Chapter 88: Heo Jun's Consultation [3] For a first lecture topic, it was admittedly a rather awkward choice.
To jump straight into the anus. Not an arm or a leg, but the anus.
Even Kanghyeok, the one who had brought it up, found himself gauging the audience's reaction.
But that concern turned out to be needless.
At least the Royal Medical Bureau staff who had gathered here of their own will were prepared to listen no matter what Kanghyeok said.
And on top of that, was this not a lecture connected to the chronic illness of the highly esteemed Ryu Seong-ryong?
In truth, quite a few of the people sitting there suffered from similar discomfort themselves.
Some of them even had to sit on extra-thick cushions even here.
Their concentration is pretty high. Good.
Wearing a satisfied smile, Kanghyeok continued the lecture.
"The anal sphincter is one of the few sphincters in the human body, and it is the strongest. The reason we can endure the urge to defecate for quite a long time is precisely because of this."
Kanghyeok clenched his fist tightly and mimed sticking a finger into it.
Naturally, it did not go in, and some members of the audience nodded.
Only Makbong grinned in a grotesque way.
Has that bastard lost his mind?
Apparently, he had become lost in his own private thoughts again.
Kanghyeok turned his gaze away from him and looked at Heo Jun and Heo Im sitting side by side.
The two of them were staring at Kanghyeok so intently that it almost looked as if lasers might shoot from their eyes.
"We treat such an important anus far too carelessly."
More precisely, that applied to everyone except Kanghyeok and his group.
Starting with Dolseok, all of them practiced sitz baths and washing themselves afterward.
These days, even Dorikkae and the bandits no longer scrubbed themselves carelessly with straw.
Once I asked them if they wanted surgery again, they all obeyed nicely enough.
After experiencing the agony of shitting blood, every one of them had voluntarily become protectors of their own anus.
Frowning, Kanghyeok picked up some of the items he had prepared.
"For example, wiping with straw like this, or with leaves like this. Those are exactly the kinds of things I mean."
Heo Im quietly raised his hand. When Kanghyeok nodded, he cautiously opened his mouth.
"Teacher, are you saying that is wrong?"
"Mm. A good question. Stand up for a moment."
"Ah, yes."
At Kanghyeok's order, Heo Im rose from his seat.
"You probably wipe with things like these, don't you?"
"Yes, that's right."
It was an age when the entire nation did so.
There was no reason Heo Im would be any different.
"Have you ever bled from the anus, or felt pain there?"
"Ah... yes, I have."
"In truth, it's not just once or twice, is it?"
Heo Im hesitated for a moment, looking a little embarrassed, then nodded.
"Yes, that's correct."
"Right. That isn't something natural, is it?"
"Mm."
"When blood comes from anywhere else, people make a huge fuss, so why is it that when blood comes from the anus, they ignore it? It's the place that lets you defecate safely every single day."
Kanghyeok slowly walked over to Heo Im, seated him again, and handed him a book illustrated by Yeoju.
"What's drawn on the pages I opened for you are the results of exactly that kind of behavior."
Heo Im blinked as he looked at the book filled with all sorts of anal diseases.
Hemorrhoids, anal fistulas, anal fissures, and other complicated, varied illnesses had all been drawn in remarkable detail.
At the end, there was even an illustration of Ryu Seong-ryong's anus in what amounted to end-stage hemorrhoids.
Even Heo Im, who as an acupuncturist had seen plenty of ugly sights, could not suppress a groan at that.
"Ugh..."
"What on earth is it like? Let me see too."
The people behind him all started clamoring to see, and for a moment the place became noisy.
Kanghyeok waved a hand at his overly eager students.
"I'll give you time to pass it around slowly later, so let's stop here for now."
With Kanghyeok's declaration that the lecture was over, Heo Jun came trotting over at once.
His face was deeply moved.
After all, he had just heard about the structure of the anus, its function, the distribution of blood vessels and nerves, and even the structure of the muscles.
It was enough to make him look as though, if he found so much as a manageable anus, he would cut into it immediately.
"Indeed, Scholar Baek's knowledge is as deep and broad as the sea."
"You flatter me."
"No, no. Today was the first time I learned that the anus contains so many muscles and blood vessels. If a surgical method for such things could become widely known, far more people could be helped."
Heo Jun clicked his tongue with a regretful look.
Even so, his gaze was already chasing after the anuses of his fellow colleagues, and it seemed likely that before long at least one of them would have to offer his anus up to Heo Jun.
If that happened, there was no way Kanghyeok could let him cut them up recklessly.
Since he was teaching him anyway, it was better to teach him properly.
And I should gradually expand the instruments too.
He had no desire to keep suffering alone forever.
If he simply put instruments in Dolseok's or Yeoni's hands right now, they were already at a level where they could handle most procedures.
The problem was that there was no way to make those instruments.
But this is Hanyang. And the palace, on top of that.
Was there not a saying that people should be sent to Hanyang and horses to Jeju?
Since this was where the king resided, every talented person in Joseon naturally gathered in Hanyang.
That meant the standard of the smiths here was bound to be fairly high as well.
"First, pass that book around and look through it. And let's gradually make the instruments needed for surgery too."
"Ah! Do you mean the ones you carry in that bag?"
Heo Jun pointed at Kanghyeok's house-call bag and exclaimed.
His face was filled with surprise and gratitude, but beneath that lay the closed-mindedness of the Joseon era.
Sixteenth-century Joseon, outside of scholarship, was an age extremely stingy about teaching.
To share a technique was to give up one's monopoly over it.
