Chapter 78

78th Episode: Goldfish (1)

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It was tough, but rounding the ward went pretty smoothly. Amy put the medical record back into the brown envelope.

“Any thoughts on the patient?”

“It’s still hard for me. Professor, can you tell what’s wrong just by looking at a patient’s face?”

Hmm…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes, was a doctor. It’s said he drew inspiration for Sherlock’s deduction process from his own practice of inferring patient information through observation.

Of course, these days we don’t need to rely solely on sudden flashes of insight. With advanced testing, there’s no need to depend only on observation. But still…

“Inference is important. Take Mr. Joseph as an example. Just by looking at his fingernails, we could see he works with dirt. The dirt under his nails tells us it’s been recent. And outdoor activities in autumn like handling soil can lead to certain diseases, right? Tick-borne illnesses.”

Amy nodded slightly, her expression somewhat gloomy. Was the explanation too complicated?

“I see…”

“You can always ask.”

Still, trying to gather as much information as possible is good. Not all patients are cooperative, and many don’t know what’s important to share.

And then there are unconscious patients.

“So… Did you already suspect what was wrong with Mr. Joseph before even seeing him? What symptoms should I watch out for?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no easy way out, huh…”

“You’ll get it with more study. For now, what you can learn from this case is that different seasons bring different common ailments. Late summer is tick season.”

“Understood.”

Amy nodded.

“I’ll give you the medicine. If you find any ticks or bites on Mr. Joseph later, tell him to take two pills a day.”

“Huh? What if we don’t find anything?”

“Give it to him anyway.”

I should head back to the lab. There must be letters piled up regarding the Witbi Symposium.

I’ve heard scholars used to exchange letters frequently, but wow…

I didn’t expect them to come in such overwhelming bulk, like malicious fan mail. Did Pasteur or Lister go through the same thing?

Probably worse.

****

Anyway, I saw some backlog of patients and returned to the lab with light steps. Istina was deep in thought there.

“What are you doing?”

“Refining antibiotics.”

“Troublesome?”

“Is there even a method for this?”

Hmm. I’ve been thinking about it for days—how to refine penicillin. I do have my own idea, but I wonder if Istina or Luciana has figured something out too.

“Professor.”

“Yeah?”

“If we filter the blue mold culture through a sieve, will the medicinal component pass through?”

“It should.”

Depends on the sieve size. If we use activated carbon or cloth filters, the large molecular penicillin might get absorbed. We need visible-sized holes.

Or maybe not. Since it’s water-soluble, filtering with cloth might work fine.

“Boiling won’t work, right?”

“If you boil it, the penicillin will break down.”

There must be a way. Even without barium, there should be a method to precipitate or form residue with penicillin in this world. Let’s try.

I looked at the chemical bottles Istina had gathered somewhere. Nothing left to do but test each one. Where should we start?

We need acetic acid. Its characteristic sour smell, and in the case of phenylacetic acid, a sweet scent accompanies it…

Chemists didn’t taste chemicals for nothing. Now that I’m faced with distinguishing and identifying substances, I feel like tasting them too.

That’s why Newton had 15 times the normal amount of arsenic in his hair. Though I’d rather not eat them directly. I glanced at Istina.

“Istina, which of these bottles smells like sweet vinegar?”

“Chemists don’t live long, you know.”

“Hmm…”

Istina carefully sniffed one of the bottles.

“This one?”

“Let’s see.”

I took the bottle she handed over and smelled it. Definitely a sweet scent.

“What is this?”

“Refined acetic acid.”

“Great.”

I racked my brain with my limited chemistry knowledge.

My plan goes like this:

Make a buffer solution with acetic acid and add ammonium sulfate. In a mildly acidic state, the pH stabilizes. Stirring well may result in ammonium-penicillin precipitate.

Maybe. I don’t know. We should just try.

“Do you have sulfuric acid?”

“Yes.”

“Ammonium?”

“Oh, this one. The really foul-smelling stuff mixed in fertilizer.”

“Let me see.”

This one clearly says ‘sulfur fertilizer’ on the bottle. Saves time. Hard to tell by smell alone if ammonium is present, but it probably is.

Since it’s used in fertilizers, ammonium is correct. Though I did suspect it’s used because it smells like poop…

Sigh.

Sniffing chemicals like a madman is unsettling, but these people don’t write molecular formulas. What else can we do?

“Let’s mix now.”

Istina nodded, then looked at me thoughtfully.

“But how do we evaluate what and how much to mix? It’ll be hard to decide the quantity.”

“Nope. Make a buffer solution with acetic acid and slowly add ammonium sulfate. That way, we can control the pH changes.”

“Why assign this to the alchemy department if you’re so knowledgeable?”

I grabbed the largest glass beaker in the lab and filled it with water.

“Just watch.”

“How are you going to do it with this?”

As I said, I’ve thought about it a lot. The required pH is around 6 to 5. But in this era, there’s no precise instrument to measure pH. Not even litmus paper.

To my limited knowledge, there’s only one solution.

I pulled out an aquarium from behind the desk. Inside was a small goldfish.

“It’ll be a noble sacrifice.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Isn’t the goldfish the most perfect and simple acid-base meter? We’ll gradually add powdered acidic material to the water containing the goldfish.

“Watch. We’ll slowly add powdered acid. The moment the goldfish dies, that’s when we stop administration.”

The goldfish will die the moment the solution’s acidity deviates from neutrality. That means we’ve successfully made a mild acidic solution. Then we add penicillin.

“Disturbing.”

“Animal experiments happen often, right?”

Istina stared at me with an astonished expression. A look of disdain, perhaps.

“Using a goldfish as a tool to measure solution properties is… disturbing.”

“There’s no other way.”

What can I say? Sacrifice for the greater good.

We placed the prepared buffer solution in the aquarium. The goldfish didn’t die immediately. I slowly added a few drops of ammonium sulfate solution to the glass beaker containing the goldfish.

Then… goldfish death. Istina fished out the floating goldfish with gloved hands.

I stopped adding ammonium sulfate and poured the pre-filtered blue mold culture solution. A few minutes later, white residue gathered at the bottom of the beaker.

“Wow… I’m speechless.”

“Right? It’s amazing.”

“Is the white powder at the bottom penicillin? Can we make medicine with this?”

I nodded.

The powder at the bottom is definitely penicillin. Penicillin has a large molecular weight, so it settles quickly and becomes visible. At least, that’s what I think since I’m not a chemistry major.

“What do you think?”

“Professor, honestly… explaining this process anywhere won’t help anyone understand or replicate it.”

“Why? You understood it, didn’t you?”

“What I understood is that we received medicine through a ritual sacrificing goldfish. Right?”

No way.

“No. The moment the goldfish dies is when the acetic acid buffer solution transitions from neutral to mildly acidic. That’s why we added ammonium sulfate with the goldfish inside.”

“So… isn’t that black magic?”

I sighed.

Looks like things won’t go as planned. Istina isn’t dumb, but entrusting this to people of this era…

Mass production of penicillin might never happen.

I need to rethink my strategy.

“At least we proved it’s possible.”

“True.”

Istina nodded, glancing at the discarded goldfish carcass on the side of the workbench. Her eyes held a hint of reverence, as if looking at something incomprehensible.

“Still, it’s impressive! Let’s extract this and see if it can be used as medicine.”

Exactly.

Istina turned away from the dead goldfish, grabbed a pipette, and returned to the workbench.

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