ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE ABLEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1879)

THE ABLEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1879) – This short story was written by American author Edward Page Mitchell. The central figure – but not the title figure – is a wealthy bespectacled man named Fisher. Because of his scholarly appearance Fisher is mistakenly addressed as “doctor” and “professor” while staying at a spa in Baden, Germany. 

That misunderstanding results in the spa staff rushing Fisher to the room of Russian Baron Savitch when his personal physician is unavailable at the moment. Savitch is a rising VIP in the Tsar’s court and the staff members are frantic to help him.

The roguish Fisher stops trying to deny being a doctor and just tries some common sense first aid to try curing Baron Savitch’s sudden illness. A glass of bourbon makes the Baron feel much better for a time.

Presently, Savitch begins to feel worse, complaining of intense pain in his head. He begs Fisher to remove the black silk skullcap on his head and beneath it Fisher discovers a silver plate.

The Baron wants him to unscrew the plate to relieve the pain but before Fisher can complete the task Savitch’s personal physician, Dr. Rapperschwill, arrives on the scene and stops him. The real doctor orders Fisher from the room.

Intrigued by the circumstances, our main character seeks out more information on Baron Savitch. It turns out he is a mysterious newcomer to Russian politics and has already acquired immense influence over the power players. Some even hint that Savitch is a virtual one-man government who is behind sweeping reforms in Russia.   

Trapping Dr. Rapperschwill in a perilous situation on an abandoned observation tower, Fisher at last manages to persuade the doctor to reveal the Baron’s secrets. The physician and clockmaker swears Fisher to secrecy and begins his tale.

The man now called Baron Savitch was discovered by Rapperschwill in a mental institution where he had been classified as a congenital idiot. The doctor unethically used him as a human guinea pig, removing part of his brain and replacing it with a clockwork artificial brain that he had invented.

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Rapperschwill screwed a silver plate over the hole left in the idiot’s head and had the man cover it with a black skullcap from then on. The artificial brain worked even better than the inventor hoped, and the former mental patient proved incapable of error.

He rose to the rank of Baron Savitch by impressing the Tsar and his court with his masterful handling of affairs of state. Savitch has a sort of “Rasputin before Rasputin” control over the royals and the doctor predicts that before too much longer the Baron will exercise control of other nations, either by wars of conquest or political maneuvering.

At length, Fisher returns to his life of traveling and leisure. He keeps his promise to remain silent about Baron Savitch’s secret but follows his still-rising influence on global power politics with a great deal of unease.

By the time Fisher once again crosses paths with Savitch in Paris, the Baron seems poised to become a new Napoleon, launching an unstoppable Russian Empire. Even more horrifying to Fisher is the fact that Savitch is about to marry a woman who has no idea that her husband will be a shell of a man animated and controlled by the artificial intelligence that Dr. Rapperschwill inserted in his head.   

When the doctor is called away for a few days to visit his dying mother in Switzerland, Fisher gets Baron Savitch drunk on American moonshine which he has brought with him. Our main character saves the world in his view by unscrewing the plate on Savitch’s head, removing the artificial brain components and getting rid of them.

Fisher then returns to America, caring nothing about whatever confusion will be left by his elimination of the Baron’s intellectual abilities. By his lights he did the right thing, but of course for readers that’s a whole different matter.

The Ablest Man in the World was far ahead of its time but was clearly influenced by Charles Babbage’s reflections on the possibilities of computers. Fisher’s actions are far from heroic, but his fears are understandable for an 1870s man faced with what he views as nightmarish technology.

Modern critics praise Mitchell’s short story for anticipating real-world developments regarding cybernetics and the implications of computer chip technology being used in human brains. The tale is brief enough that it’s more than worth at least one reading for science fiction fans. 

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