Episode 99: Wuthering Heights…? [3]
A wound was a wound… but shouldn’t rabies be the top concern?
Thinking logically, Emily Brontë died around age thirty, so it seemed unlikely that she died from rabies. Still, when someone became seriously ill, the body inevitably weakened.
Her father doesn’t seem particularly wealthy…
Of course, if there was enough nutrition and access to care, and if the patient was young, full recovery was possible. But this was the nineteenth century. A world where even royalty died from preventable disease. I did not even need to see how someone from a fallen clerical family lived to guess the conditions.
Well… After this, she probably caught tuberculosis anyway.
If you asked me to name diseases that had plagued humanity throughout history, a few stood out right away. These days, they were mostly under control, but back then? Diseases like influenza, tuberculosis, syphilis, and malaria defined entire eras. They did not just affect public health. They reshaped individual lives.
“Let’s go. Let’s see how underweight you are.”
“Oh, yes. But… is that really effective? Shouldn’t it do more than just make me lose weight?”
I did my best to clean my hands before getting into the carriage. Liston was not coming with us. He had over six limbs to amputate today. I did not know if I should call that a relief… He already had such a fearsome reputation that he did not need to show up in the town square anymore. There was no dedicated operating room, so surgeries were still performed in the classroom. But at least that was better than cutting people open outside.
It rained last time while we were cutting.
Rain. If it fell in a rural village, maybe you could believe it was clean water. But this was London. Chimneys were everywhere, and black smoke poured from every rooftop. We made a fuss about acid rain in the twenty-first century… The rain here? Probably German.
“I think so. Better than doing nothing.”
“Well, if you say so… Alright, have a good trip. Rabies isn’t my business anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Hmm?”
“If the infection gets worse, I’ll just cut it off, so don’t worry.”
“Ah… yes…”
Right. How many times had tetanus followed a dog bite? Even if it was not tetanus, there were plenty of nasty infections to worry about. In a time without any concept of sterilization, much less antibiotics, Liston’s work was essential.
Still… I can’t believe they’re already thinking about cutting off a child’s arm.
Did Emily Brontë end up one-armed? I honestly did not know. That was something I needed to check. Hoping she had not, I took the carriage to the outskirts of London. On any other day, there would have been a good chance of drizzle. Thankfully, the weather today was dry, almost crisp. At least out here, the sun was visible.
In damp London, bread grows mold… Out here, brains dry in the sun. Let’s go with the two-track plan first.
Climbing the ladder to the rooftop in high spirits, I suddenly felt a little sad. Rotten bread and dried brains. How different was that from the herbs witches used in the Middle Ages? If I let my guard down even slightly, I might accidentally toss in some bat guano and call it a cure.
“Hmm. It’s dry. Hmm… Hmm. Is this okay?”
Trying not to lose my mind, I came back down holding the dried brain and medulla, doing my best to hold on to my sanity. The coachman, watching all this, clicked his tongue. It was obvious why. I probably looked like some medieval witch preparing strange concoctions. If I were anyone else and claimed I was going to feed this to a patient, they would have strung me up on a cross.
Dr. Liston… thank you…
The coachman was probably too terrified of Liston to speak up. Anyway, I packed the material and got back into the carriage.
“Let’s go.”
“Uh… yes. That’s… medicine, right?”
“Yes.”
Even then, the coachman kept asking. Honestly, even I was starting to lose confidence. Why did it look like this? Was it because I was too good at dissection that it ended up looking almost untouched? It really just looked like dried brain and spinal cord. Feed this to people…? Even sick ones?
Louis Pasteur… Did you really feed people stuff like this?
When people heard Pasteur, they thought of milk. But in terms of medical history, he was a legend. And he, that man, fed people this…?
“Oh. This looks like it’ll do something.”
“Right. Hmm… I think it’s probably good for your health.”
While I was turning that over in my head, we arrived at the hospital. Despite being London, the streets were relatively open. It was social season. Everyone who was rich, trying to look rich, or pretending not to be rich had gone to the countryside. That meant no horse-drawn traffic. Still, plenty of workers were out, wandering with dazed expressions.
“Move aside!”
At this time, “worker” basically meant “expendable,” so they scattered quickly at the sight of a carriage. I was not sure I should take credit, but we arrived early, and I got to meet our proud nineteenth-century doctors.
They were immediately fascinated by the dog’s brain and medulla that I had brought with me.
“Are you really saying that because it looks effective, not just to flatter me?”
“No, really. My mouth is watering.”
