Chapter 179: Cholera [4]
The sky remained gray. Air pollution seemed to be just as bad in Paris as it was in London. Maybe London’s smog simply got more attention, I thought. Perhaps it was the climate. London might have been colder than here.
I guess I was lucky.
That perception shift. When I realized that even the back alleys of Paris looked better than London’s, I shook my head unconsciously. Then I turned around and looked back at the patients, those who had already been sick for two days. Most of my waking hours had been spent cleaning up their diarrhea. No one was truly in good condition. Even if you could endure the smell, you would end up mentally blank from exhaustion.
It was a mess. The place was filthy enough that I desperately wanted to disinfect it. But somehow, it was still better than before.
Three dead already.
Cholera was especially lethal in its acute stage. Severe diarrhea quickly led to dehydration and multi-organ failure. Kidneys, liver, everything shut down. Death was common. Others may have succumbed to sepsis, taking advantage of their already weakened condition. I momentarily felt sorry about the stale bread we had fed them earlier, but you could not give someone on the verge of death a gamble like that. This was not Russian roulette.
Three more are critical…
Out of the one hundred and one initial patients, three were already dead and three more were fading fast. The fatality rate was creeping toward six percent, and this was only the beginning. I had a feeling we would lose at least ten before this was over.
“Holy shit… This really is hopeless. I might have to give you morphine.”
Even Liston, who had been full of cynical energy a day ago, calling them French bastards, was beginning to look dejected. So was Blundell. The younger students—Alfred, Joseph, and Colin—who had seemed excited just yesterday, now wore dark, somber expressions. Maybe it was something more than grief, something festering under the surface. But whether British or French, watching someone die during treatment was a heavy thing.
“Uhm…”
The only bit of good news was that our teacher, Jean-Pierre, had gotten up and was now standing. I had wondered how a man his age had managed to get this far, but it turned out he had simply been silent all along. Maybe he was just poisoned like I had been. Regardless, his face was grim, and not just from the deaths of his colleagues.
“It’s bad.”
His voice was hoarse with dehydration. We all turned toward him.
“News just came in… Other hospitals are getting flooded with patients.”
“Other hospitals?”
I was not surprised. The river was suspicious. Even for a nineteenth-century city, where dirty water was the norm, the Seine had reached another level of contamination.
“Yes. The numbers are unclear, but estimates say at least a few thousand are already sick.”
“A few thousand?”
Now that did surprise me. My reaction was different from Liston’s, but just as intense. The timing and scale did not match what I remembered. Had something like this happened in the 1830s? Maybe in 1832? No. If thousands of people had been sickened by cholera back then, it would have been in the records.
Maybe I’m remembering wrong…?
I was not a historian. People assumed doctors knew everything about medicine, but even just mastering clinical practice was hard. You switched departments, and suddenly you were lost again. I once watched a video where three doctors were being mocked in the comments for “pretending not to know,” but honestly, they really did not know. What I knew of this event came from a few books I had skimmed as a student. It was not something every medical student knew.
“How’s the treatment going?”
While I was lost in thought, Liston asked me that. I turned my head and saw his face, sharp and intense. Was he beginning to understand what kind of pathogen we were dealing with? Often in science, when you looked back after progress, you were struck by how absurd the old methods were. In a way, the look on his face was one of confrontation with outdated ideas.
“What else can we do…? He’s got diarrhea, so we restrict his water and leave him lying down.”
“If we keep doing that, they’ll all die.”
“Isn’t cholera just that kind of disease? Cursed and cruel.”
Jean-Pierre spat bitterly and looked around at his colleagues. His expression made sense now. He could already see them being buried. And it was not far-fetched. Cholera, untreated, could kill half of its victims. Add nineteenth-century medicine to the mix?
They’re doomed.
They were withholding water from people suffering from dehydration. It felt more like screaming than sighing. Still, I did not say anything. I still believed in him.
Jean-Pierre.
“Do you want to kill them all?”
“What?”
“Look! Just look at what we’ve accomplished!” Liston stood up.
