The Apothecary of Epidaurus (3): You Call This a Pharmacy? All You Do Is Nag

"Form a line first, if you please."

My first request, civilized to the bone, came back to me as three times the uproar.

"I was here first!"

"What are you talking about? I've been here since before the sun was up!"

"You left your place a moment ago to bow to the snake!"

It was, quite literally, a situation that produced nothing but a sigh. I drew in a long breath, let it out, and heaved the water jar from inside the pharmacy out in front of the door, grunting under the weight.

It landed with a thud, and every eye turned to me.

"All of you. Wash your hands before you come in."

"......? My hands don't hurt."

"It's a rule of the temple."

The way to end a war of words: borrow your authority from on high. Coiled on the threshold, the black snake lifted its head right on cue.

The old men muttered and grumbled, but they formed a line all the same. There was a brief shoving of shoulders over who would stand at the front, and even that subsided meekly the moment their eyes met the snake's.

So snakes are held sacred in this temple too. Something to do with the staff of Asclepius, maybe?

Once I had seen them hunker down before the water jar, one after another, I stepped back inside and took up the clay tablet. The old word was still cut sharp in the clay. Beneath it, I carved three more.

Ophthalmology. Orthopedics. Psychiatry.

I drew one deep breath and opened my mouth.

"Come in one at a time, in order."

It was the historic first opening of the Black Snake Pharmacy.

The first was an old man with eyes a furious red. Fine red vessels had spread across the whole of the whites, and dried discharge crusted the corners in patches.

Even after he came inside he kept trying to rub at them with the back of his hand, so I caught his wrist first.

"Don't rub."

"They itch so badly I could die. How am I supposed to stand it?"

"Rub them, and they'll only itch worse."

I dragged a chair toward the window and sat him down. With one hand I held his eyelid open and looked more closely into the reddened eye.

"How long has it been like this?"

"About five days. Itches, and come morning the eyes won't open right."

"Do they hurt? Does the sunlight sting, for instance?"

"No. They just itch."

"And nothing in front of you has gone suddenly dim?"

"Nah. Nothing like that."

Tears, discharge, itching. The whites of both eyes red all over, the dark of each eye clear. It had begun a few days ago, and there was no change in sight and no pain.

Looks like conjunctivitis.

It wasn't urgent. A little frustrating, not being able to tell whether the cause was a virus or a bacterium, but no more than that.

"Is there anyone else at home with eyes like yours?"

"All three of my grandchildren. Not as bad as mine."

"What do you wipe them with?"

The old man drew out a cloth tucked at his waist. It was stained a glaring yellow, and damp through.

"This."

"The whole family?"

"Cloth isn't so easy to come by. We do wash it clean every day, though."

His face said he knew at least that much. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠barely swallowed a sigh and shook my head.

"Rinsing it in cold water isn't enough. You'll have to boil it."

"Boil it?"

"Yes. An eye sickness is a terribly stubborn thing."

I nearly launched into a speech about creatures too small to see, and held my tongue. In an age like this, talk of that sort would have them crying divine punishment, and I would never hear the end of it.

"Use a separate cloth for each person. Boil any cloth you've used. The moment your hands have touched your eyes, wash them, and don't rub, however much they itch. When you wipe the eyes, use water that's been boiled and then cooled."

The old man, who had only been blinking in a daze, held out his hand. It was, plain to anyone, the face of a man who had let the whole of it in one ear and out the other.

"All right, all right. So just give me the medicine."

"I'm not giving you medicine."

"What? You said this was a pharmacy."

"Because for now, this is enough."

If it were bacterial I would have considered antibiotic drops, but even the cause was not yet certain. Judging by the symptoms, this was a case to be watched under decent hygiene, not one that called for a drug at once.

"I'll say it once more. Boil the cloth every day. A different cloth would be best, but if you haven't one, cut this into small pieces and use them separately. And..."

I recited the instructions all over again, this time adding that a hand which had touched the eyes must not touch a latch or a bowl, and that towels and pillows ought to be kept apart as well.

