episode_0171

Episode 171. Melissa’s Proposal (3)

****

The weight of the crown was heavy.

The prince was working today as well, shuffling through paperwork. On his desk was a letter from the academy that he had not received in a long time.

A letter from Professor Asterix. What is he trying to say? It wasn’t common for Professor Asterix to ask for a favor from the royal family.

-Hello. The weather has gotten colder recently, so please be careful of the weather, Your Highness.

The prince frowned as soon as he saw the letter.

There’s no way Asterix would say something like that. That’s strange. There’s clearly something wrong. What kind of nonsense is he trying to make…?

The prince thought about it for a while.

“Conrad, read this.”

“Yes.”

“What does this mean?”

Swish. The prince pushed the piece of parchment on the desk. The prince’s scribe, Conrad, began reading the letter from Professor Asterix.

“Well, it sounds like they’re talking about selling the medicine overseas. Professor Asterix seems to think this would be a good business opportunity.”

“What do you think?”

The royal advisor thought for a moment.

“If Professor Asterix really thought this was a good opportunity, he probably wouldn’t have sent such a polite letter.”

“I see, right?”

“It seems that he brought it up formally because he felt uneasy. Isn’t there much reason for the royal family to oppose selling medicine overseas?”

The prince thought about it some more.

“Yes. It may be possible to meet domestic demand, but selling it overseas is also a problem. There may be a leak of the production method.”

“Great insight.”

“Any objections?”

“Professor Asterix’s words are also true. It can be a way to show off your power to help neighboring countries, or it can be an opportunity to make money.”

“What should I do?”

“One more thing. I think there’s something Professor Asterix didn’t mention on purpose.”

“What is it?”

“From a humanitarian perspective. If we send medicine overseas, we can save many more lives and increase research on this topic.”

You missed that. Professor Asterix chose to bury it rather than mention it and say something else in his letter.

Either he thought the royal family wouldn’t be interested, or he thought it was less important, or he thought that such words wouldn’t convince the prince.

Trying to deceive the prince with humanitarian goals of helping others, while hiding the fact that you can do good deeds.

Couldn’t you have mentioned it? The prince scratched his head. He really is a strange person.

“Let’s review it. Who are the guys who are pushing this, the Madison family of Lutece?”

“Yes.”

“You’re Professor Asterix’s disciple, right?”

The bookseller nodded.

“Anyway, since we’re selling to an unspecified number of people, it’s a good thing if we can exert influence on foreign aristocrats. Let’s give it a try.”

“You are a wise choice.”

The bookworm answered as if it were a habit.

****

This time it was operation time. I sat my two graduate students down at their desks and tapped the blackboard in a corner of the lab.

“Okay. Let’s plan a plan.”

“What’s going on?”

I looked at the graduate students.

“What do you think? If healers from overseas come to learn something, what would be good to teach them first? Focusing on drinking techniques.”

This time, healers are coming from overseas to attend the lecture. The idea is to find a way to help the most patients with the least amount of effort. Let’s look at the cost-effectiveness.

“Ah, first of all, the auscultation method.”

I wrote “stethoscope” on the board.

-First. Auscultation.

This was true. Auscultation does not require complex equipment and is a relatively simple task. It is also essential for diagnosis.

“Istina. What do you think?”

“Suture.”

I hadn’t thought about that. I usually took suturing for granted, but it turns out that suturing is something that needs to be learned separately.

-Second. Suture.

I don’t know how different the suture techniques were in this era, but it was worth looking into.

“Suture. Depending on the conditions, when to pull out the thread, how to space the knots, etc., the best way is all different. It would be better to look at them together.”

“Yes.”

I thought about it a bit more. What other cost-effective alcoholic beverages are there? Alcoholic beverages that can be learned without modern medicine.

“Ah. Hand hygiene.”

When I think about it, it was a natural thing to do. It was something I did as soon as I came to this world, and it was something that was entirely possible here.

-Third. Hygiene.

It looked simple, but it wasn’t easy.

Medical staff’s hands should be disinfected with alcohol, blankets and other items should be boiled and washed, and patients’ hands should be disinfected if possible. Wounds should also be disinfected.

