episode_0027
by fnovelpiaThud. Thud.
Every time I walk, dirty dirt gets on my shoes.
“That’s why I said let’s go by carriage.”
Ertia, who was following me, frowned and muttered in displeasure.
Her discontent is justified. If she had come by carriage on a clean road, this wouldn’t have happened.
But this is my first time going out since leaving Yeongju Castle.
I needed to know the reality of this place.
As I left Yeongju Castle and entered the residential area where people lived, the feeling I got was ‘dirty’. There was a lot of filth scattered on the sidewalk.
It wasn’t for nothing that the Black Death spread.
It is even more strange that an infectious disease does not spread in such an unsanitary place. The Black Death is originally transmitted through human bodily fluids.
In other words, it means that you can get infected through urine or other waste.
The Black Death was so serious that it was even transmitted through fleas and rats infected with the plague bacilli from this filth.
“As expected.”
“Yes? If you expected it, it would have been better if you came comfortably in a carriage!”
Ertia, who doesn’t like the dirt splashed on her iron armor and keeps trying to wipe it off with something.
Just walking around a place like this seemed like it would be stressful for the nobles.
I didn’t like the way the female was whining, but I also felt the unpleasant sensation of dirt constantly getting into my shoes, so I decided to let it go.
Because I could understand how irritating Ertia would be.
“Is this it?”
“Come in.”
After walking around the residential area like that, we stopped in front of a fairly neat house.
Today, I had to check not only this distance, but also the reason why puerperal fever occurs.
Since we had already discussed this in advance, we opened the door without asking permission.
“You’re here.”
“Haaak haaak.”
A mother breathing heavily and a midwife greeting us.
“Labor has started, so you will be giving birth soon.”
“Yeah.”
Ertia answered the midwife instead of me. Ertia, as befitting a noblewoman, spoke informally to the old man and looked down with her arms folded.
From the moment I step out, my mouth must be Ertia’s.
Anyway, I’m a breeder worse than a commoner.
In this place where the class system is clear, even the commoners ignore me. Rather than being treated like that, it would have been easier to put Ertia or Elisa first.
That was also the reason I brought Ertia.
“Ahhh-!”
“That’s right! It’s coming out now!”
Clap clap clap-!
As labor finally began, the midwife began washing her hands in the hot water she had prepared in advance. It wasn’t clean, but it would at least help prevent bacterial contamination.
“Give me strength-!!”
“Aaak!!”
“That’s right. Just a little more! I can see the head!!”
The midwife held the mother’s legs tightly and repeatedly shouted at her to prevent her from exerting too much force on her thighs and pressing on the baby’s head while pushing.
“Eww-!!”
The birth was completed safely.
“How is it? Was there anything strange?”
Since there was nothing more to see in that house, I started heading to another house with Ertia.
“No.”
As expected of an experienced midwife, she was perfectly prepared for childbirth. In particular, she wore the cleanest clothes possible and washed her hands repeatedly with hot water.
If my guess is correct, the problem will arise at the house you are going to now.
“Hello.”
As soon as I headed to the next house, a sight that made me frown immediately caught my eye.
Blood stained all over the white gown.
It was as I expected. The doctors of this world, who knew nothing about bacteria or viruses, were helping with childbirths or performing surgeries without even wiping the blood on their gowns like a medal, just like in the world I lived in.
Even midwives, who assist in childbirth, like midwives.
-vector-
– Traits: Medicine LV2, Cooking LV3, Administration LV1, Midwifery LV22
“I’m proud to say that I’m the best at premature birth in this territory! Haha! ”
A doctor wearing a dirty gown and smiling without knowing what I was thinking.
Even though he is a doctor, his medical skills are not that high, and the midwife who helps with childbirth is unnecessarily high, which makes me even more angry.
‘I can’t help it.’
It may be my greed to wish for a certain level of medical skill. In the world I lived in, even the doctors of the Middle Ages were clearly the best educated.
But this world is different. There are books on medicine, but there are no institutions that specialize in teaching and training it.
For such educational institutions to be established, either civic awareness must increase or people with a lot of money must invest, but neither of these is easy.
