Episode 64: Brain Experts [2]
Not five out of five, literally, five people came, and all five had phantom pain. For a moment, I thought, Wow, is the Prevalence Rate really 100%? But after calming down, I realized that wasn’t right.
Come to think of it… of course only the ones in pain would come.
It made sense, didn’t it? In twenty-first-century Korea, people went to the hospital for checkups or mild discomfort. But this hospital? In the nineteenth century? Fuck no. If you weren’t seriously ill, would you come here? If someone just dropped by casually, they would need their head examined.
“Aaaaaa!”
“Help me!”
Even now, I could hear screams from all directions. You might wonder, Aren’t they using Anesthetics? They were, but only for major surgeries. I warned them from the start, and Dr. Liston eventually stepped in too. People had died from misuse of anesthesia. In fact, even an eighteenth-century paper clearly stated that anesthesia, if used incorrectly, could be fatal. And still, people collapsed from it mid-procedure. It wasn’t until the director got involved that we decided anesthesia would be used for surgery only.
This hospital… is full of maniacs.
“Now then, shall we go somewhere quiet?”
I shook off the dark thoughts and stepped forward. The patients followed me without suspicion. They had no reason to doubt me. I was Dr. Liston’s first assistant, a mysterious genius doctor from the East, and the inventor of anesthesia.
I’m sorry…
We arrived at Dr. Liston’s lab. Of course, I had permission to use it, but even he probably didn’t imagine I would abuse it like this. Everyone must have been exhausted by now, including me. But this whole setup was possible only because I realized how efficient Liston was. Surgery was still ongoing in the central square. The back-and-forth alone would take an hour, and it wasn’t just one procedure.
He amputated four limbs in public.
It must have been quite the spectacle. That was why the director came up with a genius idea: charge admission. It was cheap, but the concept of paying to watch a surgery? Absurd, and brilliant. Still, I couldn’t waste the time that bought me. I quickly had the patients sit down. There weren’t proper seats, just knives and tools everywhere, but they sat on the floor anyway. That was how desperate they were.
But… my severed arm hurts.
In the twenty-first century, if someone said they had phantom pain, people would sympathize. Treatment options would be considered. But this was the uncivilized nineteenth century. Say something like “my severed arm hurts,” and you would be laughed at, told not to spout nonsense.
And honestly, it did sound that way. In a world with primitive science and no real understanding of the brain, that was only natural.
“First, let me ask your names.”
I started from the patient on my right. This one could barely recall anything. He had worked on the docks. After stepping on a rusty nail, he got tetanus, which went untreated and led to an arm Amputation.
Sigh… Tetanus. Another thing I’ll need to fix someday.
“Yes, my name is George.”
“Thank you, George. Next?”
The introductions continued. It turned out I recognized all five patients. I hadn’t realized I had been involved in so many Amputations. Wow… Still, all of them had heartbreaking stories. And every one of them was poor. What made it worse was that London, at this time, had no regard for the disabled. These were already impoverished laborers who had lost their arms or legs, and on top of that, they were now suffering from phantom pain.
So what… What am I really supposed to do?
I had to do something, not as a doctor, but as a human being. Joseph and Alfred looked different too, probably because they had heard the patients’ stories in detail. They were good kids. Kind-hearted enough to pursue medicine even when they had other options. That said a lot, especially in a country like this, where privilege and money could take you far.
“Let’s start with symptoms.”
“Well… it’s strange. I know I don’t have hands. But still…”
“It’s fine. Don’t feel embarrassed. Everyone here is experiencing the same thing.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Then let me ask again. What do you feel in the missing limb?”
“Oh, uh… sometimes it tickles. Other times, it really hurts. Even alcohol doesn’t help much.”
“Alcohol, huh…”
I wasn’t sure what effect alcohol had on phantom pain. Probably nothing good. But honestly, I had nothing better to offer.
Maybe I should dig into some old medical texts…
People underestimated old texts, but sometimes they contained surprisingly effective remedies. A new malaria drug was even developed from ancient literature and won a Nobel Prize. I remembered thinking, Damn, I should have done that. But now… maybe I could. I wondered if the Nobel existed yet. Either way, I would at least make it into the history books.
“Next?”
I kept asking questions. And the answers were remarkably consistent.
It made sense to me, but clearly not to the others. After a while, Joseph finally spoke, looking astonished.
“Pyeong.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t they really feel like they still have hands?”
“Yeah.”
“Exactly! All five of them said the same thing!”
At first, I wondered why they were getting worked up. But then I realized they had a point.
