Dr. Aftus’s current line of research is centered on the use of pentylenetetrazol in the treatment of schizophrenia. This drug is known for its benefits as a stimulant that addresses certain respiratory and circulatory maladies. But Dr. Aftus has discovered new applications for it. After careful statistical research, Dr. Aftus found that epilepsy is

he listened and taught her to listen, they would find that her never-ending rant was full of ciphered instructions. Symptom, disease, and cure were three in one. Each time he came across one of those revealing moments in Mrs. Rask’s speech, where her illness threw light on itself, an abrupt interruption underscored the epiphany and forced her to

Rather than containing Mrs. Rask’s free-flowing rants and redirecting them into the realm of normalcy (or gagging her with sedatives), he said, he wished to encourage her monologues. She could not stop talking because she could not stop trying to explain her illness—and her desire to understand her illness was, to a large extent, the illness

This, she told herself, was the beginning of madness. The mind becoming the flesh for its own teeth.

became clear to Mrs. Brevoort that it would be impossible to traverse the war-ridden continent and then the Atlantic Ocean with her husband in that condition. Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Betterley, who pleaded on her behalf to Ambassador Stovall, she was able to secure a spot for Mr. Brevoort at Dr. Bally’s Medico-Mechanic Institute at Bad Pfäfers,

While Mrs. Brevoort was doing all she could to secure safe passage out of Europe for her family, Mr. Brevoort seemed to have taken permanent residence in a remote land ruled by occult conspiracies, mystic hierarchies, and labyrinthine laws. Everyday tasks became unmanageable, and each morning found him more and more disoriented. He spoke, day and

More than the threatening tone, what she found terrifying was the incoherence of his tirade, because she thought there was no greater violence than the one done to meaning.

She knew, then, that this solemn form of joy, so pure because it had no content, so reliable because it relied on nobody else, was the state for which she would henceforth strive.

Helen soon came to realize that in addition to being her father’s pupil she had become his object of study. He seemed interested in the concrete results of his teachings and tracked how they shaped his daughter’s mind and morals. When he examined her, Helen often thought someone else was peering out from behind his eyes. It was only in hindsight