Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Heart Pounding (3)
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Knock. Knock. Knock.
A cautious knock.
Who could it be? If it were the princess, she wouldn't have knocked at all. If it were a fellow professor, the knock would have been firmer.
Estina would have muttered something to herself as she barged right in. She doesn't need my permission to enter the lab, after all.
"Uh, hello. Is the professor in?"
It's an undergrad!
I straightened my tie, then stood and carefully opened the door. The undergrad who'd come to see me today was—
Amy. Oliver seemed smarter from what I'd seen so far. But that didn't matter. Effort was what counted.
If there were zero participants, just showing up at the competition would make you the winner. As of today, the top student in the undergrad class was Amy.
"Here for grad school?"
"Me?"
"Have a seat first."
"Okay."
A lukewarm reaction.
What a shame. So, Amy, if you're not here for grad school, what's the errand?
"What brings you here?"
"Hello. I heard you're doing a human anatomy dissection practical this time, so I came because I'm curious about how it'll be done."
It was an open secret that academy healers conducted dissection practicals.
From the start, I'd been able to buy a corpse right away from the execution grounds once I revealed I was a professor in the academy's Healer Faculty.
It was socially taboo, but necessary all the same. People in this era simply didn't understand what organs did or how they worked—though the history of human dissection itself was actually quite long.
"So, you want to observe the dissection practical?"
"Yes."
"No thoughts on grad school?"
"Not yet. Can't I decide after graduation?"
"No. Look, Amy. The earlier you prepare, the better off you are. For your career, and grad students even get paid. Plus, committing early makes graduating ahead of schedule way easier, you know?"
"W-Well..."
"Speak freely."
Amy muttered something quietly.
"If it's so great, why doesn't anyone do it?"
Checkmate. Right on the mark.
This kid was too sharp. That was why quick-witted undergrads were such a pain.
"I don't know either. Maybe they had the wrong professors, lack passion for scholarship, or just aren't smart enough?"
"Uh..."
Amy took the tiniest step back.
"Anyway, come to the underground dungeon at midnight tomorrow. You can bring up to two other students. Paper and pen are musts, along with masks and gloves."
"Got it."
Too bad—grad student recruitment failed again today.
Amy left my lab. I stared at the back of her head. Still, I had to prepare for the dissection class as planned.
And then, it was midnight. Estina, Amy, and Oliver were waiting in front of the underground dungeon.
"Oh, everyone's here."
"Hello."
"Greetings, I'm Oliver."
"Amy here."
A murmur of greetings.
We needed to prove the existence of capillaries.
That was today's goal.
We'd confirm the positions of the major blood vessels in the cadaver, observe the differences between arteries and veins, and slice liver tissue to examine under the microscope.
No blackboard was a bit of a shame.
The underground dungeon was cold. A good thing—any warmer and the corpse might have started decomposing.
We suited up.
Aprons, gloves, plague doctor masks, black robes.
"Let's start the dissection."
"Wh-Who's this?"
"No idea. From the execution grounds."
I didn't know. We'd had a similar conversation last time, but there was no way for me to find out. I'd just received the body after execution.
"Today's plan: We'll remove and observe the heart, confirm the positions of the major blood vessels, and prove that blood circulates."
Amy immediately frowned.
"Blood circulates?"
"Yeah."
"But aren't arteries and veins not connected to each other? How does it circulate?"
Good question. That was what we were about to see.
"Let's open it up first."
"How?"
With scissors.
I opened the chest cavity and began snipping through the ribs one by one with the shears. This corpse seemed in better shape than the last.
"Amy. What does the heart do?"
"Pumps blood throughout the body."
Correct so far.
"Right. That's true, but do you know where the blood entering the heart comes from?"
"The liver makes it, right?"
Half right, half wrong. An adult liver only produces some blood components. Blood leaving via arteries returns to the heart through veins.
