The Lazarus Curse Read Online Free PDF Page A

technically remain so.
    Never one to wallow in his own misfortune, however, Thomas Silkstone had thrown himself into his work, teaching anatomy to eager students and operating on patients for whom surgery was the very last resort. All the while, however, he had been anticipating a call, a summons that would give his career a new impetus and his intellect a new challenge. That call had come the day before yesterday from the lips of one of the most revered living scientists and adventurers, Sir Joseph Banks.
    The great man, who had accompanied Captain Cook on his famous voyages to the Pacific Ocean, was now president of the Royal Society. The aim of the august body was to push the limits of scientific knowledge and last year they had funded an expedition to the West Indies. Its aim was to collect flora and fauna and to catalogue it. There would undoubtedly be some specimens that would have medicinal uses. Tragically, the expedition’s leader, Dr. Frederick Welton, had been struck down by yellow fever and died two days before his ship, the Elizabeth, set sail for England. The expedition’s second in command, Dr. John Perrick, had succumbed the following day. Of the original scientific team of three, only the botanical artist, Matthew Bartlett, remained alive.
    In the absence of any senior scientists to continue the team’s important work, the Royal Society needed to enlist the expertise of someone knowledgeable and reliable, someone who would work diligently and without conceit, someone committed and well-respected. There were many who put their names forward: after all, the work carried with it a generous fee, not to mention the prestige and a possible membership, subject to the usual terms, of the Royal Society itself. It was Sir Joseph himself who put forward Thomas’s name. And that is how the young American anatomist, surgeon, physician, and pioneer in the field of science came to be alighting from a rather grand carriage, helped down by a liveried footman and escorted by a clerk, into the inner sanctum of the Royal Society.
    The room, vast and wood paneled, smelled of linseed oil. On its walls hung portraits of the great and the good, members of the Royal Society both alive and dead. Newton, Herschel, Pepys, and Sloane glared down at the young American from their gilded frames. Thomas noted there was no likeness of Benjamin Franklin, who had demonstrated the electrical nature of lightning using a kite and key some thirty years before. Perhaps, he considered, the Society felt it impolitic, at this delicate time before the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, to include a portrait of a former enemy.
    Sir Joseph sat alone behind a large desk. He rose when Thomas was ushered in. Tall, trim, and wigless, he exuded an air of calm authority. He held out a hand. Thomas shook it. The two men looked each other in the eye. The handshake was firm.
    “I have heard good reports about you, Silkstone,” said Sir Joseph, motioning Thomas to a chair. “Sir Tobias Charlesworth and Sir Peregrine Crisp both spoke highly of you. God rest their souls.”
    There was a brief pause as both men acknowledged that Thomas’s supporters had been taken in untimely ways.
    “I am most grateful for their confidence in me, sir,” replied the young doctor. He was feeling slightly less anxious, but nonetheless he remained on edge. As Thomas sat down, Sir Joseph walked over to a window where a large globe stood on a stand. He spun it playfully.
    “The world is a vast place, Silkstone,” he mused. “And it is growing with every expedition on which we embark.”
    “Thanks to men such as yourself, sir,” replied Thomas quickly, only to cringe immediately at his own sycophancy.
    Sir Joseph brushed his remark aside with a smile. “I have been fortunate,” he said, gazing out of the window and onto the River Thames. “There are many who have sacrificed their lives in the pursuit of knowledge. Good men. Men of great intellect and determination,” he