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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: I Quit as the Princess's Physician (5)
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Most doctors in the medieval and early modern eras doubled as scientists. Some even moonlighted as philosophers, theologians, or alchemists.
Pasteur, who developed vaccines and debunked spontaneous generation, started out as a chemist.
This trend lingers even into modern times, to some degree. Any competent doctor churns out papers and dives into research on a regular basis.
And that's why I'm bringing all this up.
Right now, I've got to figure out how to distill the vodka Estina brought into disinfectant-grade alcohol. Without torching the lab.
Doesn't look easy.
"Vodka. So you really didn't buy it for drinking."
"Do I look like a boozer to you?"
The grad student shook her head.
"You could handle a drink or two, Professor. Not my place to judge."
Fair enough.
Estina had brought two bottles of vodka. More than I'd expected. Ballpark estimate: enough for one bottle of ethanol and a bottle and a half of disinfectant.
Estina squinted at them.
"So... what exactly are you planning to do with these?"
"Boil the vodka."
"Boil it to drink?"
"No, I told you—for experiments."
Why is she so into booze?
"Ethanol boils off before water. If you hold the first container steady between 75 and 95 degrees, you'll get pure ethanol vapor. Run that vapor through a cold tube, and out comes pure ethanol."
Vodka wasn't strictly necessary, but boiling wine would've left a grape tang in the disinfectant. And the cost wouldn't justify it anyway.
Distilling it should be doable with the lab gear here—flasks, burners, that sort of thing. Whether the economics worked out was another question.
"I think I get it."
"Good."
"What's the target spec?"
"A solution over 75% ethanol content."
Estina tied her hair back and jotted something in a small notebook.
"What's eth—what? Never mind. Let's list out what we need first."
Perfect. Sharp as a tack.
Vodka's around 40 to 50% alcohol. That's effective enough, but standard disinfectant runs about 75%. Distilling should get us there.
"So, we need a heat source, a thermometer flask, a cooling tube for that, and a container for the ethanol, right?"
I nodded.
"Most of that's probably here in the lab. But for bigger capacity stuff, I'll check the alchemy department's lab."
This was the alchemy department lab.
They'd have dedicated distilling setups. Should've checked there instead of wasting time hunting for flasks earlier.
"What's the endgame here? After distilling it. Does pure booze cure some disease?"
A disease cured by drinking booze... Nope. Plenty it causes, though.
"No. Ethanol's for disinfecting hands or equipment. Might even work on contaminated wounds, depending."
"Ah."
We'd borrow a distiller.
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The distiller worked like a charm.
"There's this old WWII tale about the Soviets—half-joke, half-true. They supposedly used vodka for boosting morale, disinfecting wounds, as a gasoline substitute, for cleaning, antifreeze, even painkillers. All of it."
"Uh, no idea what you're talking about."
Estina scratched her head.
"Sounds like a joke, but there's a kernel of truth. Anything over 75% ethanol purity burns, disinfects wounds, and gets you drunk."
Students listen when the prof talks. Whether they get it is secondary.
"Not fully following, but... ethanol's super versatile, got it?"
Estina caught on quick. And even when she didn't, her attitude was spot-on. I nodded.
Estina picked up the bottle of distilled ethanol.
Come to think of it... we still didn't know if it was really ethanol, did we? Could be the same strength as the vodka.
"Professor. It looks just like water. Smells stronger like booze, though."
There were ways to check.
No fancy gear to measure ethanol concentration precisely, but we didn't need lab-grade equipment for this.
To ballpark it indirectly, measure the output's volume and weight. Ethanol's density is lower than water's.
Keep it simple: ethanol's about 0.8 g/ml, water's 1.0. The closer our solution's density to 0.8, the better we did.
"What's the density of the output?"
"On it. Weighing now."
Density's mass over volume.
Estina stared at the scale, deep in thought.
Volume marked on the flask. Weight from the scale. Subtract the flask's tare weight... but what was the flask's weight?
A moment later, Estina spoke up.
"Um, density's a hair under 1 kilogram per liter. Volume math was a little fuzzy."
"Let me see."
I double-checked the calculations.
Output density: 0.85.
We couldn't calculate exact purity from density here, but it was definitely a high-concentration ethanol solution.
Water at 1.0, pure ethanol around 0.8. This had to be over 75%—plenty strong for disinfection. Throw in a glycerin substitute, and we'd have hand sanitizer.
That could wait. No clue what glycerin was or how to make it here. Not essential anyway.
"Eh, good enough."
Estina nodded.
Disinfectant production: check.
"Estina. Vodka itself—isn't it just high-proof alcohol diluted back down?"
"Uh, no?"
Had all that been for nothing? She shook her head, but what did I know? Never distilled my own vodka.
"Anyway... point is, we can use this alcohol for disinfection. That's what matters."
"Right!"
Estina was clearly ready to move on. Next time, just buy pre-distilled vodka concentrate. One less hassle.
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Next up: a microscope. Couldn't explain why we needed disinfectant without proving bacteria existed.
Or an agar culture medium. One or the other to demonstrate bacteria properly. Ideally both.
Plenty of time before class... Let's mull it over.
"Estina, you know what agar is?"
"Huh? Like seaweed?"
On second thought, we probably didn't need real agar. Anything starchy like acorn jelly powder should work.
Corn flour, say.
"Estina. Later, grab some bean flour and corn flour. For bacteria culture medium."
"Bacteria grow on that?"
Who knows, maybe. I'd used media and culture flasks plenty in the university hospital, but they were always pre-made kits.
Rarely mixed my own. Only back in high school and undergrad.
Beans had solid protein content—prime nutrients for cultures? Wouldn't know till we tried.
Regrettably, even if we nailed the medium, clinical use was a pipe dream. Different media grow different bacteria, and I had zero ways to ID them.
Something else to puzzle out.
"Oh, right. Tomorrow, snag some magnifying glasses. Need at least three."
Estina tilted her head.
"Got it. Where from?"
You tell me.
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How do you fit an elephant in a fridge?
Have a grad student do it.
Key isn't whether she can—it's that if a grad student can't, no human can. Her saying no means impossible.
Grad students aren't slaves.
Slaves need their owners to feed them, house them, even arrange marriages. Grad students? They don't eat, don't sleep, and forget marriage...
Anyway.
Bean flour, corn flour, magnifying glasses.
Three tasks confirmed humanly possible. Petri dishes and kettles already in the lab, so whipping up medium would be a breeze.
Building a microscope from magnifiers? Trickier. Start simple.
"Professor. Sorry, but when do we see patients?"
Huh? No patients assigned to me yet. My ward isn't even open.
"Like, rounds? Anyway, shouldn't we swing by the hospital before full duties kick in? Prep the ward and all."
She had a point.
"You make the medium later. I'll tinker with the microscope some more."
"Got it."
Estina nodded enthusiastically. Time to gear up and head to the hospital.