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Vienna, Monday, at the Journal
April 21, 1884
You will certainly be surprised, my darling, to hear that I am sitting here again after having written to you as recently as Saturday from the same spot; this is the result of my having been absent through being laid up so long, and rather awkward it is, too. I feel there is something altogether missing at the moment; I cannot work in the laboratory because of the prospering practice; work on the experiments, from which I expect a little recognition, is lying idle.-It gave me quite a turn today when the proofs of my paper on the Method arrived from Leipzig; since then, with the exception of two small discoveries, I have done no work whatever. But otherwise I am very well, feel fitter than ever, I also love you even more than during our best days here, and if I write to you so rarely it is because of the beastly combination of being on duty and work at the Journal during these past few days; even yesterday, Sunday, I was in harness. Paneth was here today and told me that I may perhaps be summoned to a nervous case in Schwechat.1 Alois Schönberg2 has mentioned the prospect of a job in Pest. All these are simply beginnings, which do not necessarily have to materialize, but they are nonetheless beginnings. Frau S. is much better now; I would be very pleased if nothing happened and I could stop treating her in a week's time. I would then advise her to go to the country at once.
I am also toying now with a project and a hope which I will tell you about; perhaps nothing will come of this, either. It is a therapeutic experiment. I have been reading about cocaine, the effective ingredient of coca leaves, which some Indian tribes chew in order to make themselves resistant to privation and fatigue. A German has tested this stuff on soldiers and reported that it has really rendered them strong and capable of endurance. I have now ordered some of it and for obvious reasons am going to try it out on cases of heart disease, then on nervou