I had to go to the practice lab.
The anatomy practice lab.
"Here, the bodies have arrived!"
When I got there, someone was pulling a cart with an extremely cheerful voice.
Judging by their neat clothes, they weren't from just anywhere; they seemed to be from the police station.
Come to think of it, all the bodies loaded on the cart were familiar faces.
They were the ones executed by arsenic. That's what it meant.
"They're all men."
They were in perfect condition for surgical practice.
Since they were poisoned by arsenic, things could go very wrong if mishandled, but…
Since we'll be wearing gloves, it should be fine, right?
It's not like they'll suddenly get up and start breathing, so I probably don't need to worry too much about gases.
The only disappointing thing was that they were all men.
"Uh… is something the matter?"
At my reaction, the youngest police officer looked quite disappointed.
Why?
Because I always used to welcome them warmly.
Whether it was me, Lister, or anyone else, it was always the same.
"Ah, I need to practice surgery on women."
In other words, I needed female cadavers.
"Hmm. There are hardly any female convicts…"
The officer, who understood immediately, scratched under his chin.
Then, as if it made perfect sense, he clapped his hands.
"I'll take a look around the slums. They might not be in the best condition, but there should be some."
For a police officer to be so cheerful about people likely being dead…
The problem is that this is actually happening.
The slumification of London has long been a chronic, deep-rooted problem.
Housing, water supply… no, absolutely nothing had been expanded, yet the population kept growing.
The rich were fine.
If you have money, you can just live in a nice place, right?
But what about the poor?
Most are driven out onto the streets… so I've heard that even their meager possessions are 100% exposed, making them frequent targets of attacks.
If it's just robbery, they'd be lucky…
But the world isn't that simple.
"I, I see."
"Then later, I'll take a walk with my seniors, and if we find any, we'll bring them here."
"Yes, well… just not ones that are too decomposed."
"Haha. I've been hanging around here for months now. Don't worry. There's still space in the pit anyway… and we don't have that much to do today."
In a world overflowing with unsolved cases, it feels wrong for a police officer to say they don't have much to do, but given the social atmosphere, what can you do?
More importantly, they can't catch anyone.
There's no CCTV, so what can they catch?
More important than that was his mention of that pit.
'Ah, I can't forget it, can I?'
I originally have a pretty strong stomach.
That's why I became a surgeon and even worked in a trauma center, right?
It's not just about having a strong stomach… working in a trauma center toughened me up beyond just having a good constitution.
On top of that, I've received 19th-century-style training.
But that pit…
It was so horrifying that it made me wonder if the dungeon called the 'Pit' in Diablo originated from there.
They just threw all the unidentified bodies found all over London into one pit, burying them all at once…
The problem is, even if it's a very large pit, it fills up quickly with the number of bodies found each week.
As a result, the pit area just keeps expanding day by day.
-How come digging is so much easier lately?
I wondered what he meant when the police officer seemed happy, but he said the soil had softened due to the decomposition fluid from the bodies.
Fuck…
Where does all that eventually go?
It pollutes the groundwater, and that polluted groundwater goes straight into the Thames River.
We should build proper sewage and water systems…
I complained to Inspector Damian, but it was no use.
It costs a tremendous amount of money, he said?
When I said, 'It's the British Empire, don't you have money?', he said they were in a deficit due to the tea trade…
-So opium is the only way?
I said.
I don't know, it's scary.
I just thought I really shouldn't get involved in policies and such matters.
Anyway, the young police officer left after saying that and returned within just a few hours.
The reason he works so hard is that Lister amputated his mother's leg.
Ah, not because he's scared, but because he owes a debt of gratitude.
It was diabetic foot…
She almost died.
The problem is that if the diabetes in her other leg isn't controlled, it's highly likely it will need to be amputated too…
'Is there no way before insulin is discovered?'
How do you make it?
I don't know…
I don't know.
I vaguely remember its origin has something to do with dogs…
'Would injecting something secreted from a dog's pancreas work?'
This, too, ultimately leads to human experimentation.
By 21st-century standards, doing this would land you in jail, immediately.
But…
If you ask if there's any other way, there isn't.
'No, no.'
I decided to put this aside for now.
Huh? If I keep messily worrying about all sorts of things, I won't get anything done.
"How is it?"
"Good."
"You're smiling, so I feel good too."
"Was I smiling?"
"Yes. You always smile when receiving bodies. You didn't earlier this afternoon, so I was a bit surprised."
"I see."
After roughly organizing my thoughts, the bodies piled high on the cart finally caught my eye.
Since they weren't sent directly from the police station, there were fatal wounds visible here and there.
The degree of decomposition also varied.
It was a truly horrific sight.
Nevertheless, if I was smiling, it was probably because I was thinking of the lives I could save in the future based on these bodies.
Absolutely… not because I'm a weirdo.
"I will definitely repay this favor."
"Oh, no need. Well, I'll be going then."
With that thought, I had the waiting students move the bodies one by one onto the practice tables.
I called Blundell too.
