"As you can see, the dogs have developed diabetes."
"Indeed."
"It's truly fascinating."
"As expected of Joseon…"
"How can you tell? Shouldn't the professor taste it to confirm if it's sweet urine or not? Just looking at it like this, how can you… Gulp!"
Everyone nodded in agreement at my words.
Colin, who'd had to drink Lord Jamie's turbid urine, put up a brief resistance, but…
What could he do?
Liston covered his mouth.
How dare he complain about drinking a little urine in the face of such a great medical advancement?
'No… didn't he try to drink fecal water before?'
Just one thing, focus on one thing.
Don't unjustly torment a perfectly fine person.
Anyway, I turned my head away from Colin and spoke to those who were ready for a useful conversation.
"That means there must be something in this pancreas. So, how should we treat it?"
"What if we reattach the pancreas?"
Yeah, I knew this was coming.
The dream of organ transplants…
It is about time to dream.
But it's no exaggeration to say it's absolutely impossible until we overcome the mountain of immune rejection.
I'm not an expert, but…
At this point in time, there isn't a single surgery that involves implanting something into the human body.
Why?
Because we don't know how to suppress the reaction to foreign objects.
No, it's worse than that—we don't even know why the body reacts to foreign objects.
"That could be one method. Let's try it. We happen to have two more dogs here."
I know.
Taking the pancreases from these two poor dogs and attaching them to the ones we already removed… is just a more difficult way to kill them—no, to kill the dogs.
But what can you do?
Scientists in this era are so full of courage that if they get an idea, they try it immediately.
They don't hesitate even if it's an experiment on humans.
Look at arsenic, for example?
'And despite that, I hear they still use arsenic discreetly…'
I saw an advertisement just today, not yesterday, that said, 'I applied arsenic wallpaper, and the rats and pests disappeared!'
Lunatics…
Rats…
The bastards that survive just fine in sewers—why do you think they died or ran away from your house?
If they thought about it just a little, the answer is obvious, yet they do this.
"Good. You are indeed thoughtful."
"One doesn't become a professor at his age for nothing, haha."
So, no one particularly objected to the idea of trying it.
There are no human rights, so how can there be animal rights?
Both Lord Damian and Liston just looked at the poor dogs, laughing heartily.
The two dogs whined pitifully, whether they knew their fate or not.
Well…
It won't be a meaningless excision.
'The ones we removed three days ago are already… gone.'
Removing a pancreas is no small feat, right?
Frankly, do we have any antibiotics here? Any anti-inflammatory drugs?
Nothing.
And yet they underwent surgery, with the result that their blood sugar is skyrocketing.
Not only that, but they can't properly digest anything they eat.
It's not just diabetes; their digestive enzymes are gone too.
They've survived this long only because they're 19th-century dogs. If they were 21st-century dogs?
They'd have died that day.
"But, you see. Is pancreatic transplantation something we can be sure will succeed? If it fails, the patient will die. So I've been thinking…"
"What is your thought?"
"If it's your idea, it might be vicious, but it will surely be useful."
"Yes, speak."
Damian, Liston, and the Director spoke in turn.
Ah, why did the Director come?
Because diabetes is becoming quite a problem among the upper classes these days.
I looked into it during the past few days…
And it's more than just 'quite' a problem.
If it develops around age thirty, they usually die within four years.
Furthermore, in cases of Type 1 diabetes, meaning childhood diabetes, it's even worse, with many not surviving even a year.
The elderly often live longer, but that's for general cases; for someone like Lord Jamie, whose male hormones are depleted, even one year would be long.
Anyway, since this is an era where we need to cater to the upper class to make money, and thanks to me, the number of upper-class patients has increased, the Director's interest in diabetes was bound to be immense.
'Right, with the Director stepping in, there's nothing we can't do.'
He has some influence, doesn't he?
I cleared my throat and continued.
"We squeeze the juice from the pancreas and administer it."
"Juice…?"
"I read somewhere that eating squeezed rooster testicles improves masculinity."
"Does that make sense?"
"Just hear me out."
"Alright."
Liston was tilting his head, but I know.
He was actually intrigued.
They'll probably each buy a rooster testicle on the way home?
'I said I ate them on purpose, so…'
It has to be injected to be effective.
If you eat it, whatever's inside gets digested and disappears.
But if I say it needs to be injected, won't these people all want injections?
What if they get an infection from an improperly sterilized shot?
I don't know if the people gathered here will make great contributions to humanity, but they are at least helpful to me, so I had to guide them safely.
