Chapter 116: He Treats Even an Enemy [2] This is completely Mad Max.
Kanghyeok watched Dolseok and Makbong having their blood drawn without end.
At first, Kanghyeok had tried to draw Makbong's blood himself, but in the end he had to give up because his fingertips kept trembling.
So now Yeoni was easing the burden for him.
Yeoni and Yeoju are both pretty good at this.
Perhaps because one practiced martial arts and the other painted, both had very steady hands.
Even though they kept drawing blood without pause, neither of them looked especially strained.
"Mm. Just what kind of treatment is this?"
When he turned his head, he saw Heo Jun wearing a worried expression.
Up to now, he had shown the sort of trust in Kanghyeok that would make him accept even dung as soybean paste if Kanghyeok said so, but faced with such a bizarre sight, he naturally could not hide his concern.
After all, Heo Jun came from a rather influential local family, and he himself was a kind of Confucian scholar.
Though because of the limitations imposed by his birth as a secondary son, he carried a much stronger aversion to Confucianism than most.
"Mm."
Instead of answering rashly, Kanghyeok looked around at the people in the room first.
There was no need to mention Dolseok, Yeoni, Yeoju, and Makbong. They were Kanghyeok's closest subordinates.
Heo Jun and Heo Im, who had come in after them, were not quite to that extent, but in any case they were people who thought of Kanghyeok as their teacher.
The real issue was the patients, but all of them were in such a muddled state from dehydration that there was no need to worry.
Even after they woke up, they would probably remain unsure of exactly what kind of treatment they had received.
Since everyone's gathered anyway, I should at least give them a brief lecture.
How long could he keep drawing blood and giving it to people without explanation?
Especially Dolseok and Makbong, who had turned into blood bags without even knowing why, seemed to have a right to hear what exactly was going on.
Not that it seemed likely they would understand everything even if he explained.
There were many explanations in this world that did not really seek understanding.
Insurance policies and mobile service contracts, for example.
"Since Physician Heo is here... and Heo Im is here too, I suppose I should explain."
"Yes, it certainly seems to be a procedure in great need of explanation."
"Haha. First, you need to understand what blood is. Physician Heo, what do you think blood is?"
"Blood is, after all, the root of our life... and I understand that removing blood in such a way should be limited to cases where there is blood stasis."
After that, Heo Jun went on at length about things Kanghyeok could barely follow, talking about blood stasis, bloodletting, and the like.
"Mm-hm... ah, that was very good."
Kanghyeok stopped himself in the middle of a yawn and waved his hand.
Whether or not it interested him, it would have been rude to show it openly in front of everyone.
Especially since he himself was the one who had asked for the explanation.
No matter what was said, he had to listen first.
"That's right."
"Just as expected."
Of course, the others were far more familiar with this theory, and all of them nodded as they listened.
It was more than ten minutes before Heo Jun's explanation finally ended.
In that time, Kanghyeok had a very clear sense of just how far removed the medicine of this era was from reality.
It was not really something he could blame anyone for.
In this era, that was how people thought everywhere, whether in the East or the West.
Especially this bloodletting business, really...
Kanghyeok recalled a lecture he had heard in the history of medicine.
It had been so striking that he had never forgotten it.
The time was the late eighteenth century.
To treat America's hero George Washington, three physicians gathered and carried out bloodletting, a treatment that was at the time widely known and widely accepted.
There was nothing mysterious about bloodletting. It meant exactly what it sounded like: draining blood.
They were not drawing out pooled or clotted blood, but live blood straight from the body, so there was no way the patient could improve.
In the end, George Washington died after losing about half of his blood.
"I listened carefully to what you said, Physician Heo. But blood is not something so simple. To begin with, it is not as though we keep the same blood we were born with all this time."
"But I have never bled even once."
This time it was Heo Im who asked, eyes wide.
The way he said something so absurd with such a serious face nearly made Kanghyeok laugh.
Kanghyeok barely managed to hold on to his slipping sanity.
Whew. Their understanding is even more distorted than I thought...
Even so, he could not give up.
This was not anyone else's lecture. He himself had started it.
And the people listening were Heo Jun and Heo Im.
They were intelligent men, so if they failed to understand, that would mean Kanghyeok, the one giving the lecture, was the fool.
That could not be allowed.
Because I'm a genius...
After desperately searching for a good analogy, Kanghyeok finally managed to speak.
"You cannot feel everything in the body being made and broken down. Since you were born, how much have you cried?"
"What? Well... when I was little, I probably cried quite a lot."
"Some people cry more than you, others less. In that case, have you ever seen a person cry until their tears dried up and they could never cry again?"
"Uh..."
There was an expression in their language, "to cry until one's tears run dry."
But it was like saying, "until the waters of the East Sea and Mount Baekdu dry up."
It did not mean it literally happened.
"And do you think a newborn baby and you have the same amount of blood?"
"Mm..."
"And what about the amount of blood you have now compared to an old person who has grown weak with age?"
"I think I would have more."
"Exactly. But can you actually feel your blood being produced?"
"No... mm. I see. Then it could also be removed without my knowing."
Heo Im nodded, looking as though he had finally grasped something.
Around then, Dongpa, who had been out of his mind, began blinking his eyes, but no one noticed.
Everyone was too absorbed in the new things Kanghyeok was saying.
Even Dongpa, who until now had tried to challenge Kanghyeok over every little thing, was like that, so there was no need to say more.
Taking advantage of the moment, Kanghyeok decided to use Heo Im as a demonstration aid in his lecture.
He pressed down along Heo Im's waist and spoke.
"Yes. Blood is mainly made here, among the organs of the body."
"Oh."
"And even the kind that lives the longest only survives about four months."
