Going to Hell with Dr. Morrel

I am reading an old book lent to me by my officemate, More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story by Paul Aurandt. It tells the story behind popular stories and news from the past. I'm fascinated because number one, I love stories of people. Second, it's like a backstage pass where get to know about some untold secrets of popular people and happenings.

The story I'll be sharing is one that apalled me. I kinda doubted if it's true but with the turn of events, it seemed like it was. I researched it further and history has documented the role of this doctor to a man who altered history more than I could imagine. Keep reading.

Dr. Theodore Morell. What he lacks in competence is compensated for by charisma. He is introduced to prospective patients socially, makes an impression, and the impressionable are hooked -- eventually, in every sense of the term.

A specific case for your consideration...

Dr. Morrel is invited to a private home. His host complains of intestinal trouble.

The doctor appears concerned; how long has the discomfort been going on?

Intermittently for quite some time.

Nodding pensively and without hesitation, Dr. Morrel offers his diagnosis and suggested treatment.

Later the patient remarks: "Nobody has ever before told me so clearly and precisely what is wrong with me. His method of cure is so logical and I have the greatest confidence in him. I shall follow his prescriptions to the letter."

These "logical" prescriptions include exotic bacteria and hormones and phosphorous and dextrose and beladonna... and strychnine. Not enough strychnine to kill the patient of course. The dangerous if not entirely evil Dr. Morrel requires the depandence of this patient, for money, for prestige... and for his sinister experimentation.

After a few weeks in patient notices an improvement in his condition. his own words are: "What luck that I met Morrel! He has saved my life. Wonderful, the way he has helped me!"

In time, the patient's sense of well-being will be heightened beyond his dreams. For Dr. Morrel will add to his descriptive arsenal -- amphetamines. Speed.

By Morrel's own admission his patient "was really never sick." Not before he was introduced to Dr. Morrel, anyway.

Now it's a different story.

Now the slightest complaint is answered by pills and injections, a variety of medications spanning the questionable to the occult. And the result is shuffling, stumbling, trembling, emaciated, glass-eyed, gray-complexioned shell of a man. A human wreck.

Submerged in a sea of uppers and downers, he sleeps no more than three hours a night. Uneasy sleep.

In months, he appears to age years.

And still he professes his confidence in Dr. Morrel.

Truth is he needs the speed...

In this specific case the "treatments" lasted nine years, astounding considering the quantities of atropine and strychnine and amphetamines consumed by the patient in that period of time.

Twenty-eight types of drugs in all, their direct and side effects compounded. The speed took the highest toll.

We shall never forget nor forgive Dr. Morrel's patient, the man he was in the beginning, the monster he has became. Yet the monumental irony of his association with a megalomaniac physician was that in the end, the master mesmirist was mesmirized, the predator became prey...

The name Dr. Theodor Morrel has dropped into obscurity.

Remembered instead is his patient, a speed freak who spent the kast decade of his life shattered and shaking and with his brains in a basket, the man on earth went to hell -- because of Dr. Morrel.

Hitler was "high."

And you know THE REST OF THE STORY.