Chapter 181: The Great Disaster [3]
By now, the Paris medical community had split cleanly in two.
On one side stood the so-called Hippocratic School, centered around Korai, a graduate of the University of Montpellier, an institution with centuries of tradition. Opposing them was the surgical faction from London, represented by Dr. Liston, Dr. Blundell, Dr. Jean-Pierre, and me.
That was only how it looked on the surface. In reality, the Hippocratic side held far greater influence, simply because the public still believed physicians who practiced internal medicine were the true doctors. Surgeons were often treated as tradesmen. So even though we had the facts on our side, they had the numbers.
I could not help feeling frustrated. And yet Liston and Blundell seemed remarkably calm.
“Just imagine if this disaster had broken out in London.”
“Exactly.”
They took advantage of a short break between rounds to step outside the ward and wash their hands with soap and the distilled water we had set aside earlier. And no, this was not because I had told them to. They were doing it on their own.
A day like this has finally come…
Overwhelmed with emotion, I took a small sip of the wine beside me. Drinking alcohol while on duty might have been frowned upon in another era, but here and now, there was no alternative. Paris water was no longer drinkable.
Cholera was a waterborne disease. It usually spread locally, confined to a contaminated well or reservoir. But now, the entire Seine was polluted. This was not a localized outbreak. It was everywhere.
We left our collected water under the sun for days, waited for the sediment to settle, then siphoned off the clearer portion and distilled it. But even that was not enough. There was neither enough time nor enough manpower to purify sufficient quantities. Most of it went to patients suffering from dehydration or hypovolemic shock. The rest of us drank alcohol.
“I didn’t mean to get drunk. I was just thirsty, and it filled me up…”
Joseph stumbled beside me, his face flushed. Seeing that, I wondered if this situation might not be as dire as Amman’s droughts, but it was close. Still, that did not mean the patients could go without water. Nor could we give them alcohol. That made no medical sense.
The city was drowning in death.
And amid all this, a scene unfolded that would have been unimaginable in the twenty-first century.
“If this had been London… more people would have died.”
“…That’s true. As much as I hate to admit it.”
Colin and Alfred were completely absorbed in treatment and barely spoke. Fortunately, our support staff and assistants had already become proficient at hydrating patients, so we could leave that work to them.
That freed Liston and Blundell to talk, though their conversation felt almost surreal in this setting. Outside the hospital, a bullock cart creaked past, pulled by a tired ox. Its bed was overflowing with corpses.
And it was not the only one. Another cart followed behind it. Beyond that, the stench from the alleys hinted at what could not be seen: entire families dying in their homes, their bodies left to rot.
Paris had become a graveyard. Most people avoided the hospital entirely. In this climate, who in their right mind would come all the way here? It was madness.
“I have to do something when I get back.”
“What would that be?”
“We need to convince Parliament. The Thames is full of sewage. We need reform. The sewers… That water wasn’t always like this. When I was young…”
“…Yeah. It really wasn’t.”
They both turned to look at the buildings opposite us. One of them was supposedly a hospital, though now it looked more like a morgue. I had heard that the patients inside were being neglected. Abandoned, really. Some had tried “treatments” of questionable merit, and the results were predictable.
“They say if you eat it, you get diarrhea…”
That was the level of logic we were up against.
“Anyway, let’s go.”
“Right. This is exhausting.”
“We have to keep going. Fortunately, new cases are slowing down. Most of the ones left were already sick before.”
“Yeah… Pyeong said earlier that it would be three or four days at most.”
“Looks like he has experience from Joseon.”
“Seems so. What kind of place is that, anyway? It must be more advanced than Qing.”
“One of my lifelong wishes is to set foot in Joseon.”
So they had overheard me muttering.
Good thing I knew the natural course of cholera. That alone made me sound credible. If I said anything strange, they simply assumed it came from Joseon. And with that, Joseon grew ever more mysterious in their minds.
“Uh…”
Blundell had just come back into the ward and looked like a ghost. That was when I realized I had forgotten my mask.
“I think something went in my mouth.”
