"How do we open it?"
We couldn't open it today.
For one, there was an important meeting, and also, the patient had lost too much blood from bloodletting and was too weak.
I hadn't measured their blood pressure, but if I did, the systolic pressure probably wouldn't even be 100.
Ugh…
'Speaking of which, how do you measure blood pressure? Since when has it been measured?'
First, I need to handle this matter, and then I should also check the blood pressure.
I don't know for sure, but I doubt there's no method at all.
This is the 19th century, after all.
If you look carefully, everything's here.
It's just that many things are either ignored or used in completely wrong places.
"How do we open it?"
Anyway, that seems like something to do later.
It's not because Liston asked.
I'm not doing this because I'm scared, just so we're clear.
Anyway, I looked at the corpse Liston was pointing at.
Obviously, it was a corpse sent from the police station.
I don't know where all these dead people are coming from, but they just send them over haphazardly whenever we request.
"First, let's shave the hair."
"Why? Why shave it? Does this have some other meaning?"
It's true that you need to shave the hair to perform brain surgery.
That's obvious.
For one, if it's loose, it obstructs the view…
And most importantly, the miasma—no, wait!
Dammit…
Bacteria and viruses are also a problem.
Moreover, it's also an issue during the recovery process.
We need to examine the wound, but if the hair is too thick, wouldn't it be hard to see?
When I said this, Liston, who had been freaking out and overreacting, blushed.
"Oh… I see. That makes sense. Very reasonable."
"Right? I'm not shaving it for no reason."
"But isn't it unreasonable to look at my head at a time like this?"
I thought it would be convenient for brain surgery.
If I said that, I'd probably end up being the one getting operated on.
And worse, the surgeon wouldn't be me but someone else…
Which would basically mean my death.
The harder I try to save myself, the faster I feel like I'd die.
"No, no. Here… bring that over."
"Yeah. You mean the scissors, right?"
"That's right."
I took the scissors from Alfred and first shaved off all the hair from the corpse's head.
It didn't really matter where or how I shaved it.
Since we weren't actually performing surgery anyway.
But since we were at it, I thought it'd be good to practice near the area where the doctor was injured, so I shaved half of it that way.
As I shaved, I realized it wasn't easy either.
A barber's clippers…
21st century, I miss you…
"Let me have that. The goal is to make the hair as short as possible without damaging the scalp, right?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll do it. You have good ideas, but you're clumsy when it comes to actually doing things."
"Uh… yeah."
But then I remembered Liston was here.
He can substitute for most surgical tools.
In fact, he almost always enjoys it when I ask him to do something.
He doesn't care about the time or place.
Snip snip.
Look at him now.
So fast…
The hair is already all cut off.
Anyway, the more I see him, the more I realize how skilled he is.
His hands are really big, but I don't know how he moves them so delicately.
The results are similar to mine, but his speed is a big advantage.
"Alright…"
"So now we break it open with a hammer?"
"No, no."
Breaking it open with a hammer would just be murder.
I shook my head and reached out to Colin.
As an assistant, Colin was now almost at the top of his game, so he responded instantly.
"A scalpel, right?"
"Yeah."
I took the scalpel and made an incision exactly on the scalp where the doctor was injured.
As I cut, it looked like there was a slight bruise…
But since coming to the 19th century, I've been forced to learn that bruises can appear all over the body after death, so I didn't think much of it.
"Give me the retractor."
"Uh-huh. Here."
This time, Joseph handed it over.
It wasn't anything fancy…
You know that thing they use at the dentist to forcibly keep your mouth open?
The one that makes a click-click sound? It's a slightly modified version of that. Fortunately, German craftsmanship is amazing, so it functions almost exactly like the retractor I remember.
Originally, it was made for appendectomies, so it's a bit big…
'Making it big to improve the view is a hundred, no, a thousand times better than being greedy and causing an accident.'
If I had backup options, I wouldn't be doing it this way.
I mean, I really don't want to make a 7cm incision in the scalp just to drill a hole in the head and remove a blood clot.
But what can I do?
I have to do everything by myself…
So, I have to make it as comfortable as possible for me.
"This part where the scalp is attached… if I tap it with the scalpel, it'll probably come off…"
Look at this.
Even though I know full well, I have to pretend I don't and even do the cutting myself.
It's exhausting…
So exhausting.
"Oh… it really does come off like that."
Anyway, after pushing it aside and attaching the retractor, the white skull became visible.
The problem was…
"But is the skull supposed to look like this?"
"No…"
The scalp was a bit weird, and the skull was weird too.
Just because a person dies, doesn't mean their bones become soft, right?
This had to be the result of some external physical force.
When I pressed it, about 2cm of it was damaged.
'This feels a bit like an autopsy.'
