It came half expectedly, half out of the blue.
The physicians were summoned to a conference room. Maomao was asked to attend in the nominal position of secretary, but when she saw who was gathered, she had a pretty good idea what they were there to talk about.
Dr. Liu, Luomen, and Tall and Short Seniors were there. Mid-Height Peer was missing. Instead she saw Tianyu, goggling at the room around him, and a collection of other accomplished and capable doctors.
Perhaps most interesting of all, Dr. Tairan was there as well. Maomao had given him Suirei’s notes just the other day—telling him, as she had promised, that they were left behind after Suirei’s death. One thing was different from before: Dr. Tairan walked tall, much taller than Maomao might have expected from someone derided as a coward.
Maybe he knew I was BSing about the notes being “personal effects.”
Maomao also spotted a woman she’d seen during the selection exam. In fact, everyone there had passed the same examination.
This has to do with the Emperor, no question.
Normally, Maomao would have expected to be excluded just like Mid-Height Peer. The whole calling-her-in-as-a-secretary thing must have been Jinshi’s doing, or possibly at Luomen’s intercession. It did annoy her, though, that Tianyu was there on his own merits.
In spite of being a trash human being!
Even Maomao had to admit that surgical skill was one area in which he couldn’t be faulted.
Maomao seated herself beside Luomen and started taking notes on a pad. Luomen was the center of discussions about the medicines involved, while Dr. Liu was leading talk about the surgery itself. There was another group, too, one that was researching medicines for after the procedure.
Before surgery, during surgery, after surgery.
Those, Maomao realized, were the groups into which they had been divided.
Some weather-beaten old papers were carefully arranged on the table in front of Dr. Liu—the reconstructed remnants of Kada’s Book. The pages showed illustrations of an autopsy. Judging by the fact that only physicians were present and the door was locked, the intention must have been for everyone to see the pages.
Did Jinshi give those to him?
Any ordinary person would look askance at the book, but to the likes of Maomao and Tianyu the content was absolutely fascinating. Of particular interest to Maomao was that the autopsy illustration included copious notes about diseases of the internal organs; she hoped to have a chance to study it closely later.
I didn’t get a good look before, she thought. There simply hadn’t been time.
“I want to hear how each of our subjects is progressing,” Dr. Liu said.
Tall Senior stood up. “Currently, we’ve confirmed that the medicine is effective. However...”
There was an obvious difference between the group that had received the real medicine and the one that had gotten the placebo. The real medicine worked. However, there were variations by individual, and even within the group that received the drug, some people got better and some didn’t. The ones who were cured appeared to be those who’d had mild symptoms to begin with. Still, the condition seemed to worsen more slowly than in the placebo group.
Luomen then elaborated a bit on what Tall Senior had reported. Dr. Liu looked as if it was all about as he had expected. Maomao rapidly took notes. She’d known all this already, so writing it down was easy.
After that, it was the surgical team’s turn to report. First, Tairan and an upper physician skilled in the use of needles talked about anesthesia. In addition to the use of herbal medicines, they discussed the possibilities of alcohol, needles, pressure, and cold to reduce pain. Of course, the more a method eliminated pain, the more dangerous it was. They mentioned a number of dangerous names like thornapple, wolfsbane, mandrake, poppy, and cannabis.
When you’re cutting open someone’s stomach, pain is probably inevitable, Maomao thought. The question was how much the patient could take. There were plenty of legends and tales of great heroes having surgery done on them without minding the pain at all—but if they could blunt the discomfort somehow, it would decrease the chance of the patient going berserk during the operation.
Should anesthetic herbs be considered medicine, or poison? It was a difficult distinction to draw.
Having talked about the possibilities, Tairan then suggested an anesthetic that was a compound of several different drugs. He would not use alcohol, but a concoction including sleeping medications to take the edge off the pain.
If we’re really lucky, we’ll be able to perform the operation before he wakes up.
Maomao continued taking down notes, trying her best to be accurate. There was one other person taking notes, a physician, so if she made any errors, they could compare her notes with his.
She was surprised to realize that research on the surgical procedure had come so far.
Maybe Kada’s Book helped them.
Once the procedure was over, she fully intended to have a better look at it.
“Concerning the illness itself, while this is not unqualified, we believe we’ve found a way to solve the problem at its source.”
Maomao’s eyes widened and she looked on with undisguised interest. This subject was so important that Dr. Liu himself was doing the presentation.
“If it should happen that the problem is not in the cecum but in the appendix, we’ll prevent any further recurrences by removing it. The autopsy illustrations have shown us that it often is the appendix that’s the actual problem.”
“Maomao,” Luomen said, nudging her. She’d been so busy watching Dr. Liu that she’d forgotten to take any notes, and she hurried to catch up.
The appendix: If she remembered correctly, that was the little thing hanging there like a worm that she’d seen when they’d done their dissections.
“Are we sure it’s all right to remove the appendix?” asked one physician. Maomao was grateful to him: It was exactly what she wanted to ask.
“It’s reputed to be a relatively safe organ to remove,” Dr. Liu replied. “At the very least, we know the damage would be far worse if we were to simply let filth continue to collect in the appendix until it burst.”
That would send the stuff all over the inside of the abdomen, likely causing other illnesses and finally death.
Kada’s Book, sitting before Dr. Liu, contained detailed drawings of the appendix. The fact that the book was sitting there suggested just how much help it had been.