Chapter 42: I Hear Something Strange [1]
Chapter 42: I Hear Something Strange [1]
It was a rather horrifying treatment, but unexpectedly, it worked, and I managed to overcome the headache.
“What now?”
“Hmm.”
That did not mean the director’s pressure had disappeared.
For a moment, I even thought it might have been better if I had undergone the bloodletting treatment instead. At least then I would have fainted, and since it would have hurt badly, maybe I could have bought some time.
“Oh, he died?”
“Ah…”
At the words that the patient who had been thrashing around earlier had ultimately passed away, my head turned on its own.
Damn it.
A hospital where people really did walk in alive and leave dead.
That was far too horrific to use as a way of faking illness.
“Uh… Professor.”
At that moment, someone entered the laboratory.
Judging by how hesitant he looked, he seemed to be bringing troublesome news.
“What is it?”
“A telegram has arrived. Um, they say your grandfather is in critical condition…”
“What?”
It was not merely troublesome news. It was bad news.
“Then it can’t be helped.”
At the same time, the director’s pressure vanished in an instant.
No matter how blinded the director was by money and fame, what could he possibly do if someone was dying?
Of course, anesthesia was possible, so he could have mobilized another doctor, but Dr. Robert Liston’s reputation was greater than expected.
Most patients insisted that if it was not Dr. Robert Liston, they would not undergo surgery, so the director finally had no choice but to abandon the operation.
“We’ll talk later.”
“Yes, Director.”
Dr. Robert Liston’s eyes were slightly bloodshot.
Normally, when an ordinary person looked like that, one ought to feel sympathy, but our doctor looked terrifying even like this.
You’re already grieving, and you want to pick a fight?
Do you want to die?
That was the kind of atmosphere he gave off.
The director had probably said those words and fled only because he was scared.
“Um…”
“It’s all right. He was already very old…”
“Yes. Even so… you should go quickly, so you won’t have regrets.”
“Regrets.”
Even in front of him, however, I was able to speak.
How was that possible?
Because I had already spent quite a long time living as a doctor.
And if those years were long, that meant I had delivered a great deal of bad news as well.
At the same time, it also meant I had witnessed many people’s final moments, and the ones who stayed beside them at the end.
“Yes, that’s well said. I should go quickly.”
“Yes.”
“While I’m gone, there probably won’t be any cadavers coming in… so for now, just review what you’ve learned. Listen well to the other professors besides me. Especially Blundell. He can be rather gruff… so do as he says.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“You can call me hyung. No one else is here, right?”
“Ah… yes, hyung.”
Death was not the sort of thing one could avoid.
That was true even in the twenty-first century.
No, if anything, it was only in the twenty-first century that people truly began to think seriously about how to die well.
Even in South Korea, my proud homeland, wasn’t it only then that hospice wards finally began to take root?
I had never worked in hospice myself, but since it had become such a major trend, I had still picked things up in passing.
“Please speak a lot into his ear. In Joseon… that is how we send someone on their final journey.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
Dr. Robert Liston probably had no idea what I was talking about just now.
That was only natural.
Who could possibly know whether hearing was really the last sense remaining in a human being?
In an age where everything was vague, expecting that was not merely unreasonable. It was almost cruel.
Anyway… that suddenly leaves me with a lot of time…
Dr. Robert Liston hurried out at once.
He said he was fine, that his grandfather was old anyway, but death was right at his grandfather’s doorstep.
If a person remained perfectly composed in that situation, that would have been stranger.
“I heard the professor’s grandfather is in critical condition?”
“He rushed out in a real hurry.”
“Hey, maybe this sounds bad, but… doesn’t that mean we’re free?”
“Uh… I guess so?”
The moment I returned from the laboratory to the lecture hall, Alfred and Joseph came over to my side and said this.
They said words spoken without feet travel a thousand li, and apparently rumors spread quickly even in this era.
He had only received the telegram a moment ago, so how had these bastards already found out?
“Should we review a little… and then fool around?”
“But if we’re going to fool around… earlier, Colin and his lot were heading to the anatomy lab.”
“Ah.”
“I just don’t want to lose to those bastards for no reason.”
I had kept my mouth shut the whole time, and the two of them had carried on the conversation on their own.
I quite liked that last remark.
That’s right.
Losing was not an option.
Especially not to a bastard like Colin.
We absolutely could not lose to some idiot getting teeth pulled to prove anesthetic gas worked.
With me here, how could we possibly lose?
Those two were probably only saying it out of stubborn pride, but I genuinely could not allow it.
How could we lose when we were with the best doctor in the world?
To some nineteenth-century hack at best?
Not even to a truly great physician, but to a medical student?
That was out of the question.
No one’s around to watch us anyway… should we go for it?
Dr. Robert Liston was gone.
Blundell?
That man had no intention of dissecting anything except pregnant women.
In other words, it was not that he wanted to study dissection itself. He only wanted to determine how a pregnant woman had died.
Well… considering what professors were like, that was understandable.
From my point of view, he was strutting around with less knowledge than even the students, but when people knew little, it was easy for them to think they knew everything.
Right, let’s do this.
The other doctors were not the sort who came and went from the anatomy lab all that often, either.
Of course, they might drop in once or twice, but there was no one who practically lived there the way Dr. Robert Liston did.
That was because surgery still was not especially celebrated in this era, and as a result, anatomy was regarded less as a clinical discipline and more like a liberal education subject.
