Chapter 191: More Advanced Anatomy [3]
“Now, look here.”
Everyone had gathered because of me. They were mostly standing still because the Montpellier group was present, but aside from that, the area around the dozen or so corpses was completely empty. It was even more desolate than when I had merely been giving a lecture.
Why?
Because a performance was about to begin, one only Liston could deliver.
Suddenly, he stepped forward.
Sword Master. Cutting Master. Call him whatever you liked. He deserved every title. This man was lethal with a blade. And now, he was showcasing not his own chest, but the corpse’s.
“Oh…”
“And…”
Honestly, even if it had been Liston’s chest, I think the audience would have reacted the same way. The man was not human. Thanks to his clean and careful dissection of both the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor, everyone could clearly see the nerves branching out from the cervical spine and running into the arms.
“If you look here, several of them converge and travel down… I still don’t know what each of these are specifically. But…”
Liston stopped mid-sentence and glanced at me.
I had given him some surprising material earlier. It was awkward to say this myself, but these days, I was a man of considerable fame and income. Sure, I did not cut like Liston, but I made good money selling condoms and picking my nose.
What did I do with the money?
I collected things.
A Korean virtue: thrift, not flash. While I did sponsor the Brontë sisters and write occasionally, most of my effort went into collecting data.
Even if the Joseon charm works on Liston, it won’t work on everyone else.
Being “eaten” meant it was accepted, but that did not mean I was fooling anyone. So, as my dissections continued, I started researching in earnest. And with the British Empire’s colonial appetite, snatching artifacts and knowledge from all over the world, there was plenty to find.
Most of it was already packed into the British Museum, which had been around for nearly a century. Since I was not particularly interested in literature or art, anatomical texts and ancient manuscripts were easy to access.
“Feeling sleepy?”
Sometimes, when things reached a stalemate, I simply sent in Liston.
What if there was someone even he could not overpower physically?
“Uh-huh… Are you trying to make me look bad?”
Sir Damien. The thought of that man still pissed me off.
Anyway, among the mountains of material I dug through, I found something truly surprising. At one point, I even wondered whether these European bastards had already discovered things like radiation but simply had not publicized them yet.
“There was a man named Herophilus.”
Liston spoke the name I had introduced to him earlier.
Yes, Greek. From almost two thousand years ago. You might think, what could someone from back then possibly know? But the answer was, a lot. This man had allegedly performed over six hundred live dissections on death row inmates. His reputation in academia had been buried under centuries of ethical outrage.
“According to his theory, some of these nerves are motor, while others are sensory. They converge as bundles, so if you cut one near the top, only one function is lost. But if you cut it lower down, you lose both.”
“Hmm… That’s quite radical.”
“Wait. Who is Herophilus?”
“Greek.”
“Wasn’t Galen the big anatomist of that era?”
Right. One of the Montpellier men mentioned Galen. He was the one credited as the father of anatomy, largely because later human dissection was outlawed by religious and public pressure. People had been so horrified by anatomists like Herophilus that Galen had to base his theories on animal dissection. He basically guessed that what worked for pigs must work for people.
So the treatments that existed before the Renaissance, when real human dissection resumed, were a mess.
But oddly enough, these people still follow a lot of pre-Renaissance theories…
While I was deep in thought, Liston shook his head.
“The father of anatomy dissected pigs. That needs to change.”
“Still…”
“Just hear me out.”
“…Alright.”
Liston was firm. And for once, no one protested.
“Now look here. These three nerve strands converge, then split. One goes here, another here, and another over here.”
“It certainly does.”
“This is very detailed work. Do you actually understand the whole pathway?”
“Whoops.”
Liston chuckled at the polite response and continued. I knew he knew. In fact, all of my students and Professor Blundell knew. The level of precision he was demonstrating, though, was rare.
“This is just a theory. The nerve heading to the thumb likely controls all of this movement. The one heading to the ring finger affects this region. And the middle one… maybe it helps flex the entire hand?”
“Hmm… That seems likely. So you’re saying the nerves connect from top to bottom like this?”
“Yes.”
“Could it be the reverse, though? Going from bottom to top?”