"What?"
Everyone stared at Kanghyeok in astonishment.
Kanghyeok looked back at them with an expression that said he had expected exactly that.
I was shocked the first time too.
The idea that red blood cells lived only around 120 days.
And platelets only about two weeks, while white blood cells lasted just one or two days.
That meant the blood in the human body was being replaced by new blood almost every day.
"Th-then where does the dead blood pile up? Is that what blood stasis is?"
Heo Jun asked that with an even darker face than before.
He was patting around his body, as though trying to find some long-standing blood stasis somewhere.
"So the ancient sages were right after all, saying blood has to be let out regularly."
Dolseok looked down at his own arm and grinned in satisfaction.
Now that he thought about it, it meant he was not being drained for nothing but actually doing something necessary.
When he laughed, Makbong immediately laughed along.
Even Yeoju and Yeoni, who were still drawing blood, looked visibly brighter.
It seemed they had not been entirely comfortable with the thought of drawing someone else's blood so casually.
The one who poured cold water over that atmosphere was none other than our protagonist, Baek Kanghyeok.
In an extremely cold tone, he said, "No. There's absolutely no need to let it out."
"What?"
"The body isn't defective. If there's a place where it's made, then of course there's a place where it's broken down."
"Ah."
"Blood is mostly broken down here. The waste comes out in the urine."
Kanghyeok pointed to Heo Im's left abdomen, that is, the spleen.
His grip was so strong that he was not merely pointing at it but practically grabbing it.
Because of that, a pained groan escaped Heo Im's mouth.
"Urgh."
"Yes. You feel my hand right now, don't you? Right there. How does it feel?"
Judging only from his tone and the content, it could almost have sounded like a conversation between lovers.
But to the person actually experiencing it, it was pure fear and pain.
"How does it feel? It hurts..."
"No. I'm touching your spleen right now. I'm asking how that feels."
"It feels like it's about to burst."
"You're not cooperating."
Kanghyeok let go with a deflated expression.
Heo Im sighed in visible relief.
The others, meanwhile, were all touching their own left sides, making faces as though they had found something, even though there was obviously nothing there to feel.
"Then is it really all right to draw my blood like this?"
After rubbing his side for quite some time, Dolseok suddenly seemed to think of something and asked.
After all, even while they listened to the explanation, blood had continued to be drawn.
And now that he had heard the explanation, it suddenly felt as though this should not be happening.
If blood was being made and broken down constantly, then drawing it out sounded serious.
"You can't draw it recklessly. If you do, you die."
"Am I going to die?"
"No. I'm regulating it all. I drew mine too, didn't I? Then am I dying too?"
"Ah."
"If you rest a bit and eat properly, you can make back this much blood."
"Whew. But what does blood even do that makes losing it enough to kill you?"
That was, for once, a good question.
When he looked around, everyone seemed curious about that.
Come to think of it, they were always talking about blood this and blood that, but none of them actually knew what it did.
"Blood circulates throughout the whole body. As it moves, it supplies nutrients and oxygen... hm?"
"What is it?"
"That bastard Dongpa opened his eyes."
"What? Oh, he really did. When did he wake up?"
Only then did Dongpa hurriedly squeeze his eyes shut.
But it was already too late to hide the fact that he was awake.
His treacherous stomach was making loud rumbling noises.
With a resigned face, Kanghyeok walked over to Dongpa, who was clearly awake.
"Hey. How do you feel? Much better than before, right?"
"Mm..."
Dongpa rolled his deeply sunken eyes from side to side.
Now that he had become a patient himself, he finally understood.
The diarrhea itself was nothing.
The real problem was the lethargy and altered consciousness caused by it.
Only now did the difference become crystal clear between the patients he had claimed to be treating and the patients Kanghyeok had taken charge of.
I wasn't treating patients. I was killing them.
His mind seemed to understand it, but his heart refused to accept it.
The man standing before him, Kanghyeok, was no better than a wastrel in character, yet he was a physician so far above Dongpa that they could barely be compared.
Then what did that make Dongpa, who had worked so hard in his own way?
"Not answering? Want to die?"
"N-no. I do feel better."
"See? I told you, you're a quack. If you don't know something, you should learn. If you keep being stubborn like you are, you'll never amount to anything. Look at Physician Heo here. He's a Cheomjeong of the Royal Medical Bureau, and even he..."
"Cheomjeong of the Royal Medical Bureau..."
Just entering the Royal Medical Bureau was in itself a great honor and advancement for a physician.
Even Heo Im, who served there as an acupuncturist, had risen incomparably high in status considering the standing he had been born with.
Naturally, reaching such a place required both effort and skill.
And there was no need to say more about someone who had reached the rank of Cheomjeong.
And yet such a man was receiving instruction from Baek Kanghyeok.
That lecture just now... yes, that sort of thing could not have been heard anywhere else.
Dongpa had once come to the capital carrying the dream of becoming an outstanding physician.
Though after gaining a petty amount of fame, that early dream and ambition had grown dim.
It felt as though one corner of the heart that had remained hard as stone all this time was beginning to collapse.
Feeling something stir within him, he immediately knelt before Kanghyeok.
Later, Dongpa confessed that at the time, it felt as though he had been possessed by something.
Most likely his judgment had failed because of the severe dehydration and Kanghyeok's overwhelming presence.
He said he soon came to regret this decision, and that it did not take long at all.
"My lord. My eyes were blind, and I failed to recognize a great man. Please, I beg you, teach me."
"Huh? What's this? Why is this happening so suddenly? Are you bipolar?"
"What is bipolar disorder? Please teach me."
"Ah... that doesn't matter right now. First of all... you're still shitting yourself. Why are you kneeling in that state..."
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