That would change tremendously in the future, but for now, that was how things stood.
“All right, shall we go then?”
When I opened my eyes, the two of them were looking at me.
They wore expressions as though they were awaiting their master’s approval.
Joseph was my classmate, but even Alfred, who was my senior, looked at me that way.
That meant my skill was the best, and that was why I liked Alfred.
Creak.
The moment we opened the door and stepped inside, Colin and his group came into view.
I wondered what they were doing, and sure enough, they were making a complete mess of things.
It seemed they wanted to do it the way I had done it…
As if that were easy.
Bastards.
They should have cut and separated only the flesh, but since they had cut into some of the muscle as well, there was no way the dissection would come out properly.
Unlike what I had done, blood was streaming out, and more than anything, it did not look good at all.
That was only natural, with torn muscle exposed beneath the fascia.
In that state, how could anyone tell which muscle was which?
I can.
Unless one was as thoroughly versed in anatomy as I was, it would have been difficult.
Well… I could not take responsibility for those bastards too.
I had no intention of objecting if they came to their senses and learned by secretly watching from the side.
Whatever happened, they would all become doctors with time, so was it not better for them to learn now than later while practicing on patients?
Still, it did not feel right to go over and tell them to learn, when they were obviously going to start pulling more nonsense.
“All right. Before we go down to the forearm, let’s look at the muscles first.”
I picked up the forceps instead of the knife.
Then, starting from the point where the biceps began, I traced all the way down to its end.
“Now then, muscles start at the shoulder and attach downward.”
“How do you know the shoulder side is the point of origin?”
I had thought I was saying something obvious, but an unexpectedly fresh question came back at me.
Fortunately, I could handle it.
“Look here. If we say it starts below, then it would have to move based on this point, right?”
“Hmm.”
“Then the arm would contract in a direction that pulls the body, wouldn’t it?”
“Ah…”
“Strange, right? So it makes more sense to say it starts here.”
“But how on earth do you even know all this…?”
“I’m close with Dr. Robert, aren’t I? And I’ve read some books too. I’m not called an anatomy genius for nothing. Some things feel like I just know them, even without being taught.”
If Dr. Robert had been here, I would never have been able to gloss over things this roughly, but he was not here now.
So while he was gone, I decided to teach them the accelerated version.
Fortunately, both of them genuinely regarded me as a real genius.
“Well… you were good at frog dissection from the beginning.”
“And you treated me too.”
“And the anesthetic…”
“And dissection too.”
So they let it pass.
“So this muscle is the one that bends the arm. The muscle underneath plays a similar role, but it’s smaller… and shorter too, right? This one is the main one.”
“Oh…”
“Compared to that, what about the back? This muscle with three heads.”
“This one… hmm.”
Joseph blinked and ran his hand along the muscle from where it began to where it ended.
“Does it extend?”
“That’s right. It extends the arm.”
“Ah.”
“Obviously, anatomy is science too. Muscle movement is all logical. All you need to know is where it starts and where it ends.”
After teaching them the triceps and biceps, I picked up the knife.
Now it was time to dissect the lower arm, in other words, the forearm.
Sliiice.
Perhaps because the cadaver had decayed a little more than before, it no longer cut with a clean, smooth feel.
Maybe bacteria in the subcutaneous fat had multiplied or something, because there was a slight amount of suppuration.
Naturally, the muscles had also darkened to a blackish color.
Damn it.
Did they have formalin in this era…?
Thinking that I absolutely had to look for it later, I moved the knife for the time being.
By tomorrow the body would be even more rotten, so should I not look at as much as possible today?
“This area will be more complicated than above.”
“Why?”
“Look carefully. The fingers have to bend and straighten, right? They also have to close and spread apart. And the wrist moves too, doesn’t it? So that means there are more muscles, and they’re more complex.”
“Ah… I guess so. If the movements are complicated, the muscles must be complicated too.”
“They have to be.”
“Ohh…”
Even while talking, I was concentrating as much as possible.
Why?
Because this was not merely a complicated area.
It was important.
In many ways.
If surgery ever had to be done here… there were far too many structures that must not be damaged.
So I proceeded carefully, separating layer by layer.
As a result, even though decay had already begun and dissection was not easy, I somehow managed to show these two muscles that still looked intact.
“Oh…”
“This one only flexes the wrist.”
“This one is for the fingers.”
“Huh…? That’s odd. It feels like the heads of the finger-flexing muscles are kind of attached together.”
Naturally, the two of them were excited.
Where else could they ever have seen something like this?
“Now then, this is the artery that was in the upper arm… but as it comes down, it seems to split into two. One goes toward the thumb side, and one toward the ring-finger side. If we look inside… oh, they connect. Does that mean even if only one of the two remains, blood can still reach the hand for the time being?”
Pretending not to know while knowing full well was not easy either.
“You sent him to the hospital because he had a headache, and they killed him? And then they sent him here without even our permission? Aren’t these people completely insane?”
Of course, that was not the only difficult thing.
The bereaved family had arrived.
Angrily.
Wow… they’re saints.
If it were me, I would have stabbed Jémel or whatever his name was first.
That lunatic killed someone and then sent the body to the lab without even informing the family?
Wow…
That was all I could think.
Anyway, the bereaved family retrieved the body, loaded it onto a cart, and headed for the grave.
One of the feet was sticking out slightly, which made it look rather eerie.
Maybe that was why?
It looked like it just moved… I must have imagined it, right…?