As an obstetrician, isn't this the most urgent for him?
"You came too, hyung?"
"It's surgery, so of course I came."
"Well… yeah."
I didn't call Lister, but he came.
It didn't matter.
In this period, individual capability is more important than departmental affiliation.
Frankly speaking, even internal medicine textbooks were just one thin book in the 1980s but became two very thick books by the 2000s, right?
The 1980s… even compared to this period, medical progress had been made to an extent that makes the comparison utterly disrespectful, yet it was still like that. So what about now?
Actually, in this era, studying divided into specific specialties doesn't hold much meaning.
Saying 'I'm in obstetrics,' 'I'm in urology'… that's all just superficial pretension.
"Obstetrics and gynecology…"
Anyway, since I had gathered all my people, I officially began speaking.
"It's one of the departments that improved the most after the handwashing campaign, right?"
"It improved the most."
"Lately, they've been doing even better."
At my words, Blundell and Joseph, the disinfection fanatic, nodded.
Well, it couldn't be otherwise.
They used such disgustingly dirty hands for internal exams on pregnant women; it's no wonder people were dying left and right.
It's a department where the before and after had to change dramatically.
This isn't unrelated to Blundell almost dying because of what I said.
"But still, far too many are dying. Especially with difficult births… maybe one in ten survives?"
"That's right. If the fetus isn't in the right position, there's nothing to be done…"
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they had made monumental progress.
Even so, obstetrics was still the department where the most people died, as I said.
This wasn't really Blundell's fault.
It's just that humans are inherently animals that have a somewhat difficult time giving birth.
Compared to other animals, our heads are overwhelmingly larger because our brains are bigger, right?
The problem is that our pelvises are relatively small at the same time.
The human pelvis, which enables bipedal walking, serves to connect the spine and the hind legs, but to support the entire upper body, it takes a bowl-like shape, hence the issue.
"That's not all. Have you ever delivered twins? Ugh…"
For the same reason, if there's more than one baby, the difficulty increases drastically.
For various other reasons too, childbirth was truly dangerous.
It's not for nothing that our ancestors named their children later in life.
Ah, I sounded like I was talking about ancient history.
It's like that now.
"So I think we need to get better at cesarean sections."
"Cesarean section? But… isn't that a surgery only to save the baby? And even that's a miracle if it works."
Yes, that's how it's been until now.
Unless you were incredibly lucky, the baby would usually die too.
It's not just that the abdomen was a taboo area in surgery alone.
Since it was the same in obstetrics, touching the belly was only a last resort.
So, most of the time, they performed it only after the mother had already died.
Or just before.
So… how could a baby who received nothing through the umbilical cord during that time survive?
Especially since, compared to modern cesarean sections, the procedure was inevitably much slower?
"Why did it become established that way?"
"Not touching the belly… eh? But we do touch it?"
Was Blundell too stupid to have thought of this?
No, he's just trapped in the common sense of the 19th century.
Why, oh why, with anesthesia and disinfection now in place, couldn't he think of this?
It's too fast.
Because of an irregular like me, these concepts are being forced out before they've fully developed on their own.
'Hehe. Is this all my achievement?'
I found myself chuckling unintentionally and then continued speaking.
I noticed Lister smiling meaningfully upon seeing my laugh, so I added something slightly different to what I originally intended to say.
"It's thanks to you, hyung. You had the courage to think about touching the belly."
"Haha, come on. The concept of disinfection was your idea."
"Haha."
Actually, I did it all, but I should share some credit, right?
Only when Lister stands behind me do the other guys listen well to what I say.
"Anyway, we have anesthesia, and we disinfect. So the chances of the patient dying from pain or from miasma due to touching the belly are greatly reduced."
"That's right. So instead of just delivering the baby, we should just open them all up."
"No, no."
This crazy bastard is talking nonsense.
Even in modern medicine, if a vaginal delivery is possible, isn't it better to do so?
It's not just that vaginal delivery is supposedly better for the baby or anything…
The actual maternal mortality rate is about 7 times higher for C-sections.
Of course, situations requiring cesarean sections are already dangerous to begin with, so that plays a part too…
Anyway, cutting everyone open is not the way to go.
"No matter how much you disinfect, just the act of opening and closing the belly has a 2-3% mortality rate on its own."
"Only 2-3%? Do you have any idea how many of my patients die?"
"Well… I have a rough idea. But do we really need to add that probability? The reason we are practicing this surgery is so that when you, Professor, see a case and think, 'Ah, this… she'll die if she delivers naturally,' or 'This is too dangerous,' you can use it as a tool, as one weapon in your arsenal."
"Is that so…? 2-3%… that seems meaningless."
You fucking bastard.
Out of 100 people, 2 or 3 more people who shouldn't die end up dying, and that's meaningless?
To say that so strongly… hehe.
Is it really not a big deal?
"Let's put that discussion aside for later and start practicing first. The bodies are decomposing even as we speak. Gather around first. I have an idea."
"Ooh."
"Yes, let's give it a try."