Chapter 13: Mister, Listen to Me [2]
Chapter 13: Mister, Listen to Me [2]
I had started the day with an incision and disinfection, but today was also only my second day of medical school.
Yesterday, when I went to class, I had been too busy dodging shit to think straight, but now that I was riding in a carriage, I had a bit of room to reflect on old memories.
What did we do on the second day of pre-med again? I think we just fooled around.
We really had just fooled around.
What could anyone possibly expect from someone who was only on the second day of pre-med, not even the second year?
Maybe it was because we had studied ourselves half to death for six years of middle school and high school, if not all the way from sixth grade onward, just to get into medical school, but once we got there, we went crazy with that sense of freedom and just played.
But this place was different.
“First time meeting you all. Nice to meet you. I am Jémel. I am an internist... and I will be teaching physiology.”
Wow...
Physiology on the second day.
That made me a little nervous.
There was no helping it.
Once you started seeing patients in the clinic, physiology was exactly the kind of thing you forgot.
“Now then... this is a schematic diagram of the human body.”
So I stared at the chalkboard with an even tenser face than when Robert Liston had walked in yesterday.
Jémel drew lines across the board with chalk, sketching as he went.
I watched to see what he was drawing, and it turned out to be a person.
“The most important thing is respiration, respiration. This respiration will occur in the lungs in one way or another.”
Hmm.
Respiration happened in the lungs.
Well, there was no room for objection there.
As I sat there nodding, he continued.
“This is a very difficult concept... so listen carefully. At present, two claims are in conflict. First, there is the claim that oxygen in the air we breathe enters the venous blood in the lungs.”
That was not a claim...
that was what happened.
As my eyes widened, the others just kept taking notes.
Right, what would happen if I raised my hand here?
Even Joseon nonsense had to be used at the right time and place.
If I used it carelessly, I would obviously die.
So I stayed silent for the time being.
“But there is a theory that directly refutes that. It says that neither oxygen nor carbonic acid has been found in the blood. Logically speaking, it is impossible for a chemical reaction to occur without direct contact. Personally... I find that view more credible. The problem is... there is no alternative explanation.”
Ah.
Damn.
So they had not found oxygen in the blood.
Why couldn’t you idiots find it?
It was right there.
Red blood cells carried it.
“Perhaps that is because a substance called serum carries oxygen through our bodies.”
Serum?
Not serum.
Red blood cells.
“Anyway, respiration is essential to our survival. Our heat, our body temperature, is also maintained through respiration.”
Not one thing he said was completely correct.
How should I put it?
Like skimming the surface of a watermelon?
No, more like blind men feeling an elephant.
Everything was vague, one way or another.
The problem was that he was confident about it.
Hmm... there really is nothing to learn here.
And yet there was one thing I could be certain of.
Medicine in this era might have had room for explosive development, but at this point in time, it was simply a complete mess.
If there was anything here worth learning, then I needed to do some self-reflection.
In other words, there was nothing to learn.
“Now, this is muscle. As it contracts, our body moves. Watch closely. When the hand contracts, it moves like this.”
Oh.
Just as I was thinking that, something that sounded plausible came out again.
Sure, muscle was honestly a bit simpler.
It was too intuitive.
“The question is what causes that movement.”
Ah.
I took back what I said about intuition.
You could roughly understand movement itself just by knowing anatomy, but the mechanism behind it was fairly complicated, was it not?
“If you do dissections, you will see white cords. Those are called nerves... and those nerves contain excitability. If they are excited in some way, the muscles move.”
Right, there was no way people in this era would know that mechanism.
I looked out the window for a moment.
The glass was pointlessly well made, so the sunlight pouring in was very clear.
Looking out there, it felt like Earth.
Looking at the chalkboard, it felt like another world.
Was the nineteenth century really like this?
Was the nineteenth century not that close to the twentieth?
“If one of you were to uncover such things... your name might remain in history. But it would not be easy. Besides, you are all aiming for surgery... so, in truth, you could say it is practically impossible.”
No, I do not think your name is going to be remembered either...
Even if you knew nothing, did this not sound like a theory riddled with holes?
Shouldn’t it provoke some resistance?
“Pyeong.”
“Hm?”
Try learning a little from Joseph.
The moment break time started, he called me over to ask what he was curious about.
“Even if I leave the rest aside... I do not really understand what he meant by nerves containing excitability. What about you?”
Honestly, I was a little uneasy.
This was the bastard who looked at our Robert Liston and dreamed of becoming like him.
If things go wrong, I can always cover it with the mysteries of Joseon when talking to him.
Still, I decided to give him a proper answer.
That did not mean I was going to talk about neurotransmitters or ATP, an organic compound present in all living things.
What would happen if I dragged Joseon into that kind of explanation?
At best I would look like a fraud, at worst a lunatic, and in the absolute worst case, Satan himself.
I would be burned to death.
“I think that part is strange too. ‘Inherent excitability’... maybe it is just a vague explanation because they do not understand the principle by which force is generated there.”
“Force?”
“Force?”
There was one extra voice mixed in, and my heart nearly dropped.
Thinking it was Jémel, I hurriedly turned my head, only to find that it was my senior.
That bastard Alfred.
“Ah, you startled me.”
“Am I not allowed to join a discussion?”
“No, it is not that...”
There probably was no reason he could not.
At this point, I could probably say this senior was definitely becoming one of my people.
