"Hmm."
"Umm...."
Liston, my students, and I were all looking at the five patients laid out before us.
It seemed the problem of urban poverty overflowing wasn't unique to London.
Even in Hanover, it was like this...
_'For people in that situation, their skin is quite good, no?'_
_'Ah. Is that so? Now that you mention it...'_
I was convinced they were people dragged here due to unavoidable circumstances, but after hearing Liston's words, that didn't seem to be the case.
When I asked, it turned out they weren't poor but rather people who could make a decent living.
Receiving that assessment by my current standards, not my past ones, meant they were undoubtedly well-off folks back in Hanover.
In other words, these were people who paid their own way to come here, and moreover, they were people who would actively cooperate with the treatment.
_'Good.'_
_'Umm.'_
_'Why do you sound like that?'_
_'The treatment will be quite different from yours, Your Highness.'_
_'Huh?'_
I thought this as I carefully examined the five patients.
Since the matter had already been communicated, all five patients were lying naked in the hospital room.
I'm not sure if it's fortunate or not, but perhaps because these gentlemen were Germanic, they had even more body hair than the average Englishman.
That was a good thing, but...
Their lack of head hair was extreme.
It seemed that even if we gathered all the hair from elsewhere, we could only give the impression that they went from having no hair to having some.
Liston's case was serious, but compared to these men, one might almost feel apologetic for calling his condition hair loss.
With Liston, you could just make an incision on the back of the head and do a transplant, and it'd probably be fine.
_'Huh? What do you mean, no? The situations are too different.'_
For example, treating these people could never serve as practice for Liston's case, that's what he meant.
When I said that, Liston shyly showed me his stomach.
It was less his stomach and more his lower abdomen.
_'I'm quite plentiful here too, no less than others.'_
It wasn't an exaggeration; it was beyond plentiful, it was downright luxuriant.
To think a person could harbor a jungle inside their body...
It put the Germanic tribes to shame.
Well, he's not just a person but a martial artist...
_'What are you thinking about so deeply?'_
_'Ah, no. Nothing.'_
But luxuriant or not, cutting this out and transplanting it onto the scalp was a completely different story.
_'I told you earlier. What happens if you plant a crop that grows well elsewhere into wasteland?'_
_'Just watching this makes me worry if mine might be insufficient too.'_
_'No, no. It's fine. Your case is different. It's absolutely not like this.'_
_'Really? Well, that's a relief then... But that means it won't work for practice, does it?'_
_'Well... it'll be okay. There are plenty of suitable people. But to see the proper results, it will take one or two months. Can you be patient that long?'_
Fortunately, Liston, whose medical mind is quite sharp, understood my words immediately.
Intellectually, that is.
_'It's hard to be patient.'_
His heart seemed to disagree.
Liston let out a deep sigh.
He had just run his hand through his forelock, and even I would have sighed in his place.
Although his situation was much better than the men lying here, when he ran his hand through it just now, his hair was so thin it seemed like it might all fall out any moment, leaving him completely bald.
_'For your information, my fists are also in a state where it's hard to be patient.'_
_'Ah, ahh.'_
_'Stop looking at them. If it weren't for you, I'd have killed someone.'_
_'Understood.'_
I was momentarily mesmerized by the scene, which was like the sound of a strained string instrument, and almost lost myself for good.
Anyway, after re-examining the patients with my students, I gave a simple briefing.
It was simple in terms of words, but to anyone outside our group, even the most excellent medical teams of the 19th century, it was filled with terms they wouldn't understand.
Consequently, they were momentarily speechless.
They were so deeply moved.
The first to be struck by this emotion was none other than Joseph, the Demon King of Disinfection, who had become my friend and student since Upton.
"Here... disinfect this area thoroughly like this."
"Should I shave the hair too?"
"Huh? We have to pluck the hair and transplant it, so we can't shave it."
"But the disinfection..."
"That's why I appointed you, isn't it? Even if the hair is long, make sure the disinfection is complete, get into every nook and cranny."
"Ah... Aah."
Joseph clasped his hands together, looking at some indeterminate point in the empty air as if he saw a disinfection deity or something.
His face was slightly flushed...
He might look like that, but at least when it comes to entrusting him with disinfection, there's absolutely no reason to worry.
- Joseph! That guy should be put in a mental asylum!
He's so serious about disinfection that he disinfects anyone and everyone, leading to such petitions coming in not infrequently.
If I hadn't been here...
Well, if I hadn't been here, he wouldn't have become obsessed with disinfection either?
If he had grasped the concept of disinfection on his own, he would most likely have ended his life in a mental asylum.
In this era, mental asylums were practically like prisons serving life sentences, and even a sane person would go mad after spending a lifetime with rats, maggots, and mentally ill patients left untreated.
"Ah, disinfect from the crown here to the forehead too."
"Ah."
I wanted to leave him in his good mood, but there were more areas to disinfect, right?
We have to transplant onto the scalp; what would happen if we left this area as is?
If an infection developed...
It would become a sight too dreadful to imagine.
