Chapter 31: Laughing Gas Party [4]
Chapter 31: Laughing Gas Party [4]
“Surgery?”
Doctor Liston froze for a moment, as if the idea had never crossed his mind.
It was not just an expression, either. He really stood there in a bizarre posture, completely still, as if a person had glitched.
And he was staring at an awkward spot while doing it.
“Yes, surgery.”
I had a feeling this was a good sign.
Wasn’t it?
If I looked like that, I would never have hesitated once in my life.
People would have scrambled to obey on their own, so why would I need to bother?
But at this very moment, Doctor Robert clearly could not do anything at all.
“Wait… hm. That… as long as it’s not a dangerous gas… no, it doesn’t seem like it would be dangerous….”
On top of that, he started muttering to himself as if he had forgotten I was even there.
In twenty-first-century South Korea, seeing someone talk to themselves would not have been unusual, but…
This was nineteenth-century Britain.
Even the word macho was not enough to explain the culture here.
No, really, this was an era where men did things that looked like they might actually kill them just to prove their manliness.
And among them, Doctor Robert Liston stood practically at the peak, yet here he was, carrying on in a weak-looking mutter. It truly was astonishing.
“I’ve inhaled it at least four or five times already. Hm… mm… using laughing gas for surgery… mm….”
He was still at it.
Just when I was starting to get bored, and while I was too scared to say anything despite that, the professor grabbed my shoulder.
“Ah, ow. That hurts.”
“Have you tested it already?”
“Huh? No. I just thought it might… ow. That really hurts.”
“Ah. I see.”
Wow.
What kind of hand was that? Was it a hook? How did it hurt this much?
Only after Doctor Robert let go and I rubbed my shoulder for a while was I able to speak instead of groan.
It was definitely going to bruise.
Anyway, if I delayed any longer, it felt like other places would start bruising too, so I hurriedly opened my mouth.
“I came to you as soon as I thought of it, Professor.”
“Really? Hm. We should test it, then.”
“Ah, yes.”
A test.
Yes, talking to a professor had been the right decision after all.
He would have research funding, so we could buy lab mice and make them inhale it and do something or other…
To calculate the dose, we would need a scale, and we would need to measure the volume, and above all, we would need an instrument that could accurately calculate how much of the gas was going in.
Wow… even estimating roughly, this was not going to cost just a little money, was it?
It sounded like it would take an enormous amount of money.
“Would you like to do it?”
“Huh?”
Wasn’t that how doctors were?
Unless they opened a private practice, the moment money entered the equation, their minds tended to shut down.
I had been even worse because I had stayed at a university hospital precisely because I hated that sort of thing in the first place.
Even now, just the brief thought of money had made my vision go hazy.
And right then came the words, “Would you like to do it?”
“I’d be grateful if you let me.”
“Oh. Would you?”
It was better to do the experiment than calculate the cost.
Of course… it had been far too long since I had done anything with mice.
Still, I was a surgeon in name, so my hands were fairly delicate.
Even now, I was confident I could cut and reconnect a femoral artery without loupes.
I liked this body because it was strong in many ways, but among them, my eyesight was especially good.
“Excellent. Medicine will not forget your spirit of sacrifice.”
“Yes, sacrifice?”
Sacrifice?
I wondered what he was talking about.
If making time for an experiment counted as sacrifice, then Robert, you were far too generous…
There was no way. This was not that kind of era….
Even if Robert had lived in the twenty-first century, he looked like the kind of man who would exploit people somehow, didn’t he?
I had not actually been exploited by him yet, but that was just the impression he gave.
His build added to it too.
To begin with, weren’t colleagues like Blundell all getting worked to the bone by him already?
So the sacrifice this man spoke of had to be real sacrifice.
That lunatic isn’t planning to cut off my leg, is he…?
It sounded absurd.
But this era was a horrifyingly barbaric one, so I could not dismiss the thought outright.
It seemed like even the Roman era had not been this bad, yet for some reason the nineteenth century was.
“No, wait a moment!”
“Why?”
Fear swallowed my entire body.
I could not die like this.
Summoning my courage, I grabbed Doctor Robert, who had his hand on the doorknob and looked as if he really was about to go get a knife.
The doctor turned around, and I met his eyes.
If I mess this up, I might die right here….
I had never seen a tiger, but just looking into those eyes felt like it was enough. They were that fierce.
“Wh-what kind of sacrifice…?”
“Ah… were you not volunteering?”
No, I was asking what exactly I was volunteering for.
If it was the experiment itself, I would gladly do it.
I was confident I could run clinical trials better than anyone in this era.
But if I was the subject…
That was not happening.
Absolutely not.
Even if I yielded a hundred times and said I could live without one leg….
Would I survive the cutting?
I would not.
I was not that strong.
My white blood cells and antibodies would obviously never endure that man’s knife.
“What… exactly… am I volunteering for…?”
“Hahahaha! Did you think I was going to cut off your leg?”
Perhaps he had read the fear tangled in my eyes, because the professor burst into hearty laughter.
Watching that laugh made me feel a little relieved.
Still, maybe I had gone too far.
It was not as if he would just go around chopping off people’s legs.
And with the way he laughed, he did not seem deranged enough to say that and then actually do it.