Civic consciousness? This place is similar to the Middle Ages. It is hard to expect it, as you can see from the garbage thrown on the streets.
Investment by nobles or the rich? Rather than investing in unnecessary medical care, it was more certain to donate a large sum of money to the temple and receive recovery through divine power.
Even if you save someone who is on the verge of death, can’t you just relieve them of some of their pain?
Because of that, medical technology was not developed at all.
Even books related to medicine were full of errors and mistakes, and there were only a few of them.
I thought it was simply not available in the permanent residence, but at most, five 300-page volumes were the end of all books related to medicine.
In this situation, the doctors’ skills cannot be good.
The nobles had no need to learn medicine themselves, as they could receive healing from priests, and the commoners could not study what little medicine they had because the books were too expensive.
Could that be the reason?
Most doctors were self-taught in their medical skills. And since most of them couldn’t even write properly, they didn’t write down their experiences in books.
“Eww-!!”
Fortunately, thanks to the high-level prenatal care doctor, the birth was completed safely.
“What a cool son!”
If there is a problem, it is the image of the doctor holding the newborn and handing it to the mother without even washing his hands in a dirty gown covered in blood.
“… … ”
But there’s nothing I can really do.
“What’s the problem?”
“There’s a problem… That mother will soon die of puerperal fever.”
Puerperal fever is caused by a bacterial infection resulting from an unsanitary environment during childbirth.
Midwives knew this from experience and brought hot water during childbirth and washed their hands frequently to remove as many germs as possible, but doctors did not do so.
As I had just seen, she helped with the birth, her hands covered in white amniotic fluid and her white gown covered in blood, as if she had just delivered another mother’s baby.
In such a situation, it is impossible for bacterial infection not to occur.
If your immune system is strong, you will overcome it on your own, but most mothers will die from puerperal fever.
The report submitted to our department also taught us that fact.
Reports of deaths from puerperal fever rising as older midwives die from the Black Death.
I confirmed it with my own eyes, so it was clearly a bacterial infection caused by doctors.
It couldn’t be helped. If doctors didn’t know about the existence of bacteria and viruses, they wouldn’t know what the problem was.
Fortunately, I knew the problem, so I returned to the permanent residence for a while to solve it and headed straight to the department office.
“Miss Elisa. Call all the doctors in the estate and tell them to wear clean clothes and wash their hands with hot water when helping with the birth or when performing surgery. ”
“Yes.”
“Please tell me that if I ever go around wearing a bloody gown again, there will be severe punishment.”
“If you go too forcefully, there will be a backlash, right?”
Back in the office, I gave Elisa some urgent instructions on what needed to be done.
Elisa nods her head while asking me the problem.
As expected, he was competent. Even at this moment when I am hesitating, I think I was in too much of a hurry because I thought that many mothers would die from puerperal fever.
“Please explain that the cause of puerperal fever is due to a gown stained with someone else’s amniotic fluid or blood. Show me which of the midwives and doctors in this report have a high incidence of puerperal fever when they give birth prematurely.”
I don’t know if the doctors will read this report, but for now, I showed Elisa the report I had written so far.
“Certainly… When I compare them like this, there is a big difference. I will call the doctors and talk to them. ”
After finishing what I had to say to Elisa, I went back right away.
“Where are you going again?”
“To the person who created what this territory needs most right now.”
“Who is it?”
“Alchemist Helen Wagner.”
Ertia tilts her head at my words.
It’s a face that doesn’t understand why an alchemist is needed.
“What are you going to make?”
“I’m going to make soap.”
“Soap? There’s plenty of it in Yeongju Castle too!”
As Ertia said, there was plenty of soap in the castle. Of course, this was based on the amount used by those in the castle, and it was too little for the entire territory.
Soap is a luxury. It is difficult to make and expensive.
Commoners couldn’t use it except on special days like their wedding night or someone’s birthday.
But now, I plan to make it so that every household has a bar of soap, ready to use at any time.
The alchemist we’re visiting now, Helen Wagner, was the one who created caustic soda.
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