The police sent this over as an unclaimed corpse… Is this for real?
They look so young…
'Well, it's not like young people dying is anything new.'
But still, shouldn't they at least check if the cause was a blow to the head or something?
"Anyway, can we drill a hole around here like this?"
"With what?"
There's already a damaged part…
But that doesn't mean the entire skull is shattered.
There are definitely intact parts, is what I'm saying.
We decided to focus on breaking those parts carefully.
Well, not "we"—more like using the living drill that is Liston.
"Can you do it with this?"
I should've given him something like a drill, but…
What I handed him was a scalpel.
To be precise, I thought he could use the back of the scalpel handle.
Actually, since this was made by German craftsmen, it's really sturdy.
"I could probably break your skull with this…"
Liston tapped the back with his gloved hand and said something scary.
Of course, he was just saying that; what he actually tapped was the corpse's skull.
"So we can't break it randomly… we need to make it come off cleanly, right?"
"Yes, yes. As expected, you're the best. It'd be good to cut the bone like you're doing an amputation and open it like a lid."
"That's all fine, but do you have to make that hand gesture?"
"Huh? It's easier to understand this way."
"Doesn't it feel like opening some other lid?"
"Ah…"
Maybe it's because he's already an "opened" person.
No matter what he does, it seems that way to him.
Anyway, that's just his inferiority complex, so Liston just clicked his tongue and didn't complain further.
Instead, he kept tapping it lightly.
"Do you get the feel for it that way?"
"Yeah… after breaking a lot of things, you get a rough idea of how to do it. You could probably do this without me, so you should break things more often in your free time."
"Uh… okay."
"If you ask the gang members, they'll probably catch someone for you. Or you could practice on corpses."
A normal person would obviously practice on corpses, right?
And breaking things…
Tap.
In conclusion, my complaints didn't last long.
It wasn't that Liston broke anything.
Tap.
After tapping a few more times, he nodded as if he'd figured something out.
Then, he immediately used the rounded decoration on the back of the scalpel handle to strike the bone…
I doubt even a real drill could've done it like that.
'Seriously… is there such a thing as sword energy?'
Those who know, know—the skull is bone.
Bone is hard.
But he cut it out so neatly, so perfectly round.
And he didn't even use a drill or anything—just a piece of metal…
"Like this… ow, dammit. What is this?"
Anyway, Liston removed the circular piece of skull he'd cut out.
Underneath, something that looked like black bugs was visible.
"Uh-oh. Disinfect!"
"No, no. Joseph, look closely."
At first, I thought it was moving.
Since it's a corpse, I thought maybe something had gotten inside…
But upon closer look, it was just coagulated blood.
Everyone, including Joseph who was about to bring the disinfecting tools, was looking at my hand.
More precisely, they were looking at the blood clot on my hand that looked like congealed blood.
"Ah… it's blood."
"It's blood, indeed."
"I see."
If this were the old days, they might've made some other assumptions, but not anymore.
I don't know if it's a good thing, but after being with me, they've seen so much blood they're sick of it.
Liston is always amputating, and I'm the one cleaning up buckets of blood, so he knows exactly what happens when blood coagulates, right?
The others are no exception.
The obstetrics and gynecology department, where Blundell works, deals with as much bleeding as any other department.
"So this pooled inside… hmm, and pressed on the brain, causing the pain."
"So this person died because there was too much of it?"
"I don't know, but if the brain is damaged or something, you can die. It's possible."
"Wow… so this person died from being hit by something. Not just a natural death."
So, a constructive discussion was actually happening.
"Exactly. We need to remove all of this… hmm. How do we remove it?"
Since I'm a pretty good professor, I waited for them to discuss among themselves first and only spoke up when the conversation died down.
Again, I didn't just give them the answer.
I asked a question.
Honestly, it wasn't because I'm a good professor—it's because I really didn't know.
In the 21st century, we had suction devices, but now we don't, right?
Since this isn't a task that requires strength, Liston couldn't step in either.
"Let me try."
Joseph, who has a knack for cleaning things, stepped forward.
He had gauze in hand…
But it was obvious it wouldn't work.
"Joseph."
"Yeah?"
"What's the point if you're just mashing the brain while wiping…?"
"Ah."
Fortunately, he's not stubborn.
He quickly realized something and stepped back.
After that, no one dared to step forward.
The brain is a soft, squishy tissue, right?
It's not as fragile as one might imagine, but compared to other organs, it's extremely vulnerable to impact.
It's not easy to cleanly remove the blood clot that's filling the space without damaging the brain.
Well, we could compromise and leave some behind, and it would eventually be absorbed, but… it's unsettling.
Then, Liston looked at Alfred and Colin.
"I remember hearing something about Ping talking about human suction or something before."
He had a villainous look on his face.