Though his face was weary, he seemed to have decided it was time to instill some fear. Days of exhaustion had bred frustration in him, and the stubbornness of the French had finally made him angry.
“People usually die from cholera on the first day! Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah… that’s true.”
“Look at your colleagues. We gave them the exact opposite treatment, and many survived. Some still died, yes, but one of them even ran away after refusing our care. So think about it. Doesn’t that mean our method is working?”
“Well… but… tradition—”
“Tradition? Remember what Galileo said! If a tradition is wrong, and science proves it, then it must be thrown away!”
“But—”
“Remember what we saw under the microscope. All those swarming things. If they’re not the cause of miasma, then what are they?”
“But miasma is in the air—”
“You fucking idiot!”
Liston, unable to restrain himself, struck Jean-Pierre hard on the back of the head. With a loud thud, Jean-Pierre crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.
“This…”
Liston crouched beside him and patted his cheek, trying to wake him. But it looked more like he was checking if he was still alive.
Clunk.
The door opened. Someone stepped in.
It was the police officer I had seen on the first day.
“Professor Liston, are you here?”
“What’s going on?”
Liston instinctively stepped away from Jean-Pierre, trying to look innocent. Luckily, with so many patients lying on the floor for lack of beds, Jean-Pierre did not stand out.
“Ah, good. I just heard that Teacher Jean-Pierre was causing an uproar due to cholera, but also that Professor Liston’s treatment here has been more effective.”
“Ah…”
You damn bastard. If you thought that, couldn’t you have said something before the head-smacking? I almost got framed for murder!
“But other hospitals are still resisting. He said he’d try to persuade them if we could gather the right people… I figured you’d be here, but where was he?”
Everyone turned to Jean-Pierre lying on the floor. I quickly checked his carotid pulse. Thankfully, it was still there.
Phew. I almost had an alibi for murder.
Well, there were bound to be traces of diarrhea anyway. And in this era, they did not have autopsies or toxicology. No one would know if it was cholera or not. But that was only if he had died. Now that he was alive, we had to play along.
“I guess he just overworked himself.”
“Professor?”
“Isn’t that right?”
“Ah, yes, yes…”
Then Liston stepped forward and, without a trace of shame, scooped up Jean-Pierre in a bridal carry. I watched, baffled. Lifting a grown man that effortlessly… I could not tell if I was more impressed or disturbed by Liston’s sheer shamelessness. But I was not alone. Everyone else seemed stunned too.
“Ah… this.”
“Let’s hope he wakes up on the way. If I went alone, we’d have no interpreter. And persuasion would be harder.”
“If the coachman just spoke like he did earlier… wouldn’t that work?”
“Would those arrogant doctors listen to a coachman? Jean-Pierre has a reputation. Let’s go.”
“Well… if the doctor insists.”
“Alright, then.”
The police did not seem to find anything suspicious. Honestly, how many beatings had they seen in a city like Paris? Security here was a joke.
He’s remarkably durable too.
The officer clearly lacked the courage to speak against Liston. Without another word, he mounted his horse and led us. We followed in the carriage.
Even in France, we need a police escort…
Honestly, if you looked at it this way, Liston was fraud incarnate. Sure, he was strong, but his stubbornness was even more overwhelming. This was what it led to.
“Ugh… Where am I…?”
As we rode, the carriage’s motion seemed to jostle Jean-Pierre awake. His face looked dazed.
“Oh, it’s a carriage. You must be exhausted.”
“Did I collapse?”
“Yeah.”
“But… I remember struggling really hard. Why does the back of my head hurt?”
“You fell and hit it earlier.”
“Ah…”
After lying to his friend without blinking, Liston looked out the window. But if you watched closely, you could see the corner of his mouth twitching. Even Liston seemed to feel a little guilty about this situation.
Eventually, we arrived at a clean-looking building. Inside, a number of doctors were already gathered. All of them looked annoyed.
“While we’re wasting time here, patients are drinking that damn water!”
“That’s right! People are dying!”
To be honest, their outrage did not seem unreasonable at all.