Episode 3

Could the body poison itself from within, and could such a poison reach an artery far from the gut? Late nineteenth-century French medicine developed this theory, and Alexander Ignatowski tested it on rabbits. His initial attempts killed the animals too quickly to yield any observable results. To overcome this, he modified his approach: he gradually habituated a second group of rabbits to an animal-based diet, keeping one, Number Six, under study for eight months. Number Six's aorta showed significant changes: it was thickened, less flexible, and marked by an aneurysm-like bulge. While this finding didn't prove the theory, it rendered the question impossible to ignore.

Prologue — The Toxic Extract
Act 1 — The Clinic Before the Theory
Act 2 — The Body as a Chemical Economy
Act 3 — Roger Takes the Doctrine to the Bench
Act 4 — An Artery Injured at a Distance
Act 5 — The Problem of Animal Food
Act 6 — Two Routes Into the Same System
Act 7 — Rabbit Number Six