Dog bite incidents.
These accidents occasionally happen in South Korea too...
But I doubt they occur as frequently as they do here.
The number of stray dogs was overwhelming...
Especially in the slums, you could see a significant number of dogs that clearly seemed to have gone mad.
One of the reasons I moved out of that area and ended up staying at Alfred's place was because of these dogs.
"Ugh, aaaah!"
Given that, it wasn't surprising that several people bitten by dogs ended up at this hospital every day...
The fact that I hadn't paid much attention to such patients until now was purely coincidental.
Well, to be fair, I was also too busy to notice.
Think about it.
If you let your guard down for even a moment, they'd do something crazy.
Like killing someone because they had a headache?
"Stay still!"
"That's right, we're trying to help you!"
It's sad that such words are considered normal in situations like this, but at the moment, this was no exception.
"Gah, aaaah!"
In the blink of an eye, the wounds of the patient who had been bitten by a dog were being cauterized with a hot iron.
If you're wondering if this was the kind of iron used to burn people, well, that would be a big problem if it were...
But no, it was actually the kind of iron used by our medical staff to press their clothes.
In other words, we were using a clothes iron to burn human flesh...
"Good! The bleeding's stopping!"
In an instant, the acrid smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Strangely, the smell of burning human flesh was different from the usual smell of cooking meat—it was far more nauseating.
"Ugh."
Meanwhile, the people watching this spectacle were cheering.
"R-really? The bleeding stopped?"
"Yeah. You're going to live now."
"Phew."
The truly insane part was that even the patient sighed in relief.
If rabies could be stopped like this, wouldn't it have been recorded in history?
It wouldn't have been that easy.
'Ah, now I remember.'
Whatever it was, as the desperate screams faded, my mind finally started to work again.
If it had started working sooner, could I have saved that patient? I wondered, but as I sifted through my knowledge, it still seemed impossible.
Rabies treatment isn't something that can be done easily.
It's not caused by bacteria, but by a virus, after all.
Antiviral drugs...
'Wait... when did those first appear?'
I can't even remember, honestly.
It was probably much later than antibiotics, right?
In fact, none of the antiviral drugs are as effective as antibiotics are against bacteria.
However, the rabies vaccine was developed during Pasteur's time, in the 19th century.
Fleming discovered penicillin in 1929, so the rabies vaccine came much earlier.
In fact... it was achieved even before the existence of viruses was known.
'It was in the form of a vaccine. If you administer a weakened vaccine, antibodies form quickly... and if used before the disease progresses too far, it could be used as a treatment. It's not 100% safe, but...'
Thinking about it this way, Louis Pasteur really was a monstrously brilliant figure.
I mean, even I, studying in the 21st century, would find it difficult to achieve what he did in such a barbaric era.
Of course, given the rapid advancements of the time, it might have become easier a few decades later...
But that doesn't diminish his greatness.
"What are you so deep in thought about?"
"Huh? Oh, no. Um. What are you going to do with that dog... the dog?"
"The dog? We'll have to kill it. It has rabies—how could we save it?"
Right.
We'd have to kill it.
In fact, this was something done even in the 21st century, so it was a reasonable measure.
Advanced rabies is still incurable, after all.
Considering the horrifying symptoms...
If killing it could prevent further cases, it was the right thing to do.
"Can I take a look at it?"
But before it was killed, there might be something I could do.
Without realizing it, I turned to look at the patient whose arm had just been cauterized after being bitten.
That person wouldn't survive.
This method only worked for simple dog bites, not rabies.
After all, not every dog that bites a person has rabies, right?
-Grrrrrr.
But the dog in front of me now clearly seemed to have rabies.
First of all, the amount of drool dripping from its mouth was abnormal.
This is one of the symptoms of rabies.
I've never actually seen it before, but as a surgeon, I've inevitably seen dog bite wounds...
And during case discussions or conferences, we've covered rabies for differential diagnosis.
Anyway, I thought I might find a way to save other patients in the future.
"You want to examine it?"
Of course, Dr. Liston looked at me like he didn't understand.
-Whimper.
His face, in a way, was also incredibly intimidating.
Maybe that's why even the rabid dog, or rather, the mad dog, started whimpering in fear.
It was truly an impressive feat.
"It doesn't seem that dangerous right now, does it?"
"Are you serious? If it bites you, you're dead!"
"Then why did you cauterize the wound earlier?"
"If they've come all the way to the hospital, we can't just do nothing. Besides, the bleeding stopped, didn't it?"
"Ah."
Wow, this time I was genuinely surprised.
So they do know?
They know that cauterizing doesn't solve everything.
