The doctor frankly admitted that he was not in a way of making a great deal of money or reputation by his discovery.

It promised too much, and people consequently thought it must be quackery, and as sufficient proof of this he mentioned that he had now been five years engaged in practising the Thought-extirpation process without having attained any considerable celebrity or attracting a great number of patients.

But he had a sufficient support in other branches of medical practice, he added, and, so long as he had patients enough for experimentation with the aim of improving the process, he was quite satisfied.
He listened with great interest to Henry's account of Madeline's case.
The success of galvanism in obliterating the obnoxious train of recollections in her case would depend, he said, on whether it had been indulged to an extent to bring about a morbid state of the brain fibres concerned.

What might be conventionally or morally morbid or objectionable, was not, however, necessarily disease in the material sense, and nothing but experiment could absolutely determine whether the two conditions coincided in any case.

At any rate, he positively assured Henry that no harm could ensue to the patient, whether the operation succeeded or not.
"It is a pity, young man," he said, with a flash of enthusiasm, "that you don't come to me twenty years later.