“Rarely does the pupils' heavy curtain lift.
Silently allowing an image to enter,
penetrating this void carried by wearied limbs
quickly it is lost within his heart.”
Maybe you should read the rest of that poem, Ms. Loxton, and perhaps only then you’ll understand how your nephew Leonard Lowe felt while he was trapped in his own body for thirty years. Only at that moment, will you understand why I did what I did. Nevertheless, you can be in no doubt that I had Mrs. Lowe’s consent to give the drug to her son.
Perhaps you are right when you say that it was too precipitate. I acknowledge that I didn’t do a great deal of testing or research and I didn’t follow a line of investigation on all the possible consequences after the patients had had the drug. But what could have happened to them which was worse than being perpetually caged and deprived? The biggest risk is to not risk at all If I hadn’t given them the drug they would have never know what life was like again. Me and the rest of the doctors gave them a chance to live new experiences, we gave them a chance to ‘come back’.
Leonard wasn’t expected to cope with his sexual urges differently than an ordinary adolescent who is going through puberty. Every teenager has to get used to their own sexual urges. I’m well aware that Leonard didn’t have the opportunity to go through puberty or teenage years as they should be, but while he was ‘awake’ he didn’t have any severe problems through having to deal with his ‘sexual urges’. As you well know he met a young lady named Paula and had quite a lot of affection towards her and vice versa. I don’t agree with you when you say that Paula suffered a lot when she saw Leonard regressing, since her own father is being treated in this hospital for a more grave type of encephalitis.
Your nephew showed rage and rebellious signs which are completely comprehensible. After suffering from encephalitis for 30 years he had to express his anger in some way. This is nothing extraordinary in a human being, or perhaps you thought that if your nephew hadn’t had encephalitis he would have never shown signs of rebellion and anger throughout his whole life? This anger and rebellious attitude was due to the freedom that had been denied to him. Leonard wanted to go out of the hospital by himself, and I hope you are conscious of how dangerous this would have been. A man who has missed 30 years of his life is not aware of all the changes society has experienced, and is not safe by himself in the U.S.A.
You accuse me of having played God with Leonard Lowe and the other post-encephalitic patients of this hospital. I repeat that Mrs. Lowe and familiars of the patients authorised me to give them the dope. I didn’t play God with anyone, Ms. Loxton. All I did was to make them come out of their miserable state. My assistants and I gave them the opportunity to be in this world again, the chance to move about, converse and think properly over again, even though this wasn’t eternally. You have probably heard of the following: “It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”. Well, if you change the words ‘loved’ for ‘had’ you end up with “It’s better to have had and lost than never to have had at all”. They were given human skills, emotions and passions back, and despite the fact that they were taken away from them, they had had them once again and that will stay in their memories forever.
Yours sincerely,