"Do that, and it should settle on its own as time passes. If it starts to hurt, though, or if your sight begins to fail, come straight back. Bring your grandchildren with you then."

"So it does get better."

"Usually. Of course, if you keep passing the same cloth around, it'll come right back even after it improves."

"Hmm."

He studied me with open doubt.

He set down a handful of olives and left the room. From behind, I saw him start, out of habit, to rub his eyes, and then deliberately lower his hand.

So they do pay for the visit, at least.

I went to the water jar, washed my hands clean, came back, and carved a small circle beside Eye on the clay tablet.

The second was an old man who dragged his right leg. The knee had hurt for some years. It stiffened in the mornings, he said, and the stone steps were the worst of it.

"Let me have a look."

I drew up the hem of his clothes and examined it, but there was no swelling worth noting, and no redness. The back of my hand found no particular heat. What did come through my palm, when he bent the knee and straightened it, was the feel of something grinding within.

Osteoarthritis of the knee...? A condition in which the cartilage inside the joint wears away or is damaged, and can no longer do its work. This was not something medicine could mend. I could hardly grow new cartilage with my own hands and put it back by surgery.

What did catch my eye was something else.

"Do you always bear your weight on the staff in that hand?"

"This is the leg that hurts."

He tapped the knee with the hand that had been gripping the staff. The staff, taller than he was as he sat, tipped sideways.

And absurdly tall, besides.

Aunt Doris's dough tub came back to me. A case where the body was what hurt, and the tool was what was wrong.

"Would you try the staff in the other hand?"

"But it's this leg that hurts."

"Just once."

Grumbling, he changed his grip. I moved to support him, but he waved me off and rose on his own.

"Enough. At your height you'd only be in the way."

Treating me like an absolute child. The sad part was that I couldn't very well say, I'm not small, you know? In my previous life, my height had not been the sort that came up short.

"Try walking."

"Tsk. You might have just given me the medicine."

Clicking his tongue, he started off at a slow drag.

"......Hm?"

In only a few steps, his expression shifted, just a little. I caught up a broom for a staff and stood beside him at once.

"And when you walk, try it like this."

I stepped out on my right foot and brought the staff on the opposite side forward with it.

"When the sore leg goes forward, the staff goes with it, so the staff can take your weight from the other side."

I dragged my right foot and made a circuit of the room. He nodded, tried the steps himself, and before long his mouth fell open again.

"Well, now. Isn't that something."

"And just one thing more."

I marked the staff with charcoal at the height of his wrist, then sat him back down.

"The staff is too long. May I take a little off the end?"

"The staff?"

"A staff is best when it comes to the wrist."

He nodded as if to say go on, and I brought a small saw out of the inner room. For a medical student, a saw and a scalpel are the tools most often in the hand after a smartphone, so cutting a staff was no great difficulty.

"Deft hands."

"If a person means to eat, this much is the least of it."

I rubbed the cut end against a stone until it was smooth.

"Going up the steps, lead with the good leg. Coming down, lead with the sore one. And."

Still seated, I stretched one leg out before me, set the thigh, and held the knee straight for a moment.

"Do this every day, only so far as it doesn't hurt."

"And then it heals?"

"It doesn't heal. It hurts less."

A line I was already growing used to.

He took up the new staff and made a round of the pharmacy. When he came back, a faint smile hung at the corner of his mouth.

"So there's no need to take medicine."

"No."

"You mean there isn't any medicine that works at all."

"......Not one that mends a knee as if by magic."

"I see."

A moment later, a broad palm came down upon my head.

"Thank you."

There had been time enough to dodge. No particular reason to dodge came to mind.

Rough fingers sank deep into my hair and drew back out, and he left the pharmacy looking satisfied.

......Why is he touching me?

I tipped my head, and the hair at my temple belatedly puffed up.

The third old man did not come alone. His son and daughter-in-law brought him in, each holding an arm. He was gazing into empty air, nodding over and over.

