Chapter 188: More Advanced Surgery [5]
“Doing it like this…?”
“I think you took off too much…”
The group was still murmuring their thoughts as they looked at the tumor I had removed. But medically speaking, none of their comments were particularly meaningful. It was the sound of ignorance. I had no plans to correct them anymore. Maybe I had at first, but now… I had long since accepted that it was inevitable.
What I found more fascinating was something else entirely.
How is it… that only half a century from now, surgery will finally be performed with proper technique and understanding?
Dr. William Halsted. The father of modern surgery. He was the one who truly showed me what genius looked like. A man who, in his thirties, pioneered entirely new surgical methods: hernia repair, mastectomy, and cholecystectomy. But even he could not be saved by the medicine of his time. He died of sepsis from cholecystitis. Despite all the records showing how hard he taught and how diligently his students studied, the gap in skill was simply too vast.
Do geniuses make quantum leaps like that every now and then?
Luckily, we had a genius here too. I did not know how many more there were like him, but at least one thing was clear: Liston was a genius. He was bold, quick to act, and did not bother with excessive persuasion when trying something new. He simply reported the results and let the work speak.
“Alright, let’s close her up. We have to hurry. It’s already been over an hour since anesthesia began.”
“I see… Right. But… do you think it’ll close more easily than expected?”
“What?”
“Well, after removing this much tissue, wouldn’t it usually be hard to bring the edges together?”
“Ah.”
That was a good question. Especially impressive, considering he did not really understand the surgical principles. Common sense would suggest that the more you cut, the harder it would be to close. But modern resection techniques were built precisely around those calculations.
“If you look closely… I excavated from underneath. There was almost no skin excision.”
“Hm… Oh, I see. Only the central section is slightly raised?”
“Yes. That’s why it closes so well.”
“I see… Hmm. Hmm…”
What is he thinking?
The look on his face was unsettling. Less cunning and more… ruthless. Something about it suggested blood. It was as if he was imagining who he would slice into next, and how. I could not say for sure, but I would bet he was already wondering how to apply what he had just learned to his next patient.
Tuk.
Even while thinking this, my hands kept working. The suturing was still rough. I was using ordinary silk thread, after all. But at least now it had been sterilized. Not just boiled, but soaked in alcohol too. Of course, that did not make it truly sterile. Silk was a bundle of microscopic fibers, after all. Bacteria could be hiding between every twist.
Well… I have to believe in the strength of nineteenth-century bodies.
One thing I had learned since coming here was that people back then were tough.
Profit.
With a final pull, I finished the suturing. Only then did the full asymmetry of the patient’s chest come into view. Everyone exhaled.
“This…”
“This is…”
“Wow…”
Still, the reaction was not as dramatic as I had expected. Amputations were a common sight here. And if you thought about it, nothing altered the body more drastically than losing a limb. Well… maybe not just limbs. I had seen more jaws cut off than I expected. I did not run into those cases often, since Liston handled them, but they happened.
If you nicked yourself shaving and it festered, you rotted. Then you panicked. Then you cut. That was how a chin disappeared. With no concept of oral hygiene, jawbones rotted from abscessed teeth. This world was familiar with disfigurement.
“Hm…”
Of course, that kind of familiarity applied only to doctors. For patients, it was a different story entirely. Fortunately, Sophie Germain woke up smoothly from anesthesia. But when she looked in the mirror, she could not speak.
I get it…
People underestimated how much a change in appearance could affect someone.
“But… I can still go on, right?”
Of course, every patient reacted differently. Some crumbled. Others stood strong. Sophie Germain was one of the strong ones.
“Yes. You’ll live at least a few more years.”
Would it really be a few years? I did not know. But I did know she would live far longer than she would have without the surgery.
“Then I can still do more mathematics. I need to write a letter first.”
“A letter?”
“Yes. I have a friend in Germany. I’ve been worried.”
“Oh? You have friends in Germany?”
“Yes. Gauss.”
“Gauss…?”
Wait. Was she talking about that Gauss? Carl Friedrich Gauss? I was not sure, but I could not question her now.