“What? What do you mean, ‘something’?”
“That.”
That?
I immediately became alert. I threw on gloves and a mask, then ran over to Blundell.
“Did you swallow it?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t think so. What should I do?”
He pointed to a patient. From what I gathered, the patient had suddenly pulled down his pants and launched a surprise attack.
I had heard that monkeys and tigers threw feces to express hostility. I doubted it had been deliberate here. It was more likely a reflex or delirium. But the cause did not matter.
Blundell mattered.
“Rinse your mouth! With water!”
“Okay…”
“No, use alcohol! Someone bring a bottle!”
“Why? Are we cutting something off?”
“No, no, we’re not cutting anything!”
“I thought you said—”
“Just get the alcohol!”
Alcohol disinfected. That much, we were starting to understand.
“In Joseon—”
“Shipbuilding?”
“No, no. We disinfect wounds with alcohol. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, it kills miasma.”
“Aha! Then it’s not just Joseon liquor that does that, right?”
“Probably not.”
“Good enough for me.”
I wiped the brown stains off Blundell’s face and handed him a bottle of cognac I had seen him sipping earlier. Thankfully, we had strong spirits on hand. Not enough to start a fire, but strong enough to kill some microorganisms.
Hopefully.
“Hurry!”
“Ugh…”
He gargled thoroughly. It was remarkable. Just as they had instinctively washed their hands earlier, they were now applying the same logic to their mouths. Something profound was happening here. They were redefining the very idea of miasma.
Then it happened.
The incident that solidified the shift.
One of the medical assistants, someone Jean-Pierre had mentored, had ignored our guidance.
“Gloves? Why?”
“Wash your hands? What for?”
And just like that, he contracted cholera. He was buried this morning.
In the past, people would have blamed bad air. But not anymore. No one said a word, yet we all understood.
It was miasma from feces, entering the body.
Heh.
I smiled to myself.
“You… are you laughing?”
“Oh, no. Not at all!”
Blundell frowned at me. I glanced at Liston. He wore the same weary look, as if silently saying, You win again.
I was not trying to be smug, but misunderstandings were piling up.
I’m actually a very nice person.
“Anyway, Professor, please rest a little.”
“Rest? Why?”
“Well…”
There were multiple conditions for a person to fall ill from pathogens. First, of course, they had to be exposed through the mouth, nose, wounds, or some other route. But exposure did not guarantee illness. If it did, humanity would have gone extinct long ago.
Our bodies resisted with saliva, stomach acid, and immune cells. Still, if the pathogen breached those defenses, the immune system had to fight back. It all depended on the person’s condition.
Immunity… it’s hard to explain.
We already knew that survivors of a disease rarely contracted it again. Jenner’s smallpox vaccine had been around for decades. But immunity was still only half understood.
“In Joseon, we make sure sick people rest. There’s no proof it helps, but still…”
“If that’s how it’s done in Joseon, then so be it.”
Thankfully, invoking Joseon always worked.
Blundell laughed. He wanted to rest. He was exhausted. So was I. He was older than me, and even though this was not battlefield surgery, he had volunteered to come here, to Paris, and play with feces in the middle of a medical disaster.
“Alright, go rest.”
“Really? Thank you.”
“Drink water. Not wine.”
“Okay…”
Blundell hurried off to his room. Not to a hotel. The city was too dangerous. Disease aside, civil order had broken down. If he stepped outside, he would probably be robbed or stabbed within ten minutes.
This hospital had become the safest place in Paris. Ever since we accepted the idea of miasma, we had been cleaning obsessively. It was as if we all had collective tuberculosis paranoia. They even scrubbed the floors with soap, so much that I nearly slipped on it.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Right.”
“Only a few more days.”
“Yeah…”
“Put your mask on.”
“You’re already wearing two.”
And with that, we went back inside to prepare for the final battle.
So far, our hospital’s mortality rate was about ten percent. That was staggeringly low compared to other institutions.
When this crisis ended and the statistics were laid bare, it would mark a turning point.
The landscape of medicine was about to change forever.