Chapter 32

Chapter 32. Whose Corpse Is This? (1)

***

Today, the ward was peaceful as ever. A space ruled by screams, chaos, destruction, and death.

Still, things were stabilizing somewhat. Cold patients would be sent home at sunrise, and those injured in the swordsmanship tournament might need another day or two.

Nope. People with broken legs can go home once we finish making plaster casts, but the one who had their spleen removed will likely need a few more days.

“Patient conditions look okay?”

“Just stable. Checking if there’s any inflammation around the surgery site.”

“No inflammation, right?”

Istina nodded slightly, though her expression hinted at curiosity.

“Professor, how did you figure out what disease the trauma patients had and how to treat it?”

How did I figure it out? You gotta know these things to survive—what other way is there? Istina tilted her head, and after some thought, I spoke.

“When I was in med school…”

“Yes?”

“One professor taught us that you could identify snake species based on the shape of their fangs.”

“Aha, interesting!”

“So during class, one student asked, ‘Do we really need to learn how to identify snakes when we’re trying to be doctors?'”

“Good point.”

“I don’t know either. I can’t tell snake species apart by fang or head shape, and I can’t distinguish mushrooms just from descriptions alone. How are people supposed to memorize all this stuff?”

But here’s the thing…

“Anyway… What if you encounter a patient bitten by an unknown snake type in your lifetime? You never know.”

It might happen, or it might not.

“What I’m saying is…”

“We have to know everything?”

The professor who taught me said this:

– “You don’t have to know everything.”

– “But if you don’t, someone might die.”

“It’s not your fault if a patient dies, and it’s impossible to memorize every little detail. But if knowing one more thing could save someone’s life someday…”

This isn’t emotional—it’s practical. You gotta know. If you don’t, you gotta find out. There’s no other option.

“Aha.”

“You should memorize common diseases and ones you’re likely to see. If blood pressure drops after trauma, it’s probably internal bleeding caused by liver or spleen rupture. The spleen is under the left ribs and can be removed.”

That’s how my mind works.

“Sounds hard.”

“Not really.”

We do what we can.

“Like me—I didn’t think ahead about making a sphygmomanometer, so I struggled again without a way to measure blood pressure.”

To be precise, I hadn’t considered that creating a blood pressure monitor was even possible here. But lacking a way to check blood pressure was inconvenient.

“What’s blood pressure?”

“Huh?”

Istina clearly had no idea what I was talking about. I knew there wasn’t a sphygmomanometer, but I didn’t realize she didn’t even know what blood pressure was.

Wait… So what theory were they using before the discovery of blood circulation? I vaguely remember, but let me think…

Oh yeah, they believed blood was created in the heart.

“Blood pressure? It’s the pressure of blood flowing through the vessels.”

This is something I overlooked too.

Internal bleeding, reduced blood pressure, loss of consciousness due to low blood pressure—all these concepts rely on understanding that blood circulates. Without that knowledge, Istina wouldn’t have understood last time’s case of internal bleeding, falling blood pressure, and loss of consciousness.

She must’ve thought I was just babbling nonsense during the surgery.

After pondering for a while, I spoke up.

“Istina, where do you think blood comes from and where does it go?”

“Uh… Blood is made in the liver and spreads throughout the body, right?”

Ah, that’s right.

Before the discovery of blood circulation, the academic community followed Galen, a Roman physician-philosopher, who believed blood spread and was consumed by tissues.

It sounds absurd now, but back then, capillaries couldn’t be observed, so tissues appeared to absorb blood like a sponge.

Logically, it wasn’t entirely wrong to assume absorbed blood was consumed.

Of course, better tools reveal otherwise. Evidence includes calculating blood flow or observing capillaries under a microscope…

Big problem: Academia is still recovering from the bacterial hypothesis scandal. Any symposium or visiting professor will only talk about bacteria. Still, no other options.

I’ll teach as many students as I can during lectures and publish findings quickly.

Suddenly, my workload just multiplied.

“Let’s go somewhere later.”

“Where?”

Once the ward patients stabilize a bit. I need materials for the next lecture.

Finally, it’s time to bring *it* out.

“Finish up ward duties and let’s go.”

“Yes.”

The swordsmanship tournament isn’t important right now.

Once two hospitalized patients stabilize, I need to quickly explain blood pressure to Istina and start building a sphygmomanometer.

***

Medical research requires corpses.

It’s unavoidable. You can’t expect someone who hasn’t dissected a corpse to suddenly operate on living patients. Prescribing medicine for something you’ve never seen firsthand is also problematic.

Not to mention, dissection isn’t the only use. Corpses are often needed for experiments.

A famous example: The U.S. military once used donated corpses to test protective gear against explosives, which made headlines.

Anyway…

“Whose corpse is this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did it come from?”

We’re in the Academy basement dungeon.

On a table in the basement dungeon lay a single corpse. Wearing plague doctor masks, Istina and I stared down at it.

“They sell them at the execution grounds.”

“You can just buy them?”

I nodded.

“Why so curious? I saw them selling and bought one. Don’t know much else.”

“Shouldn’t there be some questions when corpses are being bought and sold?”

I brought it just in case I might need it. Apparently, it was under a magical preservation spell for several days.

“Anything strange?”

Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s legal. Even if imperial law is ridiculous, buying bodies like furniture seems off.

Was it sold by a doctor?

“Anyway, let’s begin.”

In the basement, I prepared buckets of water and glass bottles filled with alcohol.

I planned to extract organs, preserve them in alcohol, and use them as teaching materials.

The focus is organ structure and function.

“Let’s open it up.”

Placing cadavers in classrooms for lessons might be tough, so maybe students should come down here instead.

That feels weird too.

For now, I’ll focus on teaching and persuading Istina. That’s the priority.

I picked up the saw first.

“Istina, do you know where the heart is?”

“Right in the middle of the chest.”

“Correct. From here to here are the ribs. Let’s saw through and open it up to extract the heart. You take the opposite side and cut carefully.”

Despite feeling nauseous, Istina began sawing from the collarbone. In modern hospitals, we’d use something like bone cutters.

Crunch, crunch. The sound of cracking ribs.

“Eww…”

In modern hospitals, acquiring cadavers is difficult, but here, you can get them relatively easily with money. That’s convenient.

The downside?

Cadavers in modern hospitals are perfectly preserved, but this one wasn’t. There’s pooled blood inside, and nerves and other tissues may already be decayed or altered, making delicate structures harder to observe.

Anyway, the ribcage is open. Finishing with metal cutters, I fully exposed the lungs and heart.

“This is the heart. Take it out.”

Istina held forceps, cut the major blood vessels with a scalpel, and gently extracted the heart.

“Now rinse it.”

If there’s pooled blood, it’ll make structural observation harder. Silently, Istina cleaned the heart with water. Dark red clots fell away.

“Do you remember its structure and function?”

“Yes.”

“How many openings?”

“Uh… There are four large openings.”

Correct. Each connects to the aorta, vena cava, pulmonary artery, and pulmonary vein. Though the vena cava splits into superior and inferior sections…

There are four main openings.

Here’s the key:

The heart isn’t just where blood exits—it’s also where it enters. Blood isn’t consumed; it continuously circulates through the body.

“What can you tell by looking at the heart?”

“Uh… Not much yet.”

Istina slowly rotated the heart.

“Then… How does it feel?”

“Uh… Very firm?”

Behind her plague doctor mask, Istina furrowed her brow, clearly unsure what I meant. Well, let’s take it slow.

“Let me see.”

I took the heart from Istina. Let’s start by examining the aortic valve…

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