his apartment, obviously shot by his own hand. Officially Lona now lives alone in the villa, but for the police there are increasing signs of another resident. Despite constant surveillance and several surprising searches, they find traces of his presence, but they are unable to locate him. Finally the police manage to arrest Jan. However, he denies the murder and does not claim to have been the secret resident of the villa. However, he claims to be the owner of the missing weapon, to have noticed the murder and to have unsuccessfully pursued the murderer.
Far away, in Kakonda in Portuguese Angola , a German doctor meets an old school friend at a party, the engineer Hans Becker from the German survey ship Meteor . The doctor, on the other hand, is none other than Dr. Oskar Klaiber, who also survived the car accident, but Dr. Believes Delaware dead through his fault. He went to Africa, probably as a penance and also because he feared further investigations that would have burdened his father as the head of the sanatorium. However, his friend now tells him from the town talk of Burgheim about the commotion surrounding Mr. Koch , but the murder is still unknown to him. Klaiber immediately establishes a connection with the missing Dr. Delaware and immediately makes his way back to Germany.
Meanwhile, detective assistant Ruoff is not quite satisfied with the results of the investigation, even if Jan is now waiting for his trial as a murder suspect and all the evidence speaks against him. He often observes the villa from his window, irritated by the generous lighting. When he breaks into the house one night, he finds an empty but still warm bed and lies in wait in the room. To their surprise, he ends up there with Dr. Klaiber to each other, who actually was his friend Dr. Wanted to overpower Delaware for reoperation. When the police presented him with the murderer's passport, he did not recognize Delaware in the photo. The officials now also have the first thought that the dead person could not be identical to the homeowner. Together with the story by Dr. Klaiber creates the theory, Mr. Koch , so actually Dr. Delaware, keep hiding in the mansion. At the same time, the hunt for a person with a future perspective does not seem to be very promising, since he would foresee every trap. When one follows the life of the real Eberhard Koch, an insurance agent, one realizes that he probably intended to blackmail the owner of the villa because of the false name. Now coincidence comes to the aid of the investigation, when detective assistant Ruoff has to look for new accommodation, he is given the room of the murdered study assistant Kauderer. Among his belongings, he discovers a suicide note that was probably overlooked during the first examination.
Dr. Meanwhile, Klaiber is going back to his usual work in his father's sanatorium when a patient shows himself to be registered with a card: Eberhard Koch, businessman . It is actually Dr. Delaware, which has no memory of the past. On the other hand, he foresees the operation ahead, including all the details and problems, but his view of the future does not extend any further. The procedure, which is again carried out secretly, only succeeds with the measures foreseen by Mr. Koch . Days later the patient finally opens his eyes again and recognizes his friend Dr. Klaiber again. However, his newfound memory only includes the time before the first operation; all of his time as Mr. Koch is lost to him.
In Burgheim things have taken a new development through the discovery of the letter. In it Kauderer wrote that he wanted to kill himself, but before that he also shot Mr. Koch because of his flirtation with Elvira . At the evening party he found the pistol in Jan's room while looking for writing materials, and this is now also being discovered in his former apartment. Kauderer shot the person at the desk in the study from behind. By chance, however, this was the real Mr. Koch, who had sneaked into the villa during the evening party in order to blackmail the host. While this matter is being discussed with everyone at the police station, Dr. Klaiber and the recovered Dr. Delaware added. Happy is his reunion with Edith, who still works as a nurse at the hospital. Now plans are being made, according to legal information, Dr. Delaware took over the entire legacy of his alter ego , Mr. Koch . For the public, however, he passes this off as his deceased half-brother, which even the members of the Thursday round tables accept. During a conversation in the hotel's fireplace room, Klaiber and Delaware finally discuss the consequences of the experiment and only recognize the seeds of chaos and destruction in it. Determined to keep the experiment a secret forever, they burn Dr. Delaware's experiment documents in the fireplace.
Months later, the villa became a sanatorium under the direction of Dr. Delaware, which he runs with his wife Edith. After the success of the investigation, Ruoff was also promoted to detective inspector. The book ends with a meeting of all involved in a restaurant, which Jan and Lona thanks to the support of Dr. Delaware could open and in which they also appear again.
Places and time
The central location Burgheim is obviously fictional and not identical to Burgheim in Upper Bavaria. Rather, according to the description of a car trip in the novel, it is likely to be located southeast of Stuttgart . The model is likely to have been Esslingen am Neckar , where the author lived in his youth, although the parallels extend to the naming of individual terrain points such as Holgenburg , Landolinsteige or the iceberg . Another thing they have in common is the local hospital, which, analogous to the novel, was replaced by the new building of the Esslingen Clinic between 1926 and 1930 . The nearby town of Berkheim , which was finally incorporated into Esslingen in 1974, is an inspiration for the name . Two essential sections of the action take place in a nerve sanatorium in a city on the Danube that is not mentioned by name. Only a day trip is spent in Baden-Baden and in the casino there, the course of which is described in detail. A short subplot takes place in what was then the colony of Portuguese Angola .
There is no clear time. A book mentioned in the novel was published in 1920. The survey ship Meteor was put into service in 1924 for the Reichsmarine . There are still some hints, for example, payments are made in Reichsmarks and a motorway is used. International conflicts or even the danger of war are not mentioned. The hyperinflation of the 1920s is also not discussed, despite the financial transactions described. All of this generally points to the period from the mid-1920s to World War II , but most likely the early 1930s.
Scientific background
The novel lacks any foundation from a medical and physiological point of view and ignores facts that were largely known both in the time frame of the plot and at the time of publication. In 1936, for example, a conversation dictionary almost aptly described the pineal gland as “a gland with internal secretion below the posterior part of the cerebral bar; Function unknown, presumably promoting growth. ". Since the discovery of the hormone melatonin produced by the pineal gland in 1958, its function can also be regarded as largely clarified. Regardless of this, the neurosurgical surgical procedures described, such as. B. the arbitrary change of the neural interconnection of individual parts of the brain, even with the surgical technique at the beginning of the 21st century not even rudimentary possible.
Narrative style
The book is written from the perspective of an authoritative narrator . It is largely told chronologically and in the present tense.
The novel draws its narrative potential largely from the paradoxical situation of its protagonist, to whom his own and alien future is known down to the smallest detail, but for whom any past or distant past, down to his own name, remains closed.
publication
- 1950: “The experiment of Dr. Delaware ”, Karl Mayer Verlag, Stuttgart
- Hardcover, 288 p., All-linen binding with gold embossing and dust jacket, printing: Scharr, Wörner & Mayer, Stuttgart
The edition by Karl-Mayer-Verlag appeared as the second of a planned series of five novels by Ralph Black , of which only three were published.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chronicle of the Esslingen Clinic: http://www.klinikum-esslingen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Chronik_KE_2012.pdf
- ^ Carl Ludwig Schleich : Sunny past. Memoirs of a Doctor. , Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, Berlin 1920 (on-line)
- ^ The new world lexicon, Otto Beckmann Verlag, Leipzig 1936; Printing: Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn AG, Braunschweig; P. 2222
- ^ The Karl-Mayer-Verlag , Stuttgart, Haußmannstrasse 198-200, was deleted from the commercial register in 2008 (HRA 4465, Stuttgart District Court, Central Register Court).
- ↑ published: “ Hunt for JM ”, “The experiment of Dr. Delaware ”,“ Glowing Eyes ”; unpublished: "Horror in the Spessart", "Revenge of a dead"