So while I forced a smile, the professor abruptly stopped laughing and said, “I’ll pull out a tooth. Hah. People have plenty of those. Losing one or two won’t cause any problem.”
Wow….
This lunatic….
He was saying he was going to pull out a perfectly healthy tooth right now, wasn’t he?
Was he really a doctor?
What tissue existed for no reason?
Weren’t you a churchgoing man?
Even if not as a doctor… what? Wasn’t this the sort of era where people were supposed to think that God had not made any part of the body for nothing?
Who, exactly, were you offering grace before meals to?
Were you some kind of devil worshipper?
“Hah, don’t be so tense. If this really works, it won’t hurt. If it doesn’t, it will.”
Before even talking about pain…
Stop laughing while saying you’re going to pull someone else’s tooth….
It would have been wonderful if I had the courage to say that to his face, but unfortunately, I was not that brave.
I had already cowered and kept quiet in front of professors at a university hospital.
But I can’t let him pull my tooth… think, brain, think!
Still, I could not just stay silent and let him pull my tooth after making me inhale laughing gas.
So as I followed behind Doctor Robert Liston, who seemed oddly excited, I desperately turned things over in my head.
And as I kept thinking and thinking, I remembered that to these people, I was a Joseon man.
No, I really was a Joseon man.
Confucianism. Confucianism!
One’s body, hair, and skin were received from one’s parents.
Heh heh heh heh.
Yes, this.
This was it!
“Professor.”
“Yes?”
I quickened my pace and moved to his side.
I could not actually walk shoulder to shoulder with him.
The man was enormous.
“I am from Joseon, am I not?”
“That you are. I know that.”
I hurried along beside him.
“I must tell you, we in Joseon place the highest importance on filial piety.”
“So do we. Anyone worthy of the name should.”
“The… level at which we value it is beyond that. We must observe propriety in all things… and one part of that is the concept that one’s body, hair, and skin are received from one’s parents.”
“What are you talking about?”
He was looking at me as if to say, What nonsense is this?
He even stopped walking.
I would have done the same.
Just as he was about to take a great step forward in medical progress, here I was nitpicking at him again.
But I was the one who had made that step possible in the first place.
I had the right.
At the very least, I had the right not to have a healthy tooth pulled.
“Ah… in other words, everything received from one’s parents must be treasured?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you cut your hair?”
“Huh?”
Damn it.
I had struggled to explain it, and he understood it better than expected, only to fire back with a sharp question.
But my mouth had already started running, hadn’t it?
And it was not as if he knew any Joseon people besides me.
So I decided to just bluff my way through.
“Hair grows back, but teeth do not. So this is not something I can reproduce myself, is it?”
“That is unscientific.”
“But this is what we believe. It is not unbiblical, is it?”
“Mm… hm. Well… in that case, very well. If you insist on refusing the glory that would come from your own idea, I will not press you further.”
“Thank you for understanding. And I’m sorry.”
“Hm? No, not at all. It’s a good idea. Besides, there are volunteers everywhere.”
Volunteers everywhere?
There was no way….
He was talking about pulling healthy teeth.
Rattle.
As I walked along thinking that, we arrived at the lecture room.
Blundell was in the middle of class, so of course he was bound to be annoyed when the door opened during the lecture.
“Who… ah.”
But Robert Liston was truly a remarkable cure for anger-management problems.
Blundell suppressed his anger at astonishing speed and asked in a composed voice, “What is it?”
“Pyeong here has come up with an idea.”
But the expression he gave me was rather strange.
The idea I had proposed had definitely helped, but it had also made things troublesome for him in many ways, hadn’t it?
Now that I looked, his hands were chapped again, so he must have just come from the ward.
It would actually have been stranger if he were not irritated.
Of course, I was thinking of changing the guideline so that before surgery, and even before examining a patient, soap alone would be enough, but it was still too soon for that.
Until everyone was fully convinced that hands absolutely had to be washed, I intended to stick with this method, the sort that was obvious at a glance.
“Laughing gas. You all know it, yes?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Doctor Robert Liston continued.
“When you inhale it, the pain disappears… and he suggested that it might be used during surgery.”
“Hahahahaha! Don’t be ridiculous! It’s been around for years already… if that worked, people would have used it long ago!”
“So have you used it?”
“No.”
“Have you tested it?”
“No. Don’t glare at me like that. It’s frightening.”
At that, Blundell gave a hearty laugh, then lowered his gaze to the floor.
Doctor Robert Liston, having overwhelmed the lecture hall through sheer force of presence, continued speaking.
“So let’s do it. We make someone inhale it and pull a tooth, yes?”
It was not a reasonable idea.
What kind of experiment in the world did you conduct directly on a person without any lead-up…?
And for a tooth?
You lunatics.
“Ah. A tooth? That is a good idea.”
“Exactly. Teeth hurt. And pulling one does not cause any real problem.”
“Quite right, quite right.”
Whatever I thought, the two renowned professors of the medical school continued their discussion about tooth-pulling.
“Well then, who would like to volunteer? This is a chance to contribute to the progress of medicine!”
No, this was not a discussion….
What was I even supposed to call it?
Madness?
“Me!”
“Me!”
Apparently I was the only one who thought this was madness.
Everyone was raising their hands, and among them were my best friend Joseph and my dear senior Alfred.
Don’t do it… you lunatics… don’t raise your hands!