"Y-you damned English bastards!"
"Drinking water just makes the diarrhea worse!"
Two conflicting medical doctrines were clashing.
One was absurd—yet it had dominated for over two millennia. Since the great Hippocrates proposed the Four Humors theory, it had never been challenged.
Until now.
"What was that?" Liston growled.
"N-nothing."
Faced with this sword-wielding madman, the French ("baguettes," as we'd dubbed them) had no choice but to gulp down the water—saltwater, no less, fortified per my suggestion.
Not seawater-level salinity, of course. That'd kill them via osmosis, draining what little fluids they had left. But it was still foul enough to make them retch.
"Blegh—!"
"Salty..."
The first-floor baguettes—those who'd drunk Seine water—were faring far worse than the second-floor crew (who'd consumed cadaver-infused water).
Unthinkable, right? That riverwater could out-toxify corpse juice?
But tonight, the Seine was pure poison.
Why?
No idea. The shared water source for Paris's drinking and sewage systems was a disaster, but this? This was unprecedented.
I'll investigate later.
For now, this hospital was ground zero.
But tomorrow?
The entire city drank from the Seine.
Only the elite—nobles, gourmands, bourgeoisie—had access to upstream water. The rest? Doomed.
Paris might become hell itself.
Most only knew of London's "Great Stink," but history had worse.
Paris. 20,000 dead.
Cholera.
Even in 21st-century Korea, it's a Category 2 notifiable disease. For good reason: untreated, its mortality rate hits 50%.
The "cure" is simple: clean water and electrolytes.
But here?
Nothing was simple.
What "treatments" would they try?
Probably lethal ones.
If this spread—if other hospitals followed—our methods would stand in stark contrast.
I used to fear death. Still do. But humans learn by tasting the shit themselves.
Our "miasma types" theory only took root because of Liston's experiments.
Sacrifice these Frenchmen to save Londoners.
A fair trade.
"You're smiling? Creepy."
Liston stared as I grinned amidst the suffering. Blundell whispered to Joseph:
"See? Pure villain."
"Right? Terrifying."
Unbelievable.
No time to argue. This chaos was the perfect teaching moment.
In London, cadaver water was deadlier. Here? The Seine was the killer.
"Professor."
"Ugh—stop smiling."
"Back home, corpse-water patients fared worse, yes?"
"Right. Wait—here, it's reversed. Different miasma. Must be the French shit."
Not entirely wrong.
Their diarrhea was toxic—packed with Vibrio cholerae.
Tetracycline would help. Not penicillin—an older antibiotic, derived from soil bacteria.
But the real treatment was hydration.
Which we were forcing down their throats.
Still, deaths were inevitable.
This wasn't London.
"These baguettes..."
"Baguettes—I like that."
One collapsed Frenchman twitched at the insult. Too weak to protest.
Cholera wasn't just any diarrhea. It drained fluids and electrolytes at terrifying speeds, causing cramps.
Salt might help. Maybe.
"DRINK, YOU BASTARDS!"
"Ugh..."
I jammed funnels into mouths, pouring water like a torturer.
"Is this torture?"
"How could Pierre ally with these monsters?!"
The second-floor patients gasped.
Just wait.
Their turn would come.
"Hurk—!"
"Let me out!"
"Shit in the hall!"
"NO!"
Soon, wails echoed upstairs too.
"Shall we go?"
"Yes."
Their strain was milder. Maybe 10% mortality. With luck, zero.
But pride had doomed them.
Too many drank.
And unlike our young, healthy students in London, here?
Elderly professors.
A mass funeral.
If they even got funerals.
This was a hospital. Dead med students went straight to the dissection tables.
A small mercy.
By dawn, I was sprinting between patients.
Sunlight revealed a changed Paris.
The Seine's color was wrong.
Streets: deserted.
This isn't right.
Cholera killing 20,000? That wasn't 1830.
But cities pre-modern plumbing saw annual outbreaks.
This felt bigger.
"Pyeong."
Liston slumped beside me, exhausted from the all-nighter.
"The city's too quiet."
"I noticed."
"London was like this once. Cholera."
"Ah..."
He knows?
Of course. Liston's no fool—just uneducated.
"And the first-floor patients... their symptoms are severe."
"Then it's dire."
Progress.
We'd finally connected.
5,000 deaths would be a catastrophe.
"We might've treated them wrong."
"What?"
The conversation derailed.
"The trending 'cures'? Sanders' Deodorizer. Opium. Ether. Castor oil—useless. Or inducing diarrhea to stop it."
I froze.
Every suggestion is wrong.
Thankfully, Liston had been... modernized.
"Professor."
"Speak."
"Aren't those 'cures' from when miasma just meant stench?"
"Ah, deodorizers? Hm. True."
"If they worked, would people die yearly?"
"Fair point. Our patients aren't seizing. So...?"
"Different miasma—more virulent. But dilution works."
Technically, time and immune systems beat cholera.
But this sufficed.
"Right. We'll hire more help. Else we'll collapse."
"Yes!"
No need for deeper explanations.
This was enough to save lives.