Chapter 189: More Advanced Anatomy [1]
What is the purpose of dissection?
Actually, I should change the wording. This was not the twenty-first century. It was the nineteenth. So, what was the purpose of dissection?
“Now, don’t focus on those uncivilized things. Listen to me.”
Montpellier. Once a prestigious medical school. Before I knew it, someone claiming to represent it was making medicine sound ridiculous.
“This dissection is how we come to fully understand the human body. It must be carried out with reverence. Come here, Carl.”
Yes, understanding the human body completely. I was sure that sentiment was common, especially in an age when science and religion were still entangled. We liked to think of Western science as inherently practical, but that was just another illusion of Occidentalism. Humans, regardless of culture or era, were always at risk of being trapped in their own conceptual dogmas.
“Now look.”
Dissection was taught through strict apprenticeship. Even though printing technology had long been developed, illustrated anatomical books were still rare and expensive. Curiously, the best-quality ones were not found in hospitals or universities, but in the private libraries of nobles.
Which meant that if you wanted to learn anything, whether dissection or medicine, you had to study directly under someone. Personally, I found the slow, inconsistent pace of that method frustrating. More than that, it severely delayed the spread of knowledge.
Profit.
That was why, even though it had been over two hundred years since anatomical dissection was formalized in Europe, the practice was still stuck at a primitive level.
“Look at that… that part.”
I glanced over. They were cutting through tissue like it was porridge, with no regard for anatomical layers. It must have looked even more appalling to someone like Liston. He was tall, sharp-eyed, and growing increasingly skilled in dissection. He was becoming remarkably adept. Of course, areas like the face or head were still tricky, even for him, but when it came to limbs and the abdomen, his technique was already well above average.
“It’s a mess.”
And yet, it had not even been that long. Not in absolute terms. He was simply that quick to adapt. The way he held the scalpel was different from the rest. He naturally assumed a posture that allowed maximum visibility and comfort, and he cut through the abdomen by carefully separating each layer.
The purpose of dissection was to gain a precise understanding of human anatomy, trace the origins of disease, and translate that knowledge into effective clinical practice.
Once the purpose became clear, the path forward became obvious. And Liston was clearly walking that path.
A genius, without doubt.
“Uhm…”
“Hmm.”
Even people who did not know much could recognize when something was on a different level. Most of the onlookers lacked proper knowledge, not because they were stupid, but because they had been denied access. Still, some could tell what they were seeing.
“Use your hands, like this!”
One man was digging into a decomposing corpse with his bare hands. Did he think he was invincible? Even if I had nine lives, I would not do that. Judging by the scars on his hands, he looked as if he had already died eight times and come back. You would think he had learned his lesson by now.
“Wow… incredible. The intestines are just spilling out!”
“Really? Look here. See?”
“There’s poop coming out!”
“This is Montpellier!”
They clung to the prestige of the name, but clearly lacked the skill to back it up. What kind of lunatic called that dissection? They were just hacking at intestines.
“Oh god, the smell…”
We were used to bad smells by now. The dissection lab had its own scent, and the cholera wards had trained our noses further. But the stench of feces inside a corpse was still something else entirely.
“Haha! This is how you really dissect. Look at these Brits, all scared in their gloves, afraid to touch anything properly!”
One of the Montpellier men was provoking us. For a moment, I thought someone was about to die. But surprisingly, Liston only said quietly:
“A doctor should speak with his scalpel.”
Honestly, I thought I was about to lose it too. But no. We held back.
“Let’s show them a demonstration,” I said. “Something they’ve never seen before.”
“Ah. That’s what you meant.”
“What did you think I meant?”
“That we were about to cut them down.”
“Well… that would’ve been easier.”
So, with the atmosphere of medieval knights casually discussing the most efficient way to slaughter fools, we got to work.
Profit.
I made a transverse incision through the peritoneum to expose the liver. Most of the audience, except for the idiots from Montpellier, watched attentively. “Demonstration” was the perfect word for what we were doing.
“Now, if you look here… this is the gallbladder. It’s quite distended. Seems like the patient hadn’t eaten before death. If we detach it like this…”
Liston and I dissected side by side, our movements smooth and practiced. To perform a dissection like this on a corpse almost felt like a waste. This level of skill deserved a live teaching theater.
Tuk-tuk.
I removed the gallbladder in a flash. With the right concept of anatomical layers and good visibility, it was over in seconds.