"The illness is caused by a lack of pancreatic function, right? So wouldn't administering what comes from the pancreas solve it?"
"That makes sense."
"But what method is there besides transplantation?"
"Didn't he say squeezing juice? You seem frugal with praise but don't listen well."
"I found out there's a slaughterhouse nearby. They slaughter several cows a day… What if we get pancreases from there, squeeze the juice, and administer it? Of course, we'd need to check if bovine pancreas is effective, right?"
"Oh… Will they give it for free?"
"If not, I'll get it myself."
"Reassuring."
Probably…
If my memory serves me right, this is how it was done in the original history.
How do I know that?
I have a friend obsessed with diabetes, so I know.
Working on academic society matters, you inevitably collaborate with people from other departments…
And every time, he only talked about diabetes.
He did it for over a year, so I thought he'd stop, but when we ran out of topics, he started telling me the history of diabetes.
'I'm sorry for getting angry at you back then.'
Thanks to that…
It's coming in handy now.
"Once we get those bovine pancreases… we can't just squeeze them, right?"
"Why not?"
"We need to sterilize them."
"Ahh."
"Chloride of lime!"
Sterilization…
Well, it's not wrong.
But a cow's pancreas is actually clean.
Of course, it gets contaminated during removal, but…
My insistence on 'sterilization, sterilization' is for a completely different reason.
"No, then… remember what we saw? It all gets destroyed. We might end up giving them just chloride of lime… Would that save them?"
"Ah… Right."
First, I neutralized Joseph.
That lunatic goes on about chloride of lime for everything.
Frankly, wouldn't phenol work?
It smells a bit, but it works well when applied.
"I've thought deeply about it, and what about alcohol?"
"Alcohol…?"
"That… it can sterilize to some extent, but isn't it difficult to make and cumbersome?"
We must use alcohol.
Why?
Because that's how it was done in the original history.
One might think that since it's the original way, I should change it for the better…
But this method is almost perfect.
'First… it can destroy all the digestive enzymes.'
Alcohol…
Have you ever disinfected a wound with it?
It hurts like hell.
Because it destroys tissue ruthlessly.
Can digestive enzymes withstand that?
'But insulin can.'
This is…
Truly mysterious.
I don't really know how it's possible.
But it endures.
Of course, that alone isn't enough.
Alcohol evaporates, and insulin doesn't actually dissolve well in alcohol.
"Alcohol evaporates, you know. Of course, I'm not sure if alcohol alone can properly sterilize. So I thought again… what if we create a very weak acidic solution?"
"Acidic…? Sulfuric acid?"
"That stuff eats through the floor, and you want to pour it into a person's body?"
Liston and the Director looked at me with shocked faces.
Of course not.
Are you insane?
Why would I put sulfuric acid in a person's body?
That's a death sentence.
"A very weak acid."
"So what degree are you talking about?"
However, I couldn't answer the next question.
Because I don't know.
But it was okay.
Anyway, we can get the pancreases for free, and in quite large quantities.
If people are mean…
The moment they realize we desperately need these pancreases, they might ask for money, but what if Liston steps in?
If they can still ask for money after facing him, then I guess we have to accept it.
Of course, I guarantee they won't.
I'd bet my life on it.
"We'll have to find out."
"Ah."
I said an acidic solution could dissolve insulin.
Not break it down, but rather, allow the insulin components to be suspended within it.
So, if we treat the pancreas with a mixture of alcohol and an acidic solution, we can destroy the digestive enzymes and dissolve only the insulin.
If we leave that liquid, the alcohol will evaporate, so we can then inject it into the patient.
Of course, figuring out how much to inject will be another challenge.
It's better to inject too little.
The effect will just be reduced.
But if you inject too much…
'You can kill a person with insulin.'
I'm not just saying this; there are quite a few cases of it being used for murder.
It even appears in movies.
In Memento, there's a case where a husband with amnesia repeatedly injects his wife with insulin, causing her death, and that's almost cute in comparison.
Many cases are intended for murder from the start.
'We'll figure that out gradually, too.'
We'll probably need a lot of dogs.
I heard dozens were sacrificed in the original history, and back then, I just thought it was barbaric.
Now that I'm trying to do it myself, I think they were lucky.
It's true; if you don't know the details, you tend to criticize.
When you know the full context, the criticism vanishes.
Instead, admiration emerges…
"Shall we go to the slaughterhouse first, then?"
"Yes. Let's get some pancreases."
"Good. Let's go."
"Yes, brother."
Anyway, the group completely bought my excuