Chapter 30: Laughing Gas Party [3]
Chapter 30: Laughing Gas Party [3]
Did he just call it an old and utterly unremarkable gas?
I barely managed to suppress the urge to smack him over the head with the long rubber lump lying on the table.
Right. This man was a chemist, was he not?
In other words, not a doctor.
Old....
Even so, I could not get that thought out of my head.
Old.
If he was using that word, then it had to have been around for at least a few years, did it not?
And after making it, no one had thought to use it as an anesthetic?
This really... can’t be the same Earth I used to live on.
How could it be?
The people on the Earth I lived on were not this stupid.
“Don’t get too interested in it. Laughing Gas... if someone gets too deep into it, it can ruin them a bit. Just use it for parties. It’s difficult to make without equipment anyway....”
While I stood there in shock, the Chemist went on spouting his own nonsense.
No.
Not quite.
Calling it nonsense felt a little unfair.
If someone really got hooked on that gas, it probably would not be very good for them.
It could leave long-term aftereffects.
Didn’t anesthetics always have rumors like that attached to them?
And if you looked at it clearly, they were not entirely just rumors.
There were reports that some of the older ones affected the brain to some degree.
I did not know whether this gas was like that too....
But it was obviously cruder than what I had used before.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I tried it yesterday.”
“What do you mean, not what you mean? If you tried it yesterday, that only makes it worse. It really looks like you’ve gotten into it... and for someone so young to start already, that’s trouble. No, not even that young. How old are you?”
Apparently, the habit of seeing East Asians as younger than they really were was not limited to the twenty-first century, because this man also started in on my age.
Of course, that was useful sometimes.
It was perfect for being called a genius.
Honestly, even to me, compared to Joseph and Alfred, I looked like a kid.
“I’m fifteen.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes.”
“No, how can someone who’s grown enough still look this young?”
“Well... I was born this way. Anyway, that’s not the point. You really do know Nitrous Oxide well, right?”
“I know it.”
If I left it like this, it was obvious we would end up with nothing but nonsense until the end.
So I asked the question again.
Maybe my face looked desperate, because the Chemist nodded.
He still looked indifferent, but at least it was better than before.
“When was it discovered?”
“That... when was it? I think it came out in the 1700s.”
“What?”
“Why? Didn’t I say it was an old gas? There’s nothing much to it. You inhale some, it lifts your mood... that’s all. Since it gets used for parties, it can make money if you have some manufacturing ability, but by now everyone makes too much of it anyway.”
When he said the 1700s, my mind went blank for a moment.
Even if it was old... I had only thought it had been around for a few years....
Right?
I had not expected it to be several decades old.
If it had been that long, should not at least one person have tried using it as an anesthetic instead of just at parties?
“Then... it wouldn’t be especially difficult to get separately, would it?”
“You’re full of thoughts about inhaling it. I can’t get it for you for that reason.”
“I’m telling you, that’s not it.”
“What do you mean, it’s not? When I first experienced it, I was desperate too. But if you endure it, it gets bearable.”
“Hah.”
This bastard.
Should I just whack him with the rubber?
No, and why did he make the rubber this big?
I asked for a condom, and he made a club.
Is he really that capable?
“That’s not it... I tried it yesterday, and I noticed you don’t feel pain.”
“You don’t just fail to feel pain. You fail to know all sorts of things. It’s a harmful gas. Don’t go thinking of working while inhaling it. It’s really only for parties.”
Oh.
So he did know it made pain disappear?
But... he still had not thought of using it as an anesthetic.
Well... fine. Fine.
That could happen.
“Since I’m a medical student, something other than parties came to mind.”
“And what might that be?”
“Anesthesia... I thought maybe it could be used as an anesthetic.”
“Anesthetic...? Hm... hmmm....”
At my words, the Chemist fell into thought with one hand on his chin.
I did not know whether this was really something that required such deep thought, but the one in a hurry was me, not him, so I waited.
I ended up waiting longer than I expected and got irritated, and the answer he finally gave only made me more irritated.
“There was... someone who suggested that.”
“Oh, really?”
“Humphry Davy. In fact, I knew him. He was a professor I studied under. A rather excellent chemist.”
“You even knew the person? Then introduce me.”
“He’s dead. Since last year.”
“Ah.”
So he was dead.
Why did geniuses always die young?
Surely I was not going to die young too just because I had been born into this era?
That had better not happen.
“Then... was there a paper published on it?”
“There was. In 1800, I think.”
“What? That long ago?”
“Yes. Thirty years ago, now that I think of it. Anyway... he did say things like that, but no one really cared.”
“Mm... then hasn’t any doctor tried it experimentally?”
A little of the wind went out of me.
If a paper had already been published back in 1800, I found it hard to believe doctors of this era had not tried using it.
Were they not exactly the sort who loved experimenting?
Just looking at Robert Liston, he went around with something called the Liston knife.
Maybe... it dulled pain enough for getting hit with a club, but not enough for surgery.
So I looked at him with a worried expression, but the Chemist merely shrugged.
“Other than that, I don’t know of any papers. I don’t know.”
“Mm... then I’d like to try an experiment.”
I pictured the experiment in my head.
I would have to start with animal testing.
Make them inhale it deeply, try some simple procedures and manipulations, and if it really seemed to work, then try it again with volunteers among those who actually needed surgery.
Wouldn’t something like that work?
In the twenty-first century, I would have needed IRB approval and all sorts of complicated procedures, but this era did not seem like it would have anything like that, so I ought to be able to try it much faster.
“An experiment... hm. You really don’t mean you want to inhale it yourself, do you?”
“No, I’m really telling you that’s not it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could be used as an anesthetic gas during surgery?”
“Well, yes, that would be. But would it really work? If anesthesia were that easy... everyone would have done it. You could be called a fraud for trying that.”
There was probably a reason he brought up fraud.
Was it last year?
Apparently Robert Liston had half-killed someone, and they said that fellow had been a fraud.
It seemed he had spouted nonsense about using Hypnosis Anesthesia....
Honestly, half-killed? He could have killed him outright and it would have been fine.
“I’m only trying an experiment, that’s all. I’m not trying to get any huge reward out of this.”
“Hmm... well, if that’s how you mean it... hold on a moment.”
“What, you have it here?”
“Do you think research is easy?”
The Chemist pointed with a sour face at the black heap of rubber on the table.
Certainly... if the goal was a condom, then with products looking like that, he still had an unbelievably long way to go.
What was he supposed to achieve with those things?
Just the thought of covering something with that was horrifying....
“If you keep at it, the stress piles up too much.”
“Yes, yes. I understand.”
“I’m giving you something valuable. Understood?”
“Yes, yes. Thank you.”
“Pay me back later, certainly. From what I can see, the boss isn’t exactly stingy... so there’ll be a share for you too.”
“Yes.”
He talked a lot.
And seemed to have a lot of complaints too.
Still, what was fortunate was that even while grumbling like that, he had gone and brought the item out.
It was not a large gas cylinder like the one I had seen yesterday.
It was a small canister.
“How much is in it?”
“How much? Well. If you’re using it by yourself, it’ll last a few days.”
“A few days meaning....”
“When I’m stressed, I inhale it once or twice a day.”
“No, what exactly does a few days mean?”
“You’re a fussy one. About ten times, I’d say.”
A scientist, and he said things like a few days and once or twice.
The nineteenth century really was still a long way off.
It was like an era that seemed on the verge of becoming something, yet stopped in the middle.
“So... that’s Laughing Gas?”
“You were really worked up yesterday. Then again, you were beating Colin up.”
Anyway, once I came back out carrying the canister, Joseph and Alfred rushed to tease me as though they could not be outdone.
You bastards... the great progress of medicine might happen today.
That was what I wanted to say.
But did that not sound a little too much like the talk of a quack?
So I held it in.
Wouldn’t it be enough just to run the experiment?
I had even obtained the paper from the Chemist.
A paper written by Humphry Davy in 1800.
Because it was such an old paper, it looked like it might crumble apart at any moment, and because what it contained seemed precious, I was carrying it as carefully as if I were bearing a sacred treasure.
“Please drive the carriage slowly.”
“Yes, yes. Because you need to inhale your gas.”
“Ha ha ha.”
The brats only got more excited teasing me when they saw that.
Thinking I would get them back later, and at the same time taking care not to let the paper fall apart, I read through it in the moving carriage.
Most of it was useless, really.
But it also contained exactly what I wanted.
He did at least... experiment on people, didn’t he? Painlessness, delusion, anesthesia, Respiratory Arrest... hm. How did he identify stage four Respiratory Arrest... wow... someone died?
It certainly was a bold era.
To think someone died during the experiment.
And yet he could still go on working as a professor without issue.
I stared out the window for a moment in shock.
“Hey, give me back my money!”
“Get lost!”
Just then, a pickpocket was running away.
Behind him, black smoke was billowing upward.
Farther behind that, a black river was flowing.
Looking at that scene, a thought suddenly came to me.
Right... when people experiment, one person dying can happen.
This was the nineteenth century, was it not?
An apocalypse.
Rattle.
In the meantime, the carriage stopped once more in front of the medical college.
I took a deep breath, left the paper in my seat, took only the gas canister, and went to find Robert Liston.
“Hoo... come in.”
He had apparently just finished killing someone—no, surgery—because he was taking a deep breath.
The vivid streaks of fresh blood splashed across his face stood out immediately.
For an instant, I wanted to run, but I had no chance.
“What is that?”
He asked the question.
Then I had to answer.
“Laughing Gas.”
“So you liked it yesterday, I see. But restrain yourself. You bear tremendous responsibility for the advancement of medicine. Don’t waste talent like that on something like Laughing Gas.”
“No, that’s not it... didn’t I accidentally beat Colin yesterday?”
“Ah, what on earth happened? He couldn’t even come to school today.”
“Ah.”
So I had beaten him that badly.
And even so, he still had not known.
Suddenly hope started surging inside me.
“I don’t remember that part either... but one thing is certain: Colin didn’t feel pain while I was hitting him.”
“That’s how Laughing Gas is.”
“Then couldn’t this be used during surgery?”
“Hm?”