Chapter 169: Sailing [2]
“I thought you were knocked out from some opium tincture.”
“Seriously. Why are you sleeping so deeply?”
“It’s because our Pyeong is delicate.”
Seeing me groggily come to my senses, Liston, Alfred, and Joseph started talking over one another.
“Ugh…”
Colin? He was still lying down. He was moaning, and for a moment, I panicked, thinking he was the injured one. But no, that was not it.
“He’s not called ‘Noble Kim’ for nothing.”
“Exactly.”
“They say it runs in the family. Judging by this, you really are a nobleman.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I heard that in Joseon, nobles don’t do any physical labor at all.”
“You don’t go hunting or anything?”
“Nope. In fact, it’s considered vulgar to do such things.”
“So the weaker your body, the more noble you are?”
“Exactly.”
“Wow.”
Liston and Joseph kept chatting even as I got closer. They were calling me weak right to my face. It stung a little, but I could not really argue. Physically, maybe I was fine, but mentally? I was no match for nineteenth-century people. How was I supposed to beat people who just shrugged and said, “If you die, you die”?
“Anyway, this doesn’t look good,” Alfred muttered as he stared down at the patient.
“Ugh… aaagh…”
The man had a rugged face. Definitely a sailor. He had probably been injured during the storm while the rest of the passengers were hiding below deck. Judging from how posh first class had been, second and third class could not have been all that expensive.
Wait… that’s a hasty assumption.
I hated to sound like a communist, but I understood now why revolutions happened. After the Industrial Revolution, humanity gained unprecedented wealth and funneled it all to the top one percent. Development without basic welfare was a recipe for rebellion.
“Hey, do something already!” someone shouted.
Right. That kind of political thought was not my concern. If a revolution broke out, wouldn’t a foreign noble from Joseon and the youngest professor in London be the first to get skewered?
And anyway, there was a patient in front of me. His face was pale. His vitals suggested hypotension.
Odd… there’s no bleeding.
At least, there was no visible bleeding. But in this era, if you did not see blood, it was safe to assume there was none, because no one bothered to clean it up. I lifted his shirt to check for internal bleeding, but all I saw was a gaunt, dry frame. Maybe he had chronic pancreatitis. Or maybe he was just malnourished.
Could it be pain?
Pain could drop blood pressure. In an age without real painkillers, that was not unusual.
“Here!” a sailor shouted, jabbing the patient’s arm.
The patient howled. That was when I realized his arm was broken.
Seriously? The first thing you should do is remove or tear the clothes and assess the injury! That’s basic!
I used to get riled up over things like that. Now? Heh. Dr. Liston and I ate, breathed, and bled nineteenth-century medicine. I had long since accepted that the more “basic” something was, the less likely it was to be done.
“Scissors.”
“Huh?”
“Where are you cutting? Just pull out the knife,” Joseph said.
I tried to tear the clothes, but my grip strength was not great. I did not want to look weak, so I acted as if I had planned to tug all along. I held out my other hand for help.
Joseph did not move, but Liston, who absolutely should not have moved, started heading for his surgical blade.
“No, no! His clothes! I meant cut his clothes!”
“Oh, not his arm?”
“Why would I cut his arm?!”
“Ha! You really make me question how you became a professor so young.”
Liston chuckled as he stood by his scabbard. I think a wave hit us then. The ship creaked, and that screeching noise made it feel like it was coming apart. Come to think of it, why were we on a sailboat again?
“The fracture. There’s no treatment,” Liston said.
“…Excuse me?”
Forget the sailboat. What did he mean, there was no treatment for fractures? If this were Korea, we would have called 119, splinted it properly, and been done in hours. I looked down again. His arm was still covered in clothes.
Oh… right. No X-rays.
That was the problem. I had made peace with the lack of CT scans and X-ray imaging in surgeries, but now it really hit me.
“Still, we’re on our way to the Paris Medical Society.”
“You’re lucky,” Alfred said. “This is Dr. Liston himself!”
While I was still recovering from that shock, Liston got moving. So did Joseph and Alfred. They prepared the anesthetic gas with practiced speed. Liston drew his blade. Encouragingly, he even poured himself a disinfectant drink. From a first-class bottle, no less.
He looked like a villain, but I held my tongue. Calling him one might make him act like it.
Actually, no. I did not hold my tongue.
“Wait!”
“What now?”
“Professor, isn’t this a bit much?”
I was Kim Taepyeong. If I had something to say, I would say it, even from inside a tiger’s jaws. Most of my tough situations had been handled through… creative nonsense. But even now, there was no way we should be amputating without examining the wound.
“In Joseon…”
Start with the Joseon bluff.
“Huh?”
“Shipbuilding?”
“Ah… Is this the country of medicine?”
Liston paused and sheathed his blade. That seemed to signal Joseph and Alfred to stop too. Anyone capable of improvising like this without a cue had probably followed Liston for years.
“In Joseon, we have excellent fracture treatment methods.”
“Oh?”
“Really?”
“How?”
If it was an open fracture, with bone sticking through the skin, then yes, forget it. You were better off eating moldy bread and praying. That was where Liston came in with his blade.
But…
Squeak.
I used the scissors from my bag to cut the sleeve. The scissors were now contaminated, but it did not matter. If surgery was needed, the patient would likely die anyway. Open fractures were not survivable until the mid-twentieth century. No antiseptics. No antibiotics.
“Phew…”
When I exposed the arm, it turned out to be a closed fracture. The skin was intact. The bone had broken, but it had not pierced through.
Humerus fracture? Clean break?
It was hard to tell. But if you cut here, so close to the shoulder, you were basically cutting near the heart. Too risky.
Liston, reading my expression, said quietly, “Honestly, if I cut here, there’s a seventy percent chance he dies.”
“…Ah.”
The patient groaned. That hit him hard. Of course it did. He was young, and now he was hearing he might die.
“Isn’t there another way?”
It seemed even Liston was reluctant to cut here. Good. That gave me a chance.
“In Joseon, we have a sport called Ssireum.”
“Wrestling?”
“Exactly. But you win by throwing your opponent, not cutting them.”
“Ah.”
Strange, sure, but the sailors seemed to accept it.
“There’s also rope-climbing. We do that too. That’s why broken bones happen fairly often. So we developed a treatment method. First, turn on the gas.”
“Huh?”
“Turn it on.”
Fractures misalign because of muscle contraction. You have to overcome that tension, which means traction is the first step in treating a break. But you cannot do it while the patient is awake. It is excruciating. Hence, the gas.
Was it enough gas? Who knew.
I trust in the durability of nineteenth-century sailors.
The gas hissed out. Even in this sealed ship, the slightest whiff made me dizzy. I turned to Liston.
“Professor, your role is crucial.”
“I’m always crucial. What now?”
“Wrap the cloth here. Just pull firmly.”
“Joseph, grab the arm with me.”
“Did this guy do something to you?” Joseph asked.
“Are you trying to torture him?”
Yeah. It probably did not look good. Pulling a fractured arm sounded cruel.
“Yes, he wronged us deeply.”
“Ha! Picking on my little brother? That’s not right.”
Appeal to loyalty. Why not? As long as the job got done. The patient, even under anesthesia, looked miserable. But later, I was sure he would thank me.