Chapter 193: Hygiene Obsession [2]
“Aww!”
“This is what you call clean?”
“How can I make it any cleaner than this?”
“Fuck…”
Some time had passed. Initially, I think Liston had intended to renovate the entire hospital. But now, it felt like he had only gotten halfway there. Eventually, everyone was herded into the dissection room.
The scene inside was still grotesque. Maybe even worse than before.
On one side, the three corpses I had been practicing on were laid out in a row. Because they had been preserved in formalin, decomposition had been significantly delayed, so they did not look too bad. Of course, if any organs had been left behind, they would have rotted, but thankfully, those had already been removed.
Next to them, there was still a fresh corpse.
That could not be helped. Once you processed a body with formalin, it changed. I did not know if that was clearly documented in medical texts back then, but we did not have such a luxury, so I had to run two separate tracks. That was why the setup was so strange: the sharp chemical scent of formalin on one side, and the unmistakable stench of decay on the other.
“Oh, look at those rats. Wow.”
Naturally, the room was still infested with rats, flies, and maggots. On top of that, the vomit left by medical students and junior doctors who could not handle the smell was scattered all over the floor.
But the worst of it, by far, was the rats. Liston shook his head after seeing how many had been caught just today.
“Ack.”
And there were maggots crawling everywhere. Still, it felt a little better after we cleared them out. Not that it was actually clean. None of it had been properly disinfected. Just thinking about how many invisible pathogens might be floating around made me feel queasy.
“Oof.”
But it was not me who started gagging. It was Blundell.
“How many miasmas were in here?”
“Want me to get the microscope?”
“No, no. That’s enough. It’s fine!”
He waved off Colin’s offer and sighed. My gaze shifted beyond the dissection lab, toward the obstetrics and gynecology ward. Originally, this setup had been considered efficient. You could run directly from the lab to see a patient. And since obstetrics and gynecology was where many deaths occurred, it was also easy to move the bodies. Blundell probably thought it made perfect sense.
That is, until he learned about pathogens.
“I must have killed a lot of people.”
That was it. Blundell was not just sickened by the smell. His face, his voice, his whole presence was weighed down with guilt and self-loathing.
“I didn’t just kill a lot. This is why ‘butcher’ is more accurate than doctor.”
Liston, too, was unusually subdued. He looked deflated. That kind of defeated posture was foreign on someone like him, someone always so vigorous, so commanding.
“No way.”
“Holy shit.”
I started to worry. What if they both gave up on being doctors altogether? It would not be far-fetched. And yet Liston and Blundell were some of the most capable doctors of the nineteenth century. More than that, I genuinely liked them.
“We have to do better from now on.”
“Yeah, we do.”
But just like that, it was over. They both snapped back to their usual selves as if nothing had happened. They stood up and gathered the rest of us together, including me.
“Pyeong.”
“Yes?”
“That time, when I asked you to wash your hands.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you recommend lime chloride?”
“Ah…”
Oh.
So he had caught on.
That sharp old fox. He must have realized that cleaning alone would not eliminate all the miasmas. That line of thought must have eventually led him to remember how strongly I had insisted on handwashing.
I needed to be careful with my answer. If I simply said, “Oh, it’s good at killing pathogens,” that could cause complications. Between us, it would be fine, but if the idea spread too fast or too vaguely…
“I feel like we need something more aggressive.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
I tried to play it off with vague reinforcement, but it seemed to land perfectly with Liston. He suddenly became animated again, as if that earlier gloom had been a lie. He started pacing the cleaner, though still foul-smelling, dissection room, waving his hands with a wild energy that reminded me of a certain Austrian-born political figure from the future.
When people like Liston got passionate, things could spiral fast.
“It’s poison. We need something strong. Did you return the microscope yet?”
“Ah, not yet.”
“Good. Don’t return it.”
“Should we get rid of Sir Damien’s equipment?”
“Would he even notice? That man owns half of London.”
“Well… Yeah, probably not.”
He had been less active lately due to health issues, specifically urinary incontinence from an enlarged prostate. But lately, he had been moving around more. Maybe he was even out of town. In any case, he was too busy to notice.
“Alright. That’s settled. I like it.”
“You… like it?”
“It’s your homework. Pyeong, listen carefully too.”
“Uh… okay.”
“Each of us is going to find something poisonous. Tomorrow, we experiment. We’ll test the level of miasma before and after using it.”
“Aha…”
Right. This was how our doctors worked. They were obsessed with experimentation. These were people who poured contaminated water over themselves just to test miasma’s toxicity.
Terrifying, but effective.
They’re much better at experimentation than at theory…
Even when the Paguette men refused to listen, these methods swayed half of them. Granted, the other half probably caved because of Liston’s sheer intimidation, but still.
“Alright! Don’t just stand there. Get moving!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Pyeong, not you.”
“Huh? Why me?”
“I wasn’t going to show you this…”
At that, Blundell, Alfred, Joseph, and Colin bolted outside. I was about to follow when Liston stopped me. He handed me something.
A letter.
“You could die.”
“Uh…”
“I got one too.”
“Then your life’s in danger too?”
“Mine? Me?”
“…Oh.”
The letter was the same. But was I the target, or was Liston? If they were planning to go after Liston, they would need to paint him as a political enemy. Even then, what could they do? Shoot him? Guns of this era were laughably inaccurate.
This is still the age of line infantry.
I did not know much about military technology, but even I knew this much: no rifling, round bullets, poor penetration. I had seen it all in police stations. Nothing special.
“The police are aware. The chief is doing what he can, trying to calm down the people calling you a heretic, or worse. Some are saying you’re a Joseon wizard. Can you believe that?”
“Well…”
“Isn’t the proper term ‘shaman’ for Joseon?”
“That’s…”
“Oh right, you mentioned before that Joseon is full of mystical tales. Didn’t you say you can ride on something called a jakdu?”
“No, I didn’t. Anyway, I think I’m going to die if I walk around alone.”
The letter had been written in blood. It was violent and extreme. I was not an enemy of the world.
“You must die. Why must one doctor kill another?”
“Honestly, there are some I’d like to kill too. You did kill one of us, remember?”
“Huh? When did I—?”
“Butcher Harry.”
“Oh… He died?”
“Yeah. He was lying right here.”
“Ah.”
He was not just dead. He had been dissected here.
“So Harry had friends. And they’re the dangerous ones.”
“Then…”
“Wherever you go, stick with me. I’ve got a plan. Let’s go look for something.”
“Alright… sure.”
“If things get bad, you know what to do.”
“Y-yeah…”
What exactly were we looking for? My heart started pounding, not from fear, but anticipation.
And then I saw the list of items Liston had bought that day.
Hydrochloric acid. Sulfuric acid. Phenol.
This was not just going after miasma.
This was nuclear war.
These substances could sterilize everything, or kill someone just by being near them. Especially hydrochloric and sulfuric acid. Didn’t Harley Quinn go mad and become a villain because of something like this? I was pretty sure that was how it went.
Phenol… What even is phenol?
Maybe I had seen it on the news once. The smell alone had been enough to make me dizzy.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Just as I was about to collapse into bed from shock, Joseph and Alfred came in with flushed faces. They were carrying something. Behind them stood a large, well-built man.
“What’s going on?”
“There are multiple people after you. So we hired protection.”
“Ah… Thanks.”
He was a bodyguard, apparently from the Royal Navy. Judging by his build, I believed it. Maybe not special forces level by modern standards, but he definitely looked ready for a fight.
“What’s this?”
“You didn’t buy anything? Oh, right. You shouldn’t go into town if you can avoid it.”
“Yeah. It was too much… but kind of justified.”
“What are you asking?”
They both pulled items out of their basket. Alfred held up something strange and ominous-looking.
“What is it?”
“Brimstone.”
“Ah. Sulfur.”
Isn’t that toxic?
“What about you?”
“Me? Mercury.”
“Oh.”
“You know… it cured syphilis. Even if it killed the patient. Maybe it just killed the miasma first.”
The scary part? That was not entirely wrong.
Still, I already had some better things from France.
And things I hadn’t even considered yet…
I was not sure exactly what I would end up using, but whatever it was, it had to be safer than this.