The Sherlock Holmes tale “The Adventure of the Creeping Man” by Arthur Conan Doyle might have been called “The Case of the Monkey Glands”. The story is a late Holmes case and a nice bit of Gothic fun from The Strand, March 1923. Supposedly just before his retirement into beekeeping, Holmes and Watson look into the case of Professor Presbury, a prestigious medical lecturer. His secretary, Trevor Bennett, and future son-in-law. comes to Holmes seeking an explanation for Presbury’s change in personality.
Holmes drags in the busy Watson from his medical practice for one more kick at the cat, just like in the old days. Watson obliges, realizing he acts as a sounding board to the great detective’s mind. Holmes begins by mentioning that Presbury’s wolf-hound, Roy, attacked the man on several occasions. (He expounds a theory that a family’s nature can be divined from the behavior of their dog.)
The strange behavior of the lecturer began when he had vied for the hand of a much younger woman. The family had objected and Presbury disappeared for a while. When he returns, from Prague as it turns out, he was a changed man. He now has a locked case with some secret inside. He receives mysterious packages from an A. Dorak, a Hungarian agent in London. Bennett finds his employer wandering the halls at night, walking in a low, ape-like posture. When confronted, Presbury grows abusive and violent. (This is one of the better Gothic scenes, reminscient of Mr. Hyde.)
Miss Edith Presbury, the professor’s daughter, shows up at Holmes’ apartment, having followed Bennett. She tells of a horrific night when she woke to see her father’s face at her second floor window. (This is one of the best Gothic element, equal to a scene from Dracula. Conan Doyle was well aware of such stories and works them in intentionally.)
The two men go to see the professor at work, pretending to have an appointment the man has forgotten. Presbury isn’t fooled and Holmes sees his menacing behavior first hand. The detectives go to the Presbury home nine days later, Holmes realizing that the scene with dog, the hallway and the window were nine days apart. The two stake out the house and follow Presbury after midnight. He goes to the yard where Roy is chained up. Like a monkey, Presbury taunts and teases the animal until it slips its collar. Holmes and Watson, the secretary and the coachman pull off the dog. Watson and Bennett, who is also a trained doctor, treat the man’s torn throat. Presbury is given an injection to make him sleep.
Holmes uses the opportunity to open the mysterious case. Inside he finds syringes and a strange substance labeled “A. Dorak”. These injections were made from the glands of Langur monkeys. There is a letter from “H. Lowenstein”. Watson recalls a foreign doctor who had caused a sensation with experiments with monkey glands. Presbury has been injecting himself with monkey extract, trying to regain his youth.
As one of Sherlock’s ghostbreaking cases (“No Ghosts need apply!”) the Creeping Man is one of his better ones. You can see it as one of his Pulpiest too. Mad scientist, beautiful daughter, strange scientific terror. It is Shakespeare’s The Tempest formula once again, with Presbury being both Prospero and Caliban. The format would be copied over and over again by Pulpsters like Seabury Quinn and his Jules de Grandin stories (which were only three years away.) The Shudder Pulps and SF mags would use this format endlessly as well.
The idea of injecting yourself with glandular extracts from monkeys was not made up by Doyle. The work of the Russian Sergei Voronoff in 1920 culminated in a book Life; a Study of the Means of Restoring Vital Energy and Prolonging Life. The object of the study was to find a medical method for immortality. What could be more Gothic than such hubris? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was the Gothic masterpiece on that. Lowenstein is a later day Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Count Dracula. The choice of name and his location of Prague are all appropriate.
As you can imagine the illustrators of “The Adventure of the Creeping Man” had a field day with Professor Presbury. Since this is a Casebook story, there are no Sidney Paget illos anymore. We got Howard Elcock in the UK, and Frederick Dorr Steele and Ralph C. Criswell in the US.
A final Case of the Monkey Glands is from Marvel’s Strange Tales #21 (August 1953) with “The Monkey Glands”. The author is not known but the art was done by Paul Reinman. This comic features Franz and Serge Lukoff (close enough to Sergei Voronoff for you?). This time the immortality of the gland injections is to out-live a rival so one can inherit a fortune. Poor Franz, he just ended up a monkey in cage instead.