“This is the common bile duct. It connects the gallbladder to the duodenum, which is about twelve fingers’ length. And back here, you’ll find the pancreas.”
“Oh, I already removed the pancreas.”
“Nice job.”
“No big deal. I’m good with a blade.”
Honestly, the pancreas was tricky. It was soft and hard to isolate. But Liston handled it effortlessly. I was half-tempted to hire him as my teaching assistant.
“Yes, the pancreas also secretes enzymes into the intestine, right?”
“Probably. Digestive juice of some kind.”
“Let’s go with that.”
I almost brought up insulin. I came this close to getting witch-hunted. Surprisingly, diabetes had already been recognized by this time, seen as a wasting disease where patients urinated excessively and eventually died. But treatment? Insulin would not be discovered for another hundred years. Even in the twenty-first century, diabetes was terrifying. In the nineteenth, it was fatal.
Of course, not many people here had the luxury of overeating, so it was not a common concern.
“Let’s move to the liver.”
“Right.”
Time to go all in.
The liver, massive and indispensable. When it failed, everything else followed.
Tuk. Tuk.
Even in this era, they could vaguely recognize liver cirrhosis. Coincidentally, or maybe not, this corpse had it. Cirrhosis was rampant.
What caused it? Hepatitis? Alcohol?
Probably alcohol. Just like in London, the working class in France endured brutal conditions. No labor protections meant that if you got sick or injured, you worked anyway, or died. And hospitals? They often finished off patients who might have survived otherwise.
That’s why you wear gloves.
I glanced toward Montpellier. They had just yanked the liver out bare-handed. It was cirrhotic too. God knew what virus was in there.
Even if you don’t die today, you’ll die tomorrow…
But telling them would not help. Montpellier doctors never listened. That was why their patients kept dying.
“See? Some livers are like this, while others are smooth.”
“Yes. There’s clearly a difference.”
“Right. We’ll have to investigate further.”
“Of course.”
Even if we did not know everything yet, we were asking the right questions. I was glad my paranoia about miasma had at least made me diligent about gloves. They were not perfect, but they were better than nothing. I did worry they might tear mid-procedure.
“Here’s the portal vein.”
“Portal vein. What a name. It runs through the whole digestive system.”
“That says a lot about how important the liver must be.”
“Yeah, it’s probably doing more than we even realize.”
Liston glanced upward, maybe toward the God he believed in.
“These here are the hepatic artery and vein.”
“Wow… All these organs. It’s amazing every time.”
“Next…”
“Let’s move on to the spleen.”
“Got it.”
As usual, we continued the dissection while conversing casually, carefully separating each organ and preserving the connected vessels, nerves, and ducts. Surely someone in this room could do that, but none of them had our precision or system.
“Uh…”
“How are they so fast… and accurate?”
“This… this isn’t normal. Something’s going on.”
Almost all the other dissections had stopped, except Montpellier’s. Normally, Liston’s presence meant the competition ended with broken noses. Today, it ended with skill alone.
“I heard one of the princesses is into Asians…”
“There’s definitely something strange here.”
“Do they have supernatural hands?”
It was worth it. We had removed almost every organ without severing the connecting vessels. They were still intact. This was probably the first time most of them had seen a dissection done like this.
I still remembered the first time we did it. The director had rushed in with a letter from the palace. The princess wanted to see it in person. I would have to do it again when I returned. Funny, wasn’t it? I used to worry that it would not be impressive enough.
“Oh…”
“Incredible.”
“Is that… a kidney?”
“Yes. Looks like it.”
Now we were reaching the retroperitoneal organs. The kidneys were exposed, but the ureters still connected them to the bladder.
“Huh…”
“How…”
The mood shifted. One of the Montpellier men stepped forward, holding a scalpel. But he only stood there silently.
I understood. He did not like this. He did not like us, or what we were showing. But if you had eyes, you knew the truth when you saw it. What we were doing was simply better.
“That…”
“Would you like to learn?”
Liston, whose personality was even worse than mine, grinned and asked mockingly.
“No, no! Don’t joke with me! I can’t believe I saw inside the body like that! British people really are odd! Let’s settle this with a dissection of the arms and legs!”
As expected, he jumped to challenge us, this time using limbs.
Liston chuckled.
When it came to arms and legs? Even I had to admit, Liston was the master.
“Alright then. Show us what you’ve got. What do you wager? Your life?”
And just like that, I realized.
The tone of this story was starting to shift.
A little darker.
A little more noir.