Even if an limb infection reached an untreatable stage, Liston could probably survive with a swing of his sword, but if the head is cut, it's an immediate death sentence, isn't it?
Ah, I don't mean we'd be sentenced to death.
I mean the patient. If you kill doctors for making a little mistake while trying to treat you, huh? Who would do such noble work then?
"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
While I was lost in thought, Joseph, who had gotten closer to the patient, approached me with a very troubled expression.
_'Where exactly is the forehead?'_
_'Ah.'_
I had thought I could answer 100% of medical questions from this era.
There might be situations where I know the answer but am reluctant to say it for fear of being branded a witch, but I thought I knew everything unconditionally...
Again, one should not be too arrogant.
I have no idea either.
_'Just roughly draw the line where you think it is. Anyway, the disinfection area needs to be wider.'_
_'Ah... Okay. I'll do that.'_
So I told him roughly.
I know the hairline isn't something you should determine like this.
Otherwise, why would there be such a thing as hairline surgery?
But at least the English probably wouldn't say anything.
Aren't these the folks who draw national borders arbitrarily anyway?
Weighing the importance of the two matters, the hairline is undoubtedly far less critical.
"Now, the surgery... will be performed under general anesthesia. At first, it might look a bit... unusual. But I'm confident it will improve after a few months."
"Then please start with me."
"Umm. We'll perform it tomorrow anyway, due to the fasting requirement."
"Ah..."
"We also need to do pre-operative tests before that, so please be patient even if you're eager."
"Pre-operative tests...? There's such a thing?"
"Yes. This isn't considered London's best... nay, the world's best hospital for nothing."
"Well, I suppose it must be different in some ways."
Since we'd decided on the hairline roughly too, the surgical plans were proceeding smoothly.
In the past, I would have gone home at this point, but now I couldn't.
That's because we now had these so-called pre-operative tests.
- Why on earth are we doing this...?
- Don't tell me you're doing this to satisfy your own viciousness.
At first, everyone was horrified.
But after Liston personally experienced that even for the same amputation surgery, the results were much better after correcting something found through my pre-operative tests, it became a standard procedure.
Medical understanding was one thing, but if you refused, Liston would persuade you physically, so what could you do?
"Please sit here."
"Hmm. What is this...?"
"We're measuring your blood pressure."
"Blood pressure...?"
First, we measure blood pressure.
Actually, this doesn't have much significance.
First, because the reliability of the sphygmomanometer is somewhat low, we can't even be sure if the blood pressure reading itself is accurate.
Moreover, even if it reads high, there's nothing we can do about it.
That's because we lack the medication.
- Couldn't we give them Ginseng?
Would Ginseng, specifically red ginseng, help?
I don't know.
I don't know, but we shouldn't give it before surgery.
Because it thins the blood, increasing bleeding.
Well, worrying about bleeding during a hair transplant is a bit of an overreaction, but it's still right to be cautious.
_'The blood pressure is purely for my research.'_
I'm keeping records to use as statistics for when we eventually use medication or something later.
Also, patients tend to feel good when the doctor personally does something, so it's good for building rapport.
"Now, please urinate here."
Of course, the truly important thing was the second test.
"Urine...?"
"Yes, we will use our testing equipment to check for diabetes or other diseases."
"Ah, ahh. Now that you mention it, this place is famous for diabetes treatment."
"Yes. Diabetes can trigger hair loss. Also, the survival rate of transplanted hair decreases if diabetes is present."
"Well I never...! What a wretched... wretched disease. Do I do it here?"
"Ah, no. Since you're already undressed, it probably doesn't matter, but... still, over there please."
"Ah, yes, yes."
I thus collected five urine samples and handed them over to our hospital's testing equipment.
"Hmm."
With many patients scheduled for surgery tomorrow, the equipment already seemed to be reaching its limits.
It had already processed about 20 tests, so that was understandable.
Compared to 21st-century equipment, 19th-century equipment inevitably has inferior durability.
"What's wrong."
"No, nothing."
Of course, it possesses a passion that machines cannot have, so it was able to force the tests through.
"The third patient... has some diabetes."
"I see. To what extent?"
"It's not severe."
"Then we probably won't need insulin... we should block it short-term with dietary restrictions."
"Yes, yes."
"Any other abnormal findings?"
"The fifth patient... seems to have an infection."
"Syphilis?"
"The feeling is... not syphilis. It's not certain."
Moreover, it can hold a conversation.
You can just think of it as artificial intelligence.
It costs quite a bit of money, but if you think of it as a kind of social contribution that an elite can readily expend, it's bearable.
_'If you can tell if it's syphilis or not just by taste, are you even human?'_
Thinking that, I often pat our equipment on the shoulder and circled the fifth patient's name. It was for Joseph to see; clearly, the disinfection would hurt more for that patient.
He already scrubs like a madman; if he hears there's an STI, how much more will he scrub?
Not that I felt sorry for him.
What if it transfers to the scalp...?
I dare not even imagine what would happen.
_'Good. Everything is going well.'_
Anyway, our hospital was now about to attempt the world's first hair loss treatment.
That also meant we were going to change the future.