“Pyeong. I need to go. There are flies to chase.”
“Ah, yes. The body is ready, right?”
I thought I had just said something concerning. He really did seem like a dangerous man.
“Of course. There’s a supply plan. Though I heard the placenta was lost in this incident.”
“Ah, yes. The supply plan.”
A hanging in Paris was probably just around the corner. Not that it mattered now. Between the cholera outbreak and the collapsing administration, no one was going to make a fuss about corpse theft. There were no resources to enforce those laws.
And in any case, was this not all for a good cause?
Fine.
We left the patient and climbed into the carriage. Honestly, the fact that she had survived at all was thanks to us. Even the coachman seemed more cheerful than usual. He always was whenever Liston was around.
“Drive fast. We’re late.”
“Late? Already?”
“Yeah. I figured the surgery would take twenty minutes.”
“Ah…”
“But seeing what we did this time, it’s clear anesthesia changes everything. I wasn’t stalling. We just learned something important.”
“I see. That’s good.”
As long as we learned something, it was fine. I was a bit shocked that they had expected a mastectomy to take twenty minutes, but if I thought back to how they used to do it, without anesthesia and with crude tools, it made sense.
Horrifying.
Limbs were one thing, but slicing through a jaw or a breast with no anesthetic… Even I found it hard to imagine. Maybe I had just become desensitized to amputations.
“We’ve arrived!”
Fueled by Liston’s earlier urgency, the coachman flew down the empty streets.
“Oh, good. The body just arrived too.”
Jean-Pierre came out to meet us. He looked much healthier now compared to the walking skeleton he had been.
“How many bodies came in?”
“Plenty. Take your pick.”
“Plenty? They’re not cholera victims, are they?”
Liston’s face tightened at that. That was the Liston I knew, aware of hygiene risks.
“No. Just famine. They starved.”
“Ah. Good, then.”
It was strange to say “good” in this context, but… that was how things worked here.
We stepped into a large room lined with corpses on tables. Twenty of them. All starved to death. France really was hell. England was not the only one.
“I didn’t mention it, but the Montpellier team came too.”
“Korea?”
“No, not Korea. Theoretical scholars, not clinicians. But their subordinates came.”
“Got it.”
Each body was surrounded by doctors, most visibly excited. In this era, autopsies were rare and precious. For young surgeons, these were golden opportunities. My own university was just beginning to use formalin, but others had not even gotten that far.
“Is that them?”
“Please demonstrate your method.”
“Where in London… They don’t even have credentials.”
“I’ll go make some tea.”
Among them, a few stood out with fierce competitiveness. Those must be the Montpellier men. Jean-Pierre glanced at them apologetically.
“They’re rude. Don’t mind them.”
“It’s actually a good thing.”
Liston did not care. Rudeness was fine. It either meant a guiltless loss or a clean excuse to crush someone with skill.
“You know what to do?”
“I know.”
“Good… Let’s go.”
We grinned like villains and made our way to the corpse set aside for us. It was dry, unmistakably starved. In the twenty-first-century Korea I came from, death by starvation was unimaginable. Yet here…
I pulled on my gloves. Everyone else followed suit.
“Yunnan, huh…”
“What kind of tradition is that?”
Mutterings came from the Montpellier group. In the past, such remarks would have been damning to others. I was used to doing things without understanding why.
“Idiots.”
“Savages.”
“They don’t even realize how much miasma is in the air.”
“With this many people gathered, at least one or two will drop dead.”
Even Colin, usually polite, muttered something acidic. I could not help it. I burst out laughing.
Only after I stopped did I realize that I had just laughed in front of a corpse.
Maybe it had died today. Maybe yesterday.
But here, it was fine.
Sorry. Rest in peace.
I bowed inwardly, then picked up the scalpel and addressed the room.
As expected, they were waiting to be provoked.
Which meant I was ready.
“Brother, it’s getting loud.”
“Got it.”
Liston stepped forward.
“If anyone makes another sound, I’ll lay you down on this table myself.”
Silence fell.