“That’s possible too. But you can’t just cut them and test it, can you?”
Everyone went quiet at that. Honestly, I was not convinced it would not work. But Liston was not the type to take shortcuts. Not without reason.
“If we apply this knowledge to patients with nerve damage, we might find out.”
“Oh. Yes. Let’s try that.”
That was a wise answer.
Afterward, I took over and displayed the vascular system: arteries and veins.
Despite popular belief, arteries did not appear red. Their thick walls actually made them look white. Veins, though, often looked dark blue. Dissecting blood vessels was easier than dissecting nerves, and since my anatomical knowledge still exceeded Liston’s, I must have looked supernatural to them.
“And this, this much…”
By contrast, the Montpellier team’s specimen looked butchered. Good thing we did not have to literally cut theirs to pieces.
“Alright,” Liston said, surveying the room. “Everyone who thinks they did a better job, stand to the left. Those who think we did, come to the right.”
He laughed as he gestured. Some people actually started moving to the left, toward the Paguette crew. One man, who had been watching us the entire time and had even taken notes, was about to follow.
“Do you want to get kicked?”
Liston calmly walked over and asked him. Just once.
The man turned around and joined our side.
Others followed.
“Yes, yes…”
Watching them, I slung the sword Liston had gifted me over my shoulder.
What now?
The remaining students emptied their pockets in front of those standing on the right.
“What’s this?”
“Honestly… you learned a lot today, right?”
“Well, yes. It was supposed to be an academic exchange…”
“Academic exchange? What do we even learn from you? Miasma theory? You taught me about anatomy. You saved thousands during the cholera outbreak without asking for a penny. What did you ever do for me?”
“I…”
Joseph was the one leading them. He had been outclassed by Liston today. He was tall, well over one hundred seventy centimeters, and had recently received one of Liston’s old, rusty knives. And frankly, the scariest knife was not the sharpest one. It was the rusty one, especially if it was still coated in blood and fat.
“How much?”
“You dare put a price on human life and knowledge? That’s vulgar.”
“I—”
“You really don’t get it.”
“I’ll pay.”
Some of them tried to sneak back to the left, but Liston blocked the path.
“It’s voluntary. A donation. No one is forcing you. If you don’t want to give anything, don’t.”
He smiled kindly. The man trying to slink away turned pale and started stammering apologies.
“Yes, yes. Sorry!”
“Sorry for what? Haha.”
Once fundraising was well underway, Liston turned to the Montpellier group. Their leader finally seemed to understand the mood. They were clearly shaken.
I said we had done a good job, but in reality, this kind of crude knowledge was not enough. You could cut flesh, sure. But real surgery required finesse, depth, and understanding.
“I think we won the bet.”
“No… You threatened us…”
“A threat?”
“A knife!”
“You’re holding a knife too. Everyone here is armed.”
“But yours is… massive. A doctor doesn’t need a blade that size…”
Before the man finished speaking, Liston sliced through the leg of an untouched cadaver. He left only the bones. It was so fast it took less than thirty seconds, and that was with a live patient. With a corpse? A few seconds, tops.
“This… This really is Sword Master Liston…”
The man’s knees buckled.
But it was not just intimidation. It was psychological warfare. How else did people measure surgical skill in this era? With a cut. Even though anesthesia was just now gaining traction, and only in London, it had only been a month or two.
“How is it this clean…”
Watching that kind of amputation, even twenty-first-century surgeons would fall to their knees. It was too perfect. And Liston, looking down at the trembling man, continued:
“You have to pay the price.”
“A… great price?”
“Didn’t you bet money?”
“Sure. I understand. I’ll pay. Whatever amount you want.”
“Not here.”
“…Huh?”
“Let’s go home.”
“I—I have a wife and kids!”
“Good.”
It might have sounded villainous, but it was not. It only meant: You’re lucky you have something to go home to. It did not mean he would harm them or use them as leverage.
And so, we returned to London, pockets heavy with cash and reputation.
It was a city full of awful memories, but then again, Paris was just as terrible. Even so, my heart raced a little, like I was going back home.