"Yes, yes. I'll pick the olives. You sit."

A voice, for all the world, as if he were speaking to someone there.

Once they had seated him, the son whispered, his face gone stiff.

"Since yesterday he has suddenly been talking with our mother, who has passed. I fear his wits have left him."

"He was entirely himself until yesterday morning," the daughter-in-law added at once.

I nodded and studied the old man's face.

Whoever heard of senility arriving in a day. With symptoms like these, delirium had to be suspected before dementia.

I went over his condition with care. The first thing to meet my eye was, as expected, the dark of each eye gaping wide.

"Pardon me."

I turned his face toward the window and let the sun fall across it. The light passed over him, and the pupils scarcely narrowed.

Dilated pupils.

Next were the parched lips. His face was flushed, and the nape of his neck was hot under the back of my hand, yet there was no sweat.

Dry mouth, and a fever.

Then the wrist. The pulse tapped, rapid, against my fingers. He did not so much as push my hand away. He only kept plucking and worrying at the hem of his own clothes.

And tachycardia.

Four lines I had committed to memory in my own body, only a few days before. I caught my lower lip lightly between my teeth and looked at the son and his wife.

"By any chance, did he take something yesterday that he doesn't usually take? An herb, perhaps, or a fruit."

The two of them looked at each other.

"Well... he said a tooth was paining him."

The daughter-in-law was the one who spoke.

"He burned a plant a neighbor gave him, and breathed the smoke. They told him chewing the seeds worked even better, so he had a little of those as well..."

"I see. Wait a moment, please."

I went into the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠inner room and made up a basket. First I put in the herbs I could recognize, mandrake among them, and into what space remained I set the seeded grasses Hygieia had told me not to handle carelessly.

"Would you see if you know which plant it was?"

I came back and held the basket out to the daughter-in-law. It did not take her long to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠point.

"This one."

It was the plant from yesterday evening. The plant Hermes had warned me not to breathe in lightly.

I should have asked its name from the start...

From the symptoms, I suspected an anticholinergic poisoning of the same kind as mandrake or belladonna. A day had passed, so it was not likely he had taken as much as a lethal dose.

"Let me settle him over here."

I laid him on the bed in the inner part of the pharmacy, covered the window with cloth so the light would not stab his eyes, and brought a bowl of cold water and a clean cloth.

"Give him water a little at a time. Don't let him drink a great deal all at once, and if he can't swallow, don't force it."

I wet the cloth and handed it to the son.

"Cool his neck and his armpits with this. He needs quiet, so let only one of you stay beside him, and stay quiet."

The son took the cloth and opened his mouth with care.

"Ought we not make him vomit first?"

"No."

I shook my head, firm.

"It's already been a full day since he took it. If he vomits while his mind is clouded, he may choke instead."

Vomit. Charcoal. A narcissus bulb, chewed. That had been me, only just after swallowing the drug, my mind still clear. Nothing like the old man in front of me now. A narcissus bulb would have to be used with greater caution still.

"If the herb drains out of him cleanly, his mind should return within a day or two. Just watch him closely."

"Is that so."

The son let out a breath of relief. I added, my voice gone serious:

"Of course, if he can't pass urine, or his body grows hotter, or he doesn't answer when you wake him, then we act at once."

"And what happens then?"

"I'll use medicine."

"Medicine? Then why not simply use it now..."

"No. I'll use it only when it's needed."

I looked straight into the son's eyes.

"Used wrong, it's a drug that turns to poison."

He swallowed, audibly, and nodded. The daughter-in-law took his hand with care and asked:

"What are we to do about Mother?"

The old man was still looking at a corner of the ceiling. Smiling. I watched him a moment, then turned back to the two of them.

"For now, leave it."

"But..."

"Tell him it isn't real, and he'll grow angry. And..."

I set down, carefully, beside his pillow, the olives I had taken earlier as my fee.

"There's no need ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to go out of our way to disturb a happy dream."

His talk of olives went on and on. The son, looking down at him, let the strength leave his shoulders.

