Chapter 33: Let’s Use It in Surgery! [1]
Chapter 33: Let’s Use It in Surgery! [1]
After finishing his prayer, Robert Liston sprang decisively to his feet.
His face was overflowing with killing intent.
In truth, it was probably nothing more than his single-minded determination to save a life, but that was certainly how it looked.
Anyway, Doctor Robert grabbed me, who had been standing behind him, and dragged me outside.
“Everyone, follow me! Colin! You too!”
The others were no different from me.
Even Colin, who had just had his tooth pulled and had only barely recovered from it, came along as well.
No, not just him. Even Blundell, who had been in the middle of a lecture, came out too.
“What on earth are you trying to do?!”
That reaction made sense.
Anyone would find it frightening.
A man who already looked scary to begin with was now stalking through the corridor with his eyes half-crazed, carrying a metal canister.
Inside that canister was Nitrous Oxide—laughing gas—and in his heart he held the noble thought of saving a life with it, but outwardly he looked exactly like a medieval knight carrying a mace.
It only made people want to stop him.
“To save a life.”
“You’ve got the face of someone going to kill one!”
“My face has always looked like this. Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”
“No, no! That is not the issue here. You’re far too excited! And the ward is over there. Are you planning to go to a patient looking like this?”
“I’m dressed just fine.”
“No, I mean…”
But the objection did not work.
Calling it a disheveled appearance would have been impossible, because he was actually neat and tidy.
His hair was combed properly, and he was wearing a suit.
No one wore gowns anyway, so that part was one thing, but still….
Ha… there’s still such a long road ahead.
Why had gowns come to be worn?
And why had surgical scrubs come to exist too?
There had been all kinds of incidents behind that.
If people kept dressing in such a haphazard way like now, accidents were inevitable.
What if some outsider came in, claimed he was operating on a patient, and killed them?
In an era when surgery and murder looked no different on the surface, that mattered all the more.
“Ah….”
Of course, my worries were just as meaningless as Blundell’s attempt to stop him.
One of my hands was caught in Doctor Robert’s grip, so I was simply dragged along.
“Sir.”
When I came to my senses, we were not just in a ward. We were standing right in front of a patient.
“Eeeeeek!”
The patient in front of us screamed as if he had seen the Grim Reaper himself.
Which was only natural.
A giant over 180 centimeters tall had appeared carrying a weapon.
Hmm.
Separate from that, to the eyes of a seasoned surgeon like me, it was not just the patient’s face that came into view, but also his leg.
His right foot was rotting away.
Come to think of it, he had been somewhat heavyset. He was probably diabetic.
He might even already have been diagnosed with diabetes.
Why?
Because, surprisingly enough, diabetes itself had already been recognized as a disease by this point.
Of course, no one had the faintest clue what to actually do about it….
Diabetic foot… if it’s this bad, it has to be cut off first.
Anyway, it had to be amputated.
If it had rotted that much, the infection would soon spread upward.
No, the patient might simply die before that.
It could lead to Sepsis, and since he already had diabetes, he could also die from hyperosmolar hyperglycemic syndrome.
It might already have been too late, but if anything at all was to be done, the leg had to come off.
“Why are you so startled? I’m not even holding a knife.”
“Wh-what kind of thing is that for a doctor to say?!”
“Then who else should say it?”
“Well….”
Maybe it was because everyone reacted with alarm the moment they saw his face, but Doctor Robert sounded even more aggressive than usual.
Anyone looking at him would think he had come to kill someone.
If you want to save him, you have to cut it off.
Of course, I knew this man’s true intentions, and besides, it had been a long time since our medical opinions had aligned this perfectly, so I opened my mouth.
“Sir.”
From the patient’s point of view, that was fortunate too.
No matter what, I looked much better to him than the fierce-looking Doctor Robert.
In London of this era, a yellow-skinned person was genuinely rare, and even that could be said to be thanks to Doctor Robert.
“Y-yes.”
He looked at me as though he had seen a savior.
Yes, this was it.
This was why I became a doctor.
“About your foot, sir. It’s rotting away, isn’t it?”
“Well….”
“If you leave it like this… you will die.”
“Won’t it just stay painful and inconvenient?”
I almost wanted to take back my words.
That kind of response….
It was just too far removed from common sense.
Of course, twenty-first-century South Korea had been an exceptionally good environment.
What other country had such a huge majority of its people receive higher education while also following public health guidance that well?
It was probably far better than America in that regard….
“No. Compare it to when you first came in. The redness has spread farther up than before, hasn’t it?”
Holding my breath against the smell, I rolled up the patient’s trouser leg.
The hem of the trousers was already soaked with pus.
Needless to say, the sheet beneath it was no better.
“Well… how do you know that…?”
“You didn’t know I go around the ward every day?”
He probably did not know.
It was a lie.
Especially over the past few days, I had not gone near the ward at all because I had been busy making gloves, dissecting corpses, and then going to that party.
Still, what I said was not technically wrong, was it?
Robert looked more startled than the patient did.
“You came every day?”
“Yes.”
I was a man capable of lying without batting an eye.
I felt no guilt.
If it was to save a person’s life… throwing away a little conscience was nothing at all.
“Well done. Doctor Pyeong is right. If you leave it like this, you’ll die. If this redness spreads further, you’ll die.”
Doctor Robert took up my words and explained it to the patient.