“Uh…”
His mouth was watering? Yeah, this was more disturbing than I expected. This century prided itself on being the “age of science,” but let’s be honest. It was still the age of superstition and barbarism. Strange foods, weird rituals, and the belief that eating bizarre things was good for your health were all too common. It was wild that in the twentieth century, they filmed documentaries like Mondo Cane as if scientific thought had already been invented.
“Well… I’m glad they think it’s useful.”
If they believed it helped, then it helped. How else was someone from the twenty-first century supposed to survive here? I forcibly pushed away any lingering doubts, gave a perfunctory “amen,” and turned to the patient. I did not check Emily first. The man bitten yesterday was more urgent. The bite was on his upper arm, not even the forearm.
The closer to the head, the faster rabies travels.
Rabies targeted the brain, so treatment had to happen before the virus got there. Even in the twenty-first century, a neck bite was practically a death sentence. And even without rabies, infections near the neck were dangerous.
“Ugh…”
He had been admitted to the amputation ward. Ideally, someone undergoing experimental treatment like this should be in the lab, but things happened. So in that sense, maybe it was lucky that Emily Brontë had been placed in what could only be called a VVIP lab room.
“Even here…”
Still, I started by offering some comfort. He was not acting completely unhinged yet.
“It’s rough, isn’t it? This is the amputation ward… There are a lot of very ill people.”
“No, more than that…”
“And you’re very sick too, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
Talking was easy, so I kept the conversation going as I examined the wound. It looked worse than I expected. As if the dog bite itself was not bad enough, it had been bandaged wrong too. At one point, I had thought that if Emily’s arm was too weak, amputation might reduce the risk of infection. But this? No.
His forehead looks fine… but the local fever is severe. And the skin barrier is compromised…
Only then did it hit me. Burns were a huge risk factor for infection. Blood was the body’s best defense, and burns destroyed that. This patient had gone from “bitten” to “burned,” and now the whole area was a disaster.
“Drink this first.”
Why the hell had they left the bandages on? If they were going to bandage it, they should at least use something clean. But no. It was a total mess.
“Let’s take it off now, okay?”
“Huh? Uh, oh—oh, oh!!”
This man had stayed conscious through the dog bite and even during probing with forceps… but now, with the bandage coming off, he fainted. Even though I had given him willow bark water. Honestly, it was not surprising.
“Ugh.”
That “bandage” was just a strip of random cloth, and it was fused with the raw flesh beneath. There had been no ointment, nothing. Just a dry, dirty wrap.
“Is this… okay?”
Joseph and Alfred were visibly disturbed.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“So… if anyone gets bitten, maybe don’t treat them like this…”
“Yeah… I suppose so.”
If the wound was small, sometimes doing nothing was better. But if there was active bleeding and exposed vessels, there was no choice. You had to act. Still, this… A wound this wide should not have been treated that way. Trying to treat someone should not make things worse.
Scrub. Scrub.
Despite my misgivings, and despite wondering whether this patient would even survive, I cleaned the wound as best I could. All I could do was wash it with boiled, cooled water and check for deeper damage.
“First, don’t cover it with anything. Leave it open.”
“Ugh!”
Even after wiping everything clean, it took time for him to wake up. I was drenched in cold sweat. It must have been excruciating. If willow bark water did relieve pain, it clearly was not enough.
“I’m sorry. But it had to be done.”
“Ugh…”
He looked at me, pained and angry, but trying to shout was pointless. Joseph and Alfred were already holding his arms. Well, one arm. The other arm could not move.
“This part is necessary too.”
Then I stuffed the dried dog brain tissue into his mouth.
Translator’s Notes
Rabies — A viral disease usually transmitted through an infected animal’s bite or saliva. Once symptoms appear, it is almost always fatal without modern preventive treatment.
Tuberculosis — A bacterial infectious disease that most often affects the lungs and was a major cause of death in the nineteenth century.
Influenza — A contagious viral respiratory disease that caused repeated epidemics and pandemics throughout history.
Malaria — A mosquito-borne parasitic disease that causes fever and systemic illness.
Tetanus — A serious bacterial disease that can follow contaminated wounds and causes painful muscle spasms.
Sterilization — The process of killing or removing microorganisms from instruments, wounds, or surfaces.
Skin barrier — The protective outer layer of the body. When damaged by burns or wounds, infection risk rises sharply.
Local fever — Heat and inflammation limited to one injured area, often indicating infection or severe tissue irritation.
Forceps — A grasping medical instrument used to hold, remove, or probe tissue.
Willow bark water — A traditional pain and fever remedy containing salicin, a compound related to aspirin.