This story reminded me of those stories in "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine." Some supernatural or alien force has dropped a device that would be a great boon to humanity. Unfortunately, the people who have the device are a doctor who, if caught, could spend the rest of his life in prison, and his shrewish wife. Down on his luck and trying to appease this woman, he takes his last possession, his medical kit, to the pawn shop. He gets $25 bucks for it, but the pawnbroker, feeling sorry for him, gives him another bag, one that was left on his doorstep a long time ago. After another confrontation with his witch of a wife, a woman living in the apartment building brings in her daughter, who is on the verge of death from a form of encephalitis. He knows what it is and that he can't do anything about it. He looks in the new bag and finds a syringe and a chart. It tells him what to do, but once the injection is performed, the syringe refills itself. To their amazement, the girl recovers immediately. There are two mysterious factors. The bag has a date way into the 21st Century and a warning that anyone unauthorized to use the bag found using it would be punished to the full extent of the law. We can sort of predict what will happen because the doctor has developed a really good practice but nothing he earns can satisfy the wife. It's just a really good little story.
Review of The Little Black Bag
