RIDGEON. Well, it's always the patient who has to take the chance
when an experiment is necessary. And we can find out nothing
without experiment.

SIR PATRICK. What did you find out from Jane's case?

RIDGEON. I found out that the inoculation that ought to cure
sometimes kills.

SIR PATRICK. I could have told you that. Ive tried these modern
inoculations a bit myself. Ive killed people with them; and Ive
cured people with them; but I gave them up because I never could
tell which I was going to do.

RIDGEON [taking a pamphlet from a drawer in the writing-table and
handing it to him] Read that the next time you have an hour to
spare; and youll find out why.

SIR PATRICK [grumbling and fumbling for his spectacles] Oh,
bother your pamphlets. Whats the practice of it? [Looking at the
pamphlet] Opsonin? What the devil is opsonin?

RIDGEON. Opsonin is what you butter the disease germs with to
make your white blood corpuscles eat them. [He sits down again on
the couch].

SIR PATRICK. Thats not new. Ive heard this notion that the white
corpuscles--what is it that whats his name?--Metchnikoff--calls
them?