It was like that throughout history.

The common sense that doctors should wash their hands did not come about by accident. It was the result of decades of experimentation and debate in many countries.

“This also needs to be approached technically.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

It took a long time for hand hygiene in hospitals to become common sense worldwide.

Auscultation, suturing, hygiene.

I scratched my head. Is there anything else?

I think there are still cost-effective treatments out there. If not, any method that can be used in this day and age would be helpful.

Amy looked at me for a moment, then thought about it.

“But. What exactly is going on?”

“Do you know the new international students who entered this year? Teacher Melissa made a suggestion. She asked us to increase academic cooperation with overseas healers and supply medicine overseas.”

“How shameless.”

That’s true… … .

Shameless people are necessary in society. What matters is whether they are able to pay the price after committing shameless acts.

I decided to look at it as the passion of an undergraduate student.

“Anyway… … . I think it makes a lot of sense to ask for a chance to share knowledge and skills overseas. I was thinking about that.”

“Aha. It was because of that undergraduate student.”

Istina had a strange expression on her face. As if she knew something I didn’t.

“Why are your eyes open like that?”

“Nothing.”

As we talked, something occurred to me.

-Fourth. How to use the medicine.

Aspirin and penicillin are good medicines, but they are not medicines that can be used anywhere. They are medicines with clear side effects and conditions of use.

Well, this was a matter of how far the royal family would allow sales, but I thought it would be better to make it clear.

“But. Why this all of a sudden?”

“Next step. It is important to publish research, but I think we can really change the world if we see that it is being applied.”

Amy nodded.

“It’s only been a few days since you came to the Academy. It seems unlikely that the new discoveries will be properly applied overseas.”

There’s no way it’s going to work out properly.

“I don’t really understand what you’re talking about. Can’t you just have the professor explain it to you?”

It wasn’t that simple. You shouldn’t talk nonsense. You should think of clear grounds and feasible measures before you speak.

“That’s… ….”

****

This is the story of Semmelweis.

A Hungarian obstetrician and gynecologist from the early 19th century.

Semmelweis claimed that simply disinfecting hands could prevent puerperal fever and hospital-acquired infections. His claim was not accepted.

There were several reasons. One reason was that lye water was chosen as the disinfectant to use.

Doctors at the time had no intention of washing their hands with lye, and they did not believe that germs were the cause of many diseases.

Eventually, Semmelweis was taken to a mental hospital after attacking other gynecologists, calling them murderers and idiots.

It’s a little-known fact, but the circumstances surrounding Semmelweis’s admission to the mental hospital were quite dramatic. It was so tragic that it was almost funny.

Semmelweis’s notoriety grew among the Hungarian medical community. Eventually, Semmelweis’ colleagues wrote a report declaring him insane.

Semmelweis’ former colleagues invited him to come and see the new hospital, where he was caught and forcibly admitted.

World-renowned scholars have already written opinions stating that Semmelweis is mentally ill. There were more than one or two of these scholars.

Semmelweis was beaten while trying to escape, and died a few days later of sepsis, the disease he had spent his entire life fighting.

After Semmelweis’s death, the number of cases of puerperal fever in the hospital where he was director increased sixfold. This is a statistic provided by people at the time. It’s not that people in the past didn’t know.

****

The two graduate students looked at me with somewhat serious expressions. Amy raised her hand.

“That… …. Is there anything positive about it?”

“Yes. British doctors thought Semmelweis was right.”

To be precise.

British doctors believed that Semmelweis supported the germ hypothesis advocated by the British.

This was not true. Semmelweis did not understand what germs were and thought that doctors were treating patients with corpse-touching hands and that patients were dying from corpse particles.

This was generally not true.

So, I was madly angry at my fellow doctors. This was also strangely off-topic, if I think about it carefully.

“Anyway, back to the conclusion. Auscultation, suturing, hygiene, and drug usage. Let’s focus on these four. Let’s teach and explain these easily.”

The graduate students nodded.

For the time being, this was the task at hand. How to spread the word about the simplest treatment as widely as possible, preferably without having to be dragged into a mental institution.