A glance through old records was enough to show just how extreme that attitude was.
There was even a story about a craftsman who knew how to color silver so that it looked like gold. When the authorities demanded he reveal the method, he refused and died under torture.
In such an age, Kanghyeok, who not only taught knowledge but even gave away instruments without reservation, was no different from a sage king.
"You have made a truly admirable decision."
"It's nothing."
Of course, from Kanghyeok's point of view, it really was nothing special.
The level of the instruments he was holding now was not anything remarkable.
They were fairly varied and of decent quality for something kept in a house-call bag, yes.
But in other words, they were only a little beyond the level of a house-call bag.
Well... even if I hand them these, it's not like they can do what I do.
It had taken six years of systematic medical education, one brutal internship year, four punishing years of residency, and one year as a modern slave of a fellow to achieve the skill he had now.
And even then, it was only possible because Kanghyeok was someone who combined overwhelming talent with relentless effort.
Many of his peers were still in fellowship.
"If you happen to know any highly skilled smiths, please call them in. I want to ask whether they can make these exactly as they are."
"Of course. There are quite a few blacksmiths who work iron inside the palace, and among them I know several master forge-smiths. I will summon them within a few days."
Kanghyeok had no idea what terms like iron-working smith or master forge-smith actually meant.
Still, he could at least feel the pride carried by the word master.
Well... it has to be better than mid-forge or small-forge, I guess.
Kanghyeok nodded with a satisfied smile.
"Understood. Ah, it looks like there are some questions."
After talking with Heo Jun for quite a while, he noticed several people raising their hands and waiting.
Heo Im was among them, his eyes bright and sparkling.
Brighter than any disciple Kanghyeok had ever taught.
This is a different kind of pleasure too.
Thinking back, even in his days as a professor, he had enjoyed lecturing quite a bit.
Much of that came from his fondness for showing off, naturally.
But it would be difficult to say the pleasure of teaching itself played no part at all.
"All right. What are you curious about?"
At Kanghyeok's words, Heo Im hesitated.
He looked like he had a fairly bold personality, yet speaking face to face with Kanghyeok seemed to feel difficult for him.
Kanghyeok liked even that.
After all, if the first button was fastened properly, the rest usually followed.
Yes. A professor ought to have a certain hard-to-approach quality.
Smiling, Kanghyeok turned his eyes to his subordinates, including Dolseok.
They had just heard a superb lecture that could not be found anywhere in Joseon, or indeed anywhere in this age, yet they looked completely unmoved.
Perhaps that was because they had already done hemorrhoid surgery to the point of boredom, but still, those indifferent faces annoyed him.
"Urk."
In a sudden surge of feeling, the back of Dolseok's head flashed, and Dolseok turned around with an aggrieved look on his face.
It was still not a very pleasing face to look at, but it was better than before.
"Why are you hitting me?"
Seeing him on the verge of tears, Kanghyeok did feel a little sorry.
He really had smacked him for almost no reason at all.
Fortunately, Kanghyeok's brain worked quite fast, and he quickly found something to use as an excuse.
"You should be going around and teaching too, shouldn't you? Huh? How many anuses have you cut open following me?"
"Ah... yes, young master."
Unexpectedly, Dolseok accepted it so easily that Kanghyeok felt even guiltier.
Maybe I should fry some chicken for him later.
Kanghyeok watched Dolseok begin teaching, together with Yeoni, Yeoju, and Makbong, and thought just that.
In the meantime, Heo Im had also overcome his hesitation and finally managed to speak.
"That... isn't the anus the place where one passes stool?"
"That's right."
"Then isn't it affected by the type of stool? I would think softer stool is better than hard stool... and I wanted to know how one can make it softer."
"Huh."
He had been wondering what sort of grand question would take so long to ask, but this was beyond imagination.
This was not something to laugh off just because it was a question about stool.
In fact, it only took remembering what people were taught and what they taught others about hospitalized patients, especially surgical patients, to see that.
The next most important thing after eating was excreting.
It was no exaggeration to say those two things were the core of patient management.
"Was my thinking mistaken?"
When Kanghyeok's expression suddenly changed, Heo Im asked with concern.
As though he feared he had somehow stepped on the shadow of a great master.
"No, no."
Kanghyeok hurriedly shook his head.
Then he called back everyone who had been scattered around in small groups having informal discussions.
"All right, all right, come back here, everyone. This acupuncturist Heo Im has asked an extremely important question."
"Yes, yes."
They did not know why, but was this not Kanghyeok calling them?
Everyone gathered in front of him without complaint.
Only after confirming that even Heo Jun had taken his place did Kanghyeok finally open his mouth.
"Stool is, in essence, a collection of what remains after our body digests food, along with various secretions and bacteria involved in digestion. Naturally, it changes depending on what we eat."
"If you eat nothing but white rice day after day, it may taste good, but your stool will become hard. That is because there is less residue left behind, and there is also less for the bacteria to eat. So..."
Just as Kanghyeok was fully absorbed in explaining the importance of dietary fiber, a group approached the lecture hall.
One of them was even swaggering with an arrogant gait right there inside the palace, yet no one dared point it out.
He had to be royalty at the very least.
Pointing at the building that was still lit up, he asked,
"Is that not the Royal Medical Bureau?"
"Yes, it is, Your Highness."
"I heard the eunuch Kim Gyehan was badly injured. Is his condition critical?"
"As far as I know, I heard his progress is good."
"Then is there perhaps another patient?"
"I will go and find out."
At the eunuch's words, the man shook his head.
"No. I will go myself. Lead the way."
"Yes, Your Highness."
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