Though calling it an explanation was generous. It was almost a threat.
Was it because the patient did not know anything?
Or because of Robert’s face?
Or both?
“Die….”
“Yes, you will.”
“Ha…. Even so, I… that pain….”
It was having an effect.
Instead of recoiling the way he had before, the patient was hesitating.
That was perfectly understandable.
Surgery performed in the public square was practically an execution.
Not long ago, people had even charged money for the privilege of watching an operation.
That was how rare a spectacle it was….
It was that painful. But that won’t be the case anymore.
I met Doctor Robert’s eyes, then looked at the gas canister he had brought.
Robert chuckled and lifted the canister high with one hand.
The patient screamed, probably thinking he was about to be clubbed with the metal canister, but of course that did not happen.
No matter how much he looked like a human butcher, inside he was still a great physician.
“We can anesthetize you with this.”
“Anesthetize…?”
“It means we can operate without pain.”
“Huh…?”
“Still, just in case, call your family and say your farewells first.”
“Ah.”
It was consideration, telling him to say his last words just in case, but it did sound rather like a gangster threatening a man before killing him.
Still, the patient seemed to take it as genuine consideration, and asked someone beside him to call for his family.
In the meantime, Robert Liston informed the others in the hospital about the surgery he was about to perform.
Up to that point, there was nothing especially different from usual, so there was no reason for spectators to gather, but today there was one major difference.
“Anesthetic…?”
“I don’t know who deceived him, but… that bastard Robert is going to kill somebody.”
“Yet another patient is going to suffer for nothing.”
The response was not exactly enthusiastic.
If cynicism could be turned into a physical sensation, I felt it would look something like this.
And it made sense.
Hadn’t I studied quite a bit before figuring out the matter of laughing gas?
There really had been plenty of frauds up to now.
Hypnosis Anesthesia and the like….
“Well then… Pyeong?”
Anyway, I was standing in the square.
Calling it a square was generous. Because the surgery had been arranged so suddenly, it was not in the center of the city but in the small square in front of the university.
Maybe that was why—or maybe the words “anesthesia” had really worked—but an enormous crowd had gathered.
Right… one step at a time….
Common sense said that people should not be flocking in huge numbers just to watch flesh being cut open.
What?
If an infection breaks out because of this, are you going to take responsibility?!
I wanted to shout that, but what could I do?
This was simply the era.
Everyone was full of eager anticipation. If I said anything, stones might start flying at me.
Even Doctor Robert was wearing a face full of expectation.
“Yes?”
He had called my name, so I answered for the moment.
“Bring me the knife.”
“Uh….”
It sounded like something an executioner would say, but in this world, it was an enormous honor.
At least to those under Doctor Robert, it was.
It was no different from telling me to come in as an assistant surgeon.
So I glanced at the assistant standing behind Doctor Robert.
This bastard?
He had not actually said it, of course, but it felt as though his eyes were saying exactly that.
Not only that, some of the students standing behind him were also looking at me with open jealousy.
You son of a bitch?
Among them, Colin—whose healthy tooth had just been pulled—was glaring at me as if he wanted to kill me on the spot.
“Yes, I’ll bring it right away!”
Honestly, that was better.
Go on, be jealous.
The ones who say, Just wait and see, never turn out to be worth much anyway.
I should clean the knife while I’m at it.
He might get angry, saying I had wiped away the marks of his years of experience, but….
I can’t let the patient die for that.
I was planning to call it a mistake.
I had tripped on the way and accidentally dropped it into the Chloride of Lime they used for handwashing.
Even to me, that sounded absurd the moment I thought it through, but….
Doctor Robert might look like that, but he was a smart man.
He would hardly throw a fit over one cleaned knife in the middle of a historic first attempt at anesthesia.
Besides… if he operated with a cleaned blade, the surgery would probably go better….
Even scalpels commonly used in the operating room would grow slippery during surgery because of fat and oil from tissue.
And those were genuine surgical scalpels, sharpened to an extreme degree and produced through incredibly delicate processes, yet even they did that. A Liston knife would be no better—if anything, it would be worse.
Surely the skill of working metal in this era could not compare to the twenty-first century.
Did I clean it too much? It looks brand new.
As I rubbed the blade while thinking that, it became so smooth and gleaming that I started to worry Doctor Liston might feel upset when he saw it.
I even had the sudden thought that he might be upset enough to lop my head off, but….
I could not leave it unsharpened and uncleaned either, so I ran back with it anyway.
Flash.
The blade was clearly more than thirty centimeters long, longer than a dagger by a fair margin, but it had no sheath, so I simply ran while holding it.
The square happened to be blazing with sunlight.
Usually, that would not have helped much.
The blade would have had old clotted blood baked onto it.
But today was different.
“Oh….”
“As expected… Doctor Liston….”
The knife I had polished until it shone reflected a blinding light.
Of course, not everyone was pleased by that sight.
“No, my knife. My experience….”
Doctor Liston was so shocked that he could not finish the sentence.
“Waaah!”
But when he took the gleaming blade from my hand, cheers erupted, and perhaps because of that, Doctor Liston seemed to decide that this was actually a good thing.
In an astonishingly natural motion, as if this had been his intention from the start, he raised the knife high above his head and shouted, “Now then! Today, we are going to cut off this patient’s leg!”
He looked like a Roman gladiator.