Saint (1)
Even after the rumors of the "Mold Monster" had died down, insidious whispers continued to drift through the streets of Vienna.
"Hey, did you hear the rumor about Dr. Freud's clinic?"
"Ah, you mean that perverted, eccentric doctor? What about it?"
"They say hollow-eyed doctors are wheeling out cartloads of dead rats every single day!"
It was a rumor firmly rooted in reality. Over the past year, the number of rats infected with tuberculosis and subsequently killed by Marx Stahl and his fellow doctors exceeded ten thousand. Day after day, the smoke from incinerating these experimental rats choked the blue skies of Vienna, and from that very laboratory, doctors who looked like walking corpses stumbled out.
"Aaaah! Otto's been infected with tuberculosis!"
"Quarantine him immediately!"
These zombie-like mad scientists didn't stop at rats. Marx had even gone so far as to slice open his own skin and apply the penicillin to verify the experimental results.
"What on earth are they doing in there?"
"Haven't you heard? They're sacrificing tens of thousands of rats to Satan to resurrect the dead!"
"No, that's not it. I heard they're building a Frankenstein's monster."
Of course, such wild rumors exist in every corner of the world. Even in the twenty-first century—an era of science and progress—didn't conspiracy theories circulate about microchips being secretly implanted in vaccines to control people's brains?
At the very least, among those who were literate, more grounded rumors about an antibacterial substance were beginning to spread.
"I hear their animal trials are almost finished."
"That explains why there are fewer dead rats lately."
"And those doctors who used to go from hospital to hospital begging for tuberculosis samples have mostly vanished too."
In the original timeline, penicillin was first discovered in 1928. It was first purified for medical use in 1941, and mass production didn't begin until two or three years after that.
And yet.
In the year 1900, when Marx Stahl was just seventeen years old, he succeeded in creating the most basic, primitive form of penicillin—forty-one years ahead of schedule.
"We did it! We actually did it!"
"With this level of purity, we could inject it straight into a vein without any issues."
The greatest hurdle to mass-producing penicillin was, of course, chemistry. I had thought simply creating it would be the end of it, and we did manage to extract and purify it. However, determining the exact purity of this penicillin was utterly impossible with the scientific standards of the late 1890s.
Analyzing its molecular structure using X-ray crystallography? Not even in our wildest dreams. That technology was still eighty years away. In other words, with nineteenth-century technology, even grasping the true nature of penicillin was an uphill battle.
'I'll show you the true power of twenty-first-century graduate student grunt work!'
Through roughly 901 experiments, I determined the optimal pH level for penicillin. Naturally, precise pH measurement was impossible in 1900, but by analyzing litmus paper down to the millimeter, I somehow managed to pinpoint the correct acidity.
And that wasn't all. After an additional 401 experiments, I finalized the temperature parameters and measured the purity of the penicillin based on its efficacy in killing bacteria. Finally, I conducted another 515 trials just to optimize the purification process.
"Marx, my boy! We've done it! After 1,817 experiments, we have finally succeeded in producing purified penicillin!"
We had pushed litmus paper, mercury thermometers, and rudimentary microscopes to their absolute limits. Damn it. This felt three times harder than my actual graduate school days. The experiments themselves were one thing, but the lack of Excel and calculators was a special kind of hell.
It would have been entirely impossible without the help of Dr. Karl Landsteiner—the man who, in the original timeline, first discovered the ABO blood groups—and Professor Sigmund Freud, who was currently suffering from a nervous breakdown because The Interpretation of Dreams had only sold 981 copies. After all, I was just a chemist who didn't even know how to stick a needle into a rat.
"Dr. Landsteiner. I believe we can now proceed to human clinical trials."
"Indeed, Mr. Stahl. With this, we finally have something concrete to show our investors."
And so, we had finally reached the stage of human trials. However...
"Why on earth won't you cooperate with us?!"
"Why should our hospital support trials for some mysterious, unproven new drug? On what authority?"
"But didn't your own staff verify that penicillin has a powerful antibacterial effect?"
"No, absolutely not. Out of the question."
Day after day, I toured every single hospital in Vienna begging for cooperation, but not a single one granted permission.
"Professor Freud! How did it go on your end?"
"...They claimed that 'mold broth' is not medicine, but a rotten pathogen."
Well, wasn't this entirely expected? Barely a decade ago, washing one's hands before surgery was dismissed as an unscientific superstition. I expected absolutely nothing from the nineteenth-century medical establishment.
"But surely Dr. Landsteiner can secure some cooperation?"
"Yes. You and I are outcasts in the academic community, but a respected figure like Professor Landsteiner should be able to find at least one place..."
However, even Karl Landsteiner, who actually had deep ties to the Austrian medical establishment, returned to the laboratory with a face flushed bright red with fury.
"Those scientifically illiterate fools! Mr. Stahl, you must hear what happened."
Trembling with rage, Dr. Landsteiner began to recount his visit to a general hospital in Vienna.
Hearing the truth of the matter, all the strength drained from Karl Landsteiner's body.
It wasn't a question of penicillin being dangerous, or having unverified side effects.
Even in the twenty-first century, if a world ever arrived where cancer could be cured simply by saying, "You have cancer. Go to the injection room and get a shot," doctors would lose their livelihoods. The medical establishment did not want a world where tuberculosis, syphilis, cholera, and typhoid fever could be cured with a single injection.
On top of that...
"You are not a Jew, are you? Furthermore, you have no proper mentor. You didn't even finish Gymnasium, let alone university. And you are no aristocrat... There are even rumors that both of you are Reds. For the sake of your own future, stop here."
Filthy racism and political framing. Listening to the story, neither Freud nor I could contain our fury.
"Mr. Stahl, Professor Freud. I am sorry I could not be of more help."
"...No, please don't apologize."
Despite putting on a desperate, humiliating show to make penicillin famous, the conservative empire refused to budge. Even the German Empire, notorious for its warmongering Junker nobility, wouldn't be this bad. Or would they? Was it always this bad? Did it take the madness of the First World War to finally weed out all these reactionary old fools?
'Is revolution really the only answer?'
A headache was coming on. First... I had to solve the penicillin problem.
Just then, a brilliant idea struck me.
"It can't be helped. Let's just assume we'll never get the cooperation of the medical establishment."
"Is that so? But what about the clinical trials we need to conduct immediately...?"
"We go to the slums. Those people have never seen a doctor in their entire lives. We'll easily get their cooperation."
"What? Mr. Stahl, are you sure about this? Given the bizarre rumors calling us Satanists and whatnot, it might be difficult to gain their trust."
It was a valid concern. No matter how poor and sick they were, injecting mold juice into their veins was a hard sell. They wouldn't easily volunteer to be guinea pigs.
"I agree, Marx. The church and the imperial family are already running relief programs in the slums. People aren't as desperate for doctors as you might think."
Professor Freud made a fair point. Even if the Austro-Hungarian Empire was an archaic, conservative state, everything had its pros and cons.
It was unlike Britain, which, well into the twentieth century, locked up the homeless, the poor, and the disabled in workhouses like cockroaches under the pretext that "it is socially expedient for those who fail in competition to starve to death."
The Austro-Hungarian Empire still retained its conservative Catholic culture and the traditional order of noblesse oblige. Thus, unlike the "progressive" British Empire, it maintained at least a basic welfare system for the poor.
However...
"There are patients who have been abandoned even by those systems."
"Hmm?"
"Syphilis patients. They will do perfectly."
Syphilis was a sexually transmitted disease. Even in twenty-first-century Korea, contracting such a disease was not something one would openly advertise. In the year 1900, how much worse would it be? They would be branded as agents of Satan on the spot.
"I'm not deeply versed in medicine, but is syphilis definitely caused by a bacterium?"
"Yes, Mr. Stahl. Currently, it is primarily treated with mercury. Either by ingesting it or taking mercury vapor baths..."
"Wait, mercury?"
Good grief. They weren't Qin Shi Huang searching for the elixir of immortality. Treating diseases with mercury on the cusp of the twentieth century really drove home just how primitive the science of this era was.
"Then penicillin should be highly effective against it, right?"
"We haven't tested it yet, but the probability is very high."
"Then there's no reason to wait. Let's go."
"D-Dr. Landsteiner, you lead the way!"
"W-Well... wasn't this your idea, Mr. Stahl? You should lead!"
"Are you seriously telling a seventeen-year-old to walk first into a dangerous slum?!"
By its very nature, industrialization demanded a massive labor force. However, the infrastructure required to house the endless influx of poor workers into the cities had failed to keep pace. As a result, dark, sprawling slums festered right in the heart of the metropolis.
"W-We should have brought a gun."
"L-Let's head toward the church first. It should be relatively safe up to that point."
Though none of us were aristocrats, we all came from families wealthy enough to live in blissful ignorance of these slums. Naturally, we were terrified. Even in the modern era, there were neighborhoods where outsiders wandered in only to be carried out in body bags.
I looked around the filthy street. Lacking proper drainage, the ground was slick with stagnant, foul water. Rats the size of forearms scurried about. People lay sprawled on the ground like corpses, scratching at their skin in the filthy environment while eyeing us with deep suspicion.
"..."
The sight left us utterly speechless. Was it really this bad...? Living in a place like this would breed diseases out of thin air.
"It wouldn't be surprising if cholera broke out this very instant."
"...Is penicillin really what's important here?"
Landsteiner muttered, his fear entirely forgotten. Indeed, was penicillin really the most pressing issue? Although I didn't view myself as a doctor, penicillin had at least been created with the intent of saving lives. But...
"What is the point of curing patients with modern medicine? Living in an environment like this, it would be a miracle if one didn't lose their mind."
Freud murmured, staring blankly at the slums. Having completely forgotten their terror, the trio of medical pioneers stood in silent lamentation, gazing upon the dark shadow cast by modern industrial civilization.