Yet they didn't hesitate to burn human flesh with an iron.
I guess I still have a long way to go before I can fully adapt to the 19th century.
"But why do you want to examine it? There are plenty of methods..."
As I stood there dumbfounded, Liston asked while stroking the handle of his knife.
The dog had quieted down by now.
It seemed to have realized that if it acted up, it would end up sliced in half by Liston's knife.
Even in the midst of going mad from disease, it could still control its anger.
It was a relief that this man considered me his brother.
"As you said, rabies... we still can't cure it, right?"
"That's right. There's no way. The best strategy is to avoid being bitten. There's a drug called Ashirion, but if it were effective, it would have been widely used by now."
"In Joseon, there's a record of this."
And so, I started lying again.
At first, it was hard to get the words out, but now the lies just flowed effortlessly.
"A dog that was drooling profusely bit someone, and after the dog was slaughtered, they were supposed to burn the body, but the person who slaughtered it kept the meat to eat."
"Wow, that's bold. How could they eat that?"
"Well, they felt uneasy about it, so they didn't eat it right away..."
How did Pasteur do it again?
To be precise, how did he create the weakened vaccine...
It wasn't a complicated process, I'm sure.
No, it couldn't have been.
It was the 1890s—what dramatic changes could there have been?
'Ah, right.'
I remembered.
That's right.
I recall being shocked when I first heard about it.
"They dried it in the sun."
"Hmm... would that help?"
It would.
Of course it would.
Salting it would have a stronger sterilizing effect, but if they processed it that way, the rabies virus—or anything else—would be completely destroyed, making it hard to achieve any weakening effect. But drying it in the sun would work.
The heat would weaken it...
And sunlight itself has sterilizing properties.
Besides, the dog was already dead, so the environment would naturally be unfavorable for the virus's survival.
I'm not sure of the exact mechanism, but since they did it that way, it must have worked.
"Listen."
"Okay, go on."
Now the dog was looking at me, completely cowed.
The way Liston and I were talking must have made us seem like equals.
When you think about it, it doesn't make sense, but the dog was mad—what could it possibly see clearly?
"The person who was bitten started feeling sick, and around that time, the person who slaughtered the dog had this thought: maybe eating the meat would help? Something like that."
"Wow, and then?"
Not just Liston, but everyone around us was listening intently.
Joseph, Alfred, Colin, and others.
If they found out that everything I was saying was a complete lie, what kind of expressions would they make?
I was curious, but I didn't want to get stabbed just to find out, so I decided to keep lying.
"The bitten person also wanted to eat the meat, I guess. They didn't specify what kind of meat it was, so it's hard to say."
"Wow. What kind of person would..."
"Don't be too surprised. That person gave the head part to the bitten person. They didn't want to give away the tastier parts, I guess."
"What a jerk."
Liston was fair in many ways, especially when it came to food.
He was a big eater, so I thought that might be why, but he didn't show it outwardly.
"The surprising thing is... what happened next. I didn't understand it until I read about it in medical school. I thought it might just be a coincidence."
"What? What are you getting at?"
"That person... survived. After eating the meat... specifically, the head part of the dog that bit them."
"Hmm...? How? As you said, it might just be a coincidence. After all, not everyone who gets rabies dies."
He was right—the fatality rate wasn't 100%.
There have always been incredibly strong people.
Even with Ebola, some people survive.
Rabies was no exception...
But I wasn't just telling this story to talk about that.
"Then I found out that in the 17th century, there was an experiment."
"What kind?"
"They took blood from a rabid dog and injected it into another dog, and that dog got rabies too. That kind of experiment."
"Hmm... Ah, I vaguely remember that. There was something like that. But what about it?"
"That means whatever causes rabies... is in the blood or bodily fluids, right?"
"Sure. It's in the saliva too, right?"
Liston wasn't interested in my rambling.
He was just staring at the dog, which was drooling profusely and cowering.
Yeah, that was also correct.
There's a lot in the saliva.
But eventually, it attacks the brain, that's the point.
And saliva, when dried, becomes completely useless.
"I think that maybe the dog's head... specifically the brain and medulla, dried in the sun, weakened the virus, and when the patient ate it, they survived."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
Even though I explained in detail, he still didn't get it. I wasn't offended, though.
I had left out the part about antigens and antibodies, so even I thought it sounded confusing.
"I'm not entirely sure myself, but the important thing is..."
"You want to kill that dog, dry its brain and medulla, and feed it to that person, right?"
"Well... yes. That's the gist of it."
"Then do it."
And with that, my self-proclaimed brother, Dr. Liston, raised his knife high.