That was the issue. People back then weren't idiots. It wasn't entirely wrong to say all veins passed through the liver.
Veins from the digestive tract carry nutrient-rich blood to the heart via the portal vein. Half-right claims were hard to refute.
"Long story short: The heart beats to send blood throughout the body. After circulating, the blood returns via veins."
"But there's no evidence connecting veins and arteries. Even if there's some link, shouldn't we see them as separate?"
"Well, let's take a look."
Having done it once before made it easier.
I cut out the heart and handed it to Oliver.
Too bad, but to see the aorta properly, we had to remove the other organs. I began slicing them out one by one.
Estina helped.
"Just yank them out. No choice."
"Okay."
Time passed.
"See? The aortic arch is right over the heart, and the thoracic and abdominal aorta come up from below, right?"
"Hard to see."
"Feel around inside with your hand. Yeah, that's the aorta."
Oliver squinted but followed instructions.
"That's the aorta. You know every artery has a vein pair, right? This is the inferior vena cava."
"Yes."
"Veins enter the heart, arteries exit. You all know that much."
Amy and Oliver nodded.
"Fill the heart with water. See how much it holds?"
I submerged the heart in water, squeezed it a few times to expel air and clots. The water that filled it poured back out when I squeezed again.
"About this much. Over 100 milliliters. The heart beats once or twice a second, so that's 6 liters a minute, 360 liters an hour."
The volume of blood passing through the heart was about 6 liters per minute. Obviously, the liver couldn't produce that much.
"Ah."
"Exactly. The liver making 6 liters of blood a minute is ridiculous. The substances entering the liver aren't even that much per second."
"I see..."
"The liver's volume is under 2 liters itself. No organ in the body can produce that much blood."
I handed Estina the liver from the cadaver next to the dissection table. Three vessels passed through the liver: hepatic artery, hepatic vein, and portal vein.
Estina examined it.
"See? Three major vessels moving blood in and out of the liver: artery, vein, and the portal vein carrying nutrients from the intestines."
Amy looked puzzled.
"So... blood just circulates through the body like plumbing? Not made, consumed, and absorbed inside?"
"Pretty much."
She looked skeptical. Of course—overturning conventional wisdom wasn't easy.
"That's so different from what the academy teaches."
"They're wrong."
Now Oliver raised his hand.
"Then there has to be a section outside the heart where arteries and veins connect, right?"
"Yep."
"Professor, you know blood in arteries and veins differs in form, shape, and properties. They must be separate anyway."
That was the problem. Arteries and veins connected via capillaries, scattered throughout the body. Hard to observe, sure.
But we had a microscope.
"Hand me the liver."
I took up the razor again and sliced the liver tissue thin, like slicing for microtomy. Thin enough for light to pass through.
"Estina. Got the microscope?"
"Brought it, but no stain."
"Estina. What are we observing right now?"
"Blood vessels."
"What's in blood vessels?"
"Uh, blood?"
"What color is blood?"
Aha. Estina muttered softly. If the goal was viewing vessels, no stain needed. Hemoglobin was the stain.
"Alright... let's see."
Logically, it made perfect sense.
The liver was one tissue dense with capillaries. We placed the liver slice under the microscope and spotted them immediately.
Red blood cells lined up single-file in the capillaries. Some were narrower than the cells themselves, forcing the RBCs to squeeze through deformed.
"That's the essence of blood."
"Those round little grains are blood?"
"Yeah. Red blood cells."
This would put to rest ideas of blood being consumed. It wasn't some invisible essence or nutrients—it was living cells. Capillaries linked veins and arteries.
"Another academy-shaking theory. If you're right about all this, Professor."
I knew I was right.
Obviously.
Amy reevaluated her opinion of people.
Estina was far tougher than she appeared. Professor Asterix was way crazier—or weirder—than he looked.
Grad school would probably be good for her future. She'd build solid achievements and skills. But why did it feel so unappealing?