Chapter 153: Abdominal Surgery [4]
“I can’t believe you’re smiling before opening someone’s abdomen.”
I must have smiled without realizing it. Dr. Robert Liston—Mr. Brutality himself—looked at me as if I were some kind of monster.
“That’s a bit creepy...”
“Didn’t I say I was timid...?”
“Maybe you just don’t want others to see this side of you?”
The others—Joseph, Alfred, and Colin—were no different. They all looked vaguely horrified.
Great. Totally unfair. I’m not a murderer.
“Joseph, pull here. Senior, hold this in place.”
“Uh... okay.”
“Alright.”
“What should I do?”
“Professor, just observe. If anything seems off, stop me.”
“Got it.”
Anyway, once I picked up the scalpel, the surgery had to proceed no matter what. There was no point waiting for a grander reason. Nitrous Oxide, or Laughing Gas, did not last that long. I figured it would hold for around thirty minutes at most, but that was not based on any precise testing. It was just clinical instinct.
In other words, the faster the surgery, the better.
I told you I’d direct this, so just watch quietly.
To keep things under control, I could not leave room for confusion or interference. In a modern operating room, once the lead surgeon picked up the scalpel, no one stopped to ask, “What kind of surgery are you doing today?” The assistant already knew what to do.
Ugh. This is how I live now. Whatever.
As soon as I made the first incision, all other thoughts vanished. I was a surgeon. Seeing blood flipped the switch.
“Wipe.”
“Wait—I’m the senior here.”
“I’m the professor.”
“...Right. Sorry.”
Joseph’s job was to pull. Even before I cut, he was supposed to hold the flesh apart. After the incision, he would use something resembling a fork to keep the wound open, and once I reached the peritoneum, we would use a tool shaped roughly like an Army-Navy retractor.
Normally, we would be more precise, but considering the state of surgery in this era, I was already pushing the limit.
If I push any further, I’m bound to cause an accident.
I glanced at Alfred’s hand, already bloodied. Sterile gauze? Not a chance. Sterilization itself was still a foreign concept. The best I could do was boil the cleanest cloth I could find.
Ugh. Best not to let too much blood spill. There’s no electric cauterizer here. Maybe I’ll try a heated iron next time as a crude hemostat...
But I’d need it at a very high temperature.
If I heated it in the kitchen, it would cool by the time it got here. Still, classrooms became hot. Maybe it was worth trying.
For now, I focused on what I had. I finally opened the peritoneum and slipped inside. It might seem like a crude technique, but it really was not.
“Pull.”
“Okay... Where exactly...”
“What are you looking for?”
I had made the incision carefully, angled diagonally along McBurney’s point, from the outer abdomen toward the inside. This kind of incision minimized damage to the abdominal muscles while still providing decent visibility.
“Where is it...? You just find it like this?”
“No way... Are you doing this from memory?”
The truth was, I could do this blindfolded. It was basic. I had done it hundreds of times.
I closed my eyes for dramatic flair and gripped the swollen appendix I had already located.
As expected, Liston, who had been quiet until then, could not help himself.
“How is this even surgery? That is barely a hole.”
Of course he would say that. For someone used to hacking off limbs in one clean slice, a six- or seven-centimeter incision must have looked pitiful. To him, it probably looked as if I were just poking around.
“I can’t see anything. Visibility is the most important thing.”
He had a point. Securing visibility was half of a successful surgery. Sometimes I forgot that even this savage knew the basic principles.
“I found it.”
“Wait—your eyes were closed?”
“I noticed something odd during dissection. The way the appendix stuck out. It’s still vivid in my memory.”
“You found it just from memory? Are you...”
“Yes, I’m a genius.”
I timed it perfectly. Just as I said it, I pulled out the appendix and cut off any rebuttal.
I gently moved the surrounding intestines aside so the swollen appendix would not rupture. When I finally exposed it, the thing looked at least two or three times its normal size.
A clear case of acute appendicitis.
Only then did the onlookers understand what I was doing.
“Oh... I think I’ve seen this before...”
Alfred was excluded. He had seen it before. In his own case.
“Yes, Alfred looked like this back then.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
Liston spoke up, realizing the conversation had taken a strange turn.
Wasn’t he absent back then?
Now Liston thought I had been inspired by something he said, taken initiative, and opened Alfred up. But that was not it. I had simply been in a panic back then.
How do I spin this?
It did not take long to figure it out. I had to be the Master of Improvisation.
“Senior Alfred hadn’t been able to get out of bed for a while, right?”
“Yeah.”
“He had abdominal pain. And a fever.”
“Right. I almost died.”
To modern ears, that might not sound like much. But in this era, without proper medicine, fever and abdominal pain often meant death.
“Senior Alfred is my benefactor. He helped me study here without worrying about money.”
“No, Pyeong. I’m the one who should be grateful. You saved my life—”
“At that moment, I just felt like I had to do something.”
Joseph and Colin did not matter. But Liston had to be convinced. He was my ticket to survival in this era. In a time when fists often overpowered the law, traveling with Liston was practically a royal pardon.
So I looked toward the heavens.
“I prayed.”
“Huh?”
Joseph narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He had probably heard me swearing back then. Maybe even in Korean.
Dude, it’s written all over your face.
Yes, I had cursed. But I had also prayed. In the nineteenth century, when you were about to operate in a rat-infested room, prayer was practically required.
“I don’t know... It was like a flash in my head. As if I just knew where to cut.”
“You mean you just opened him up, and he lived?”
“Professor, what are you doing—”
“You only cut this much?”
Liston looked doubtful. Objectively speaking, I could understand why. He seemed about eighty percent convinced and twenty percent suspicious. He even began undressing Alfred to check for the scar.
Gross. What kind of sterile environment is this? When was the last time Alfred even bathed?
I subtly covered the surgical site.
“Yes... It just so happens that the surgery I performed then is exactly what we’re doing now.”
“Huh. Truly... Is this a revelation from the Lord?”
Liston hesitated several more times, but in the end, he gave up trying to understand and nodded.
“You... You have no reason to lie.”
That’s right. I’m not some fraud—
Except I kind of am.
“Why would I lie to you, Professor?”
“Yes... Alfred survived that surgery, and from what I can see, this patient should recover too.”
“Exactly. Let’s continue.”
I pushed forward, tying off the root of the appendix with thread before snipping it off. A disgusting smell wafted up.
Still a long way to go.
I did not stop. I sliced open the removed appendix and held it right under Liston’s nose.
The stench was legendary.
“Gah!”
“It was filled with miasma. That must have been the source of disease.”
“Throw it away!”
“Where?”
“Colin!”
“Yes?”
“You take it out.”
“I don’t have gloves... and someone needs to watch the anesthetic.”
“I’ll handle that. The smell is killing me. Do you want me to gag?”
“Ugh...”
Poor Colin, overwhelmed and empty-handed, sprinted out with the infected organ. Good luck getting that smell out of your nose for the next few days.
“Ugh...”
While Colin retched in the hallway, I closed the incision. The appendix was gone. All that remained was suturing.
Easy.
Senior Alfred survived this. I will too.
I finished the final suture.
Only then did I notice that Liston had his eyes closed, looking toward the ceiling.
Then he said something insane.
“Pyeong.”
“Yes?”
“I think I also received a revelation. I’ll be your next patient.”
“Wha—what?!”
That tracks. The man inhaled a bit of Laughing Gas. Hallucinated. Maybe even saw the Lord.
“Wait, wait!”
I sprinted after him as he marched down the hallway like a man possessed.