Chapter 121: Anatomy Lecture [3]
Of course, it didn’t end with merely learning a skill. I had a natural aptitude for it, and it was not a particularly difficult skill to begin with, so it did not take much time.
Now that it’s over, what happens if I tell them to leave?
Right now, the high-ranking people watching us favorably would protest. No, the police chief would definitely make a fuss. This place… it could not have been easy to rent, could it? Even if Princess Victoria were obsessed with anatomy, she would not have lent it out so casually. Besides, there was another serious issue.
The anatomy of this era…
At first, I could not understand how this culture had come about. Why on earth would anyone want to watch a full dissection? Sometimes, even students from other departments came to observe the practice. Of course, since our anatomy lab was basically hell, those incidents were rare… but still, dissection was strongly perceived as a public spectacle.
Didn’t they say they do it during Carnival, too?
There was a reason for all of it. After all, touching a human corpse was not something pleasant. For the person doing it, perhaps, but more than that, for the bereaved. The dead did not speak, but the living certainly did. Especially with religious customs such as cremation, burial, or sending the body out by boat, even today, not much had changed. Back then, dissection was only officially permitted for death row inmates.
Originally, it was completely banned.
Yes, dissection was once banned outright. Then came the Crusades. Through them, people were exposed to human dissection, and it became clear that Europe, then deep in the Dark Ages, lagged far behind the Islamic world in medicine and science. Imagine two nobles suffering the same injury, one dying while the other survived. What would people think? So, a decree was issued allowing the dissection of death row prisoners once every five years. It probably began with good intentions…
Think about it. Even now, people who looked down on Asians still came here to study because they wanted to learn something. Especially for surgeons, the difference between having practiced dissection and not having practiced it was enormous. But if it only happened once every five years, of course it became something everyone fought to see.
Even I would go see it…
As a result, it became customary to watch whenever someone’s turn came to perform a dissection. It was even considered rude not to dissect the body before decomposition set in. That meant dissections needed to be performed continuously and in full view.
“Now, let’s take a closer look at the neck.”
Honestly, it was tough. I was not a physically strong person, and I was not even in a situation where I needed this dissection practice.
“Okay, let’s see the neck!”
“Let’s see!”
“Let’s see!”
But… everyone else was desperate. Even non-doctors were desperate. With high-ranking people among them, I could not exactly stop. Besides, wasn’t this a golden opportunity? They said one could become famous by teaching students while doing it…
“First of all, this is what I showed you earlier. Do you see these very large muscles?”
As I spoke, I pointed to the large muscles on either side of the neck. Objectively speaking, they were not abnormally large, but from the neck’s perspective, they were enormous. Why were they so big? Well, there was a reason for everything.
“Not a knife. Something blunt. No, use the knife.”
Still oblivious to the situation, one guy tried to raise a knife more than twenty centimeters long. I pointed him out, then slipped my gloved finger between the sternocleidomastoid muscle and the structure beneath it. Since there were no vessels in that fascial layer, the muscle lifted with a dull sound.
“Light.”
Normally, I would use the headlamp strapped to my forehead, but in this case, I would probably burn my own face. Fortunately, Joseph handed me a lantern instead. The inner structure came into view.
“Here. This is a large one. It runs as a bundle. This is the Jugular Vein.”
“Ohh…”
“Underneath it, if you look closely…”
The neck muscles were bulky, so it was difficult to work with just my fingers. I used forceps to push the Jugular Vein upward. The blood had coagulated, giving it a firm, rubbery texture.
“There’s another vessel. It is thinner, but it looks much sturdier. This is the Carotid Artery. It carries blood to the brain… so it is very important.”
I continued explaining the blood vessels. You might think this could spark a witch hunt, but surprisingly, they already possessed a decent level of anatomical knowledge. Over the past decade or so, significant progress had been made. If it was thanks to grave robbing… well, I still could not believe it really happened.
“In short, these muscles protect important blood vessels. When examining the neck, you must avoid damaging this muscle.”
I had never done it myself, but even ENT surgeons tried to preserve this muscle when removing lymph nodes. I had heard all kinds of stories about that.
When I asked why, I was shown a patient photo where the cancer had infiltrated the area. Not only was there a visible aesthetic defect, an unsightly sunken neck, but the functional damage was worse. The patient’s neck could not support itself and tilted crookedly.
“Ugh, again…”
As I wondered what else I needed to show off, Robert Liston approached. I had just arrived, but with all these people around, I was nervous and instinctively stepped back. Liston, used to such reactions, calmly said, “It’s better to start with the rotting parts. You’ll get a clearer view of the stomach. You won’t be able to use it later.”
“Ah…”
“And are you prepared? You did well earlier. I doubt those higher-ups will be leaving anytime soon.”
“Isn’t there a performance tomorrow?”
The police chief beside me, who had intended to go home but changed his mind after seeing all the VIPs, shook his head.
“No. Everything’s been canceled.”
“What? Why?”
“When you opened the neck earlier… that pink thing? When they saw that… the princess and the prime minister issued orders. You have at least three days free and clear.”
“…Ah.”
Had they gone mad? I was exhausted. Normally, in situations like this, you would expect some sympathy…
“Congratulations, Pyeong.”
“That’s right. You’re really on the rise now.”
“Let’s go. It’s urgent. We’ll help with the arms and legs. You handle the stomach.”
These bastards were actually congratulating me. From a distance, I supposed it was a good thing. But that did not mean the fatigue just vanished.
Alright. Let’s just get through this.
The only good news was that I was a doctor, used to situations like this. I had trained myself to handle it.
Still… Am I only going to do this during residency?
I swore, no one here suffered like I did. Back in my time, there were no laws protecting medical residents. Instead of eighty-eight hours a week, I worked over a hundred and twenty. Say what you would about “the old days,” but it was true.
Even if these people looked like they would kill me if I stopped… it would only get worse the deeper into the night we went.
But—
Why… why won’t they leave?
Nope. Damn it. I forgot. This was not Korea. This was nineteenth-century London. There were people here who slept four hours and worked four hours, and since they were not even working, just spectating, they were full of energy. They were still cheering.
“So… this is the Kidney. If you look closely, there’s a tube leading to the bladder, which, as we all know, stores urine. This patient… oh dear, there’s a stone. It must have been painful.”
“Wah ha ha ha!”
“Serves him right!”
“I’ve never seen a kidney come off that cleanly!”
That reaction came not only from those below, but from those above as well. They must have seen previous dissections before. I did not follow them to witness those, but… could they really have done them properly? Especially without any concept of hormones?
“Now, look here.”
I pointed to the adrenal glands sitting on top of the kidneys. Of all the hormone-secreting organs, this one was especially vital.
Damn… I know, but I can’t explain it.
I wanted to go into detail, but I held back. Instead, I leaned into my strengths. I closed my eyes to silence those beginning to mutter about “Oriental witchcraft.”
“You remember the pink organ in the neck? It was lumpy, right? Touch this and think of that. The color is different, but they feel similar. Our Lord would never create something useless. We may not yet know what this organ does, but because of its texture, we can guess that it serves a similar purpose. I hope someone better than me will come forward to study it one day.”
Those words appealed to faith. The effect was immediate. Maybe it was the firelight behind them, maybe the hour, but “holy” words carried weight.
“Amen.”
“Lord.”
“Grant us wisdom…”
Here and there, responses like a revival meeting arose. What they believed did not matter to me. I looked up.
That’s it.
Princess Victoria had closed her eyes and whispered Amen. Hallelujah, really. I found myself humming it as I resumed. These people were thoroughly captivated. They were not going home anytime soon.
Maybe it was sleep deprivation, maybe adrenaline, but this dissection lasted all night. I had heard of people dying during these things despite not being seriously injured. Now, I understood.
When the dissection finally ended more than thirty hours later, I realized this must be what death from overwork felt like.
I could not even go home. Like everyone else, Joseph, Alfred, Colin, Liston, and Blundell, I collapsed and fell asleep right there in the ward.