“Right? It’s fascinating, and kind of terrifying. It’s like they actually still have hands.”
“That’s it, senior. I got goosebumps too. It’s like seeing some fantasy creature…”
“But they all said the pain was real.”
“Yeah, maybe that earlier patient had his arm amputated again because of it.”
“That’s what I thought too. It’s so clear now… This isn’t just about pinched nerves.”
They weren’t just surprised. They were thinking. And honestly? They were headed in the right direction.
Turns out, just asking the right questions could reveal the answers. When I was a resident, I got scolded constantly, but now that I was doing it myself, it all made sense.
“Then what is this…”
“It’s like seeing a vision. Not just a hand. I feel like they can sense individual fingers.”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“No, I don’t know.”
They trailed off and eventually turned their eyes to me, as if I were Doraemon and about to pull a solution out of a pouch.
Honestly? They weren’t wrong.
At least in the medical world, I was the Doraemon of this century. Come to think of it, Doraemon was a twenty-second-century robot in the twentieth century. I was a twenty-first-century doctor in the nineteenth…
Wait, never mind.
“You’re not just imagining it.”
Roughly thirty seconds later, as they both stared at me, I spoke. If I waited any longer, it would just get weirder.
“Huh?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not just feeling pain. You’re sensing things. Tickling. Touch.”
I dropped it like a bomb. Could I explain everything? No. But it didn’t matter.
“Uh…”
“Hmm…”
They were confused, but that was enough. It meant old concepts were crumbling. And that was how progress happened. I didn’t know everything either, but this was clear: words alone weren’t enough.
You had to break things down completely.
“Two or more sensations at once. It can’t just be nerve damage.”
“Why not?”
“If it were just nerves, we wouldn’t get this full range of sensory confusion.”
“Ah…”
I couldn’t shatter their understanding all at once, so I adjusted to their level. Thankfully, they were already mentally unsteady. Now was the time.
“So, where do you think all of this comes together?”
“Uh…”
“The… head?”
“Exactly. I think the head is the source of it all.”
It wasn’t just knowledge. It was cross-era knowledge. We were probing the roots of brain science before brain science even existed.
“The head?”
“That’s unexpected…”
Maybe I had taken it too far, but they didn’t think I was a witch. Just confused. It was probably jarring, jumping from limbs to the brain. But I couldn’t help that. This was the right answer.
“Think about it. This is an illusion. They feel the pain, but the limb isn’t there. So where does the illusion come from?”
“From the arm or leg…?”
“Limbs can’t think. It’s the brain. The brain creates that illusion.”
“But the brain knows the limb is gone, doesn’t it?”
“Ah.”
And here we go… When did we even start distinguishing between the conscious and unconscious mind?
Even the brain makes mistakes when we eat.
The truth was, we had long known the brain was a flawed organ. But back then, people had an odd fascination with it, almost idolizing it.
Ah. Right. That’ll work!
Luckily, I remembered a simple way to create an illusion, something I had learned in the Air Force. Some military doctors had to go through pilot training to understand their environment. That was how I learned about flight illusions.
“Joseph, pick Alfred up and spin him around.”
“Huh?”
“Spin him.”
“Um… That doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“Just do it!”
Translator’s Notes:
Phantom Pain — Pain felt in a missing limb or body part after Amputation. It comes from the nervous system and brain rather than the missing limb itself.
Prevalence Rate — The rate at which a condition appears within a group. The narrator briefly jokes that phantom pain seems to affect every amputee present, then corrects himself because the sample is biased.
Anesthetic — A substance used to block pain during surgery or procedures.
Tetanus — A serious bacterial infection often associated with contaminated wounds, especially puncture wounds. It can cause severe muscle spasms and death if untreated.
Amputation — Surgical removal of a limb or body part.
Nerve Damage — Injury to nerves, which can cause pain, numbness, weakness, or abnormal sensations.
Conscious / Unconscious Mind — The conscious mind refers to thoughts and awareness a person can recognize directly; the unconscious mind refers to mental processes happening outside direct awareness.
Flight Illusion — A sensory illusion that can occur during flight, where the brain misjudges motion, direction, or balance despite the body feeling otherwise.
Air Force — A military branch focused on aerial warfare and aviation. The narrator references his previous-life training as a military doctor.
Doraemon — A Japanese manga and anime character, a robot from the future who produces futuristic tools from a pouch. The narrator uses him as a comparison for his own modern knowledge.
Nobel Prize — International award given for major achievements in fields such as medicine, chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and economics.