Maybe not completely yet, but after looking at his hand earlier, I knew it.
He would have to stay attached to me for ten days.
During that time, he would surely be so impressed by my great medical skill that he would fall to his knees.
Assuming today would be an extension of that process, I started talking while running a hand through my still-short hair.
If I got the chance, I had to grow it out no matter what, so I could look more mysterious.
“Anyway, let’s talk about force. Everyone knows this much, right?”
“Hm?”
Newton.
He was from the 1700s, right?
Surely... I’m not about to end up becoming the founder of the laws of thermodynamics or motion, am I?
I had forgotten almost everything about other fields while going through medical school and working at the hospital, but I was still a science-track student.
And one who had ranked first in the entire school.
Right, this much I was sure of.
Once I felt certain, I continued.
“Look carefully. I lifted this object. Can you see that?”
“Yes.”
“To lift something from the floor, it takes that much force, right? You know gravity. I am acting against the force with which the Earth pulls downward.”
“Uh, right.”
Good, that was right.
So they did know this much.
Feeling relieved, I continued.
“Then where did that opposing force come from?”
“Hm? You lifted it.”
“Right. You lifted it, Pyeong.”
Yes, I lifted it.
“That’s right. I lifted it. Then where did the force I used to lift this object come from?”
“Uh... the muscles...?”
“Yes, the muscles contracted. But if that happened merely because of some inherent excitability... then would force really be generated? Shouldn’t we think that this force arose for some other reason?”
“Uh... I suppose so. Hmm. Even if excitability causes force... the force we use every time... huh.”
Fortunately, both Joseph and Alfred were people who dreamed of becoming doctors, so they were capable of thinking.
In twenty-first-century Korea, if someone could not even understand this, they would be treated like an idiot, but this was not twenty-first-century Korea.
People with this much grounding were genuinely rare in the nineteenth century.
Joseph and I only had it because we had studied hard in school back in Upton, which meant Alfred probably had too.
Should I talk about food? As for digestion... they really ought to know that much.
I watched the two of them and thought it over.
Human beings had known since ancient times that they ate food and passed stool.
That came from instinct.
But scientifically understanding that was another matter entirely.
At the same time, it did not seem like it should have been all that difficult.
Human history was, after all, the history of war.
To put it bluntly, if a soldier died with his belly split open, would you not see food inside him?
If you thought about that, then the idea that food went from the stomach through the small intestine and into the large intestine should have been perfectly obvious.
No, I’ll wait until later, when I hear about digestion, and then I’ll speak.
Still, I held back.
That was because the two of them were already too impressed with my insight.
“Shouldn’t you tell the professor this?”
That idiot I called my senior was even saying things like that.
That lunatic.
I showed him a kindness, and now he wanted to have me burned alive.
“No, no. It is only my shallow opinion.”
“It sounds like a very deep opinion to me. My father donates an enormous amount of money here, you know. That means words carry weight.”
“No. No.”
You bastard, don’t do it...
Please don’t.
“Ah, Senior.”
“Hm?”
“Your hand.”
“My hand?”
What could I do if words alone would not make him listen?
I had to bring out the knife.
It also happened to be about time.
“It’s red, you know.”
“Ah...”
“It’s much better than before, but I think I’ll have to look at it again once we get home. If we leave it like this, it’ll rot. No, it’s probably already started rotting a little.”
“Ugh.”
Right.
This was the senior I knew.
Just a little while ago, he had probably forgotten he even had a finger.
Now he was acting like his finger was the only thing in the world.
Which was only natural.
He had already seen people die several times over.
Maybe the senior here at home was actually in greater danger of dying than the brothers out at sea.
No.
If it weren’t for me, he’d already be dead.
Anyway, once class ended, we left the building and climbed into the carriage.
“Those cowards. Skipping dissection practice again. A new corpse came in today too.”
That jeer from one of our classmates, some ill-mannered rich brat, trailed behind us.
Joseph only shrugged it off, but I was not such a broad-minded person, so I pressed my senior about it.
“Senior, what’s with that bastard?”
I made sure my hatred for the guy came through completely.
“Ah... well, he’s the youngest son of a family that rivals my father’s.”
“A rival? So they’re as rich as your family?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“Ah.”
Oh.
Good thing I did not hit him earlier.
If I had, I might have died without even getting a trial.
“Ah, so you’ve decided to stay here for a while? My son is indebted to you, so I’ll be in your care.”
My heart shrank at once when I turned and saw the old man there.
I needed to bring up the Condom idea.
But he was patting my shoulder with such a warm expression that I completely missed the timing.
Ah...
When was I supposed to say it?
“Check my hand.”
“Ah.”
My immature senior, without the slightest awareness of what was going through my head, held out his hand first.
There was no helping it.
After all, this was the whole reason I was staying here.
It’s not like I can say, shall we have a drink or something.
That was not a matter of manners.
It was simply a matter of a doctor’s conscience.
How could I offer alcohol to someone when I had no idea what kind of bacteria might be growing in him?
But saying, let the three of us drink, excluding the youngest son, would also be weird.
So in the kitchen, I sat as far as possible from the cauldron of hell, idly lanced his finger again—
“Aaaagh!”
—and after listening to my senior scream, I stepped out and found that the house felt somewhat bustling.
“What’s going on?”
“Ah, there will be a banquet.”
“Ah, a banquet?”
“Yes.”