"The two of them were devoted to each other. That much is true."

Then he sat in the chair beside the bed. The old man turned his head for a moment and touched the olives at his pillow.

"Didn't I tell you? Olives will grow so well here... and our little ones will surely grow just as well as the olives."

The son let out a thin, helpless laugh and took his father's hand.

"If the symptoms I mentioned appear, call me at once."

With that, and nothing more, I stepped out with the daughter-in-law.

"I don't know how to treat a toothache."

Medicine, dentistry, Korean medicine, pharmacy, veterinary medicine. Medical school and dental school were different schools entirely.

"So I'll introduce you to someone at the temple. When your father-in-law's mind returns, have him seen by that person."

"Yes. I understand."

She nodded and turned to look toward the temple.

"Then the name of this priest...?"

"Hygi—"

I stopped. Come to think of it, our director had said she didn't do the hands-on work.

It'll be all right, won't it?

The high priestess would hardly turn away a patient who had come to her. She might, however, nag me the whole day through for having bothered her over a thing so small.

"I'll go and ask now."

"Yes?"

"She may be busy."

"Ah..."

The daughter-in-law nodded as if she understood. I offered her a chair and went out to the rear court.

"Hm?"

Hygieia was sitting in her fleece-cushioned chair, trimming herbs. She set the basket down at once.

"Pana."

"Yes."

"Did you touch my chair?"

A ghost. She has to be a ghost.

I let only my eyes slide aside.

"No?"

"Really. The wool looks a little thin."

"A bird must have carried some off."

"A bird that carries off wool."

Her gaze on me deepened, just a shade. I cleared my throat in a hurry and turned the talk.

"Setting that aside, I came because there's something I'd like to ask."

"What."

I explained what had just happened, in full. There was a patient of this sort; might she examine him? When I finished, Hygieia swallowed a short sigh.

"Hog-bean."

"Pardon?"

"Hog-bean, I said. That's what the man took."

Hog-bean. Hog—hyos. Bean—kyamos. Another name surfaced.

......Henbane.

Hyoscyamine. Scopolamine. The same household as mandrake, and as belladonna.

"Breathed the smoke because a tooth hurt, did he?"

I startled, and nodded.

"How did you know?"

"They come every year."

She turned her eyes back to the basket.

"A very little of it lets you forget pain. The trouble is when people use it without knowing exactly what it is."

She looked at me and laughed once, short and dry.

"Some of the herb-peddlers sell the stuff. An herb for good dreams, they call it. An herb to make you forget your cares. Selling people poison for a scrap of coin."

"Good dreams..."

The old man's face rose up, smiling as he talked of olives. Hygieia, who had been quietly reading my expression, laid a hand on my head.

"You really do take after him."

"Him?"

"The master of the temple."

A smile came over her that was somehow far away.

"When I said we ought to burn every hog-bean near the city, he wore that very look. The plants are not bad, he told me. What is bad are the people who use them."

"There was even a time he prescribed hallucinogenic mushrooms to a patient so hounded by nightmares that sleep was impossible."

Psilocybin. The name came back to me of a substance drawn from hallucinogenic mushrooms, one that only in the twenty-first century was being studied for illnesses of the mind.

......How many years ahead of everyone was he? The god of medicine, then. There was nothing else to call him.

The hand that had been stroking my hair came down.

"Anyway. You want me to look at that old man's tooth."

"Yes."

"All right. That much, I can do."

A surprisingly willing answer. I looked at her in surprise, and she shrugged.

"I am a proper priestess of Epidaurus too, you know."

Then she waved me off, as if that were enough and I might go. I bobbed my head and turned away. A thought struck me, and I looked back.

"Hygieia."

"What."

"May I sleep in the Abaton tonight?"

"All of a sudden?"

Hermes had been perfectly clear: the master of this temple was dead. Yet the Abaton was still in use, and Hygieia had offered no explanation of her own. Then what, exactly, comes to a person in the dreams of the Abaton?

"There's something I want to ask the god of medicine."