The Value of Studying History

For a fortnight recently I lay paralysed from the neck downwards in a hospital bed not knowing whether I would live or die. When the doctor told us (my wife and myself) that this was the situation we were not in the least surprised as it was what we had expected. But what did throw us a little was the tone of his voice. His intonation carried the message that if he had been a gambling man he would put his money on me not making it. So we gritted our teeth and set about deciding bow we would fight the battle. The plan was that my wife would stay with me all the time and would look after my body from the outside, checking what was put into it and taken out of it, and why, while I would concentrate on fighting from the inside. I must have been a little delirious, but I considered it reasonable to work on the basis that I was being attacked by many-tentacled brown monsters which were trying to squeeze the life out of me, and that my job was to stop them doing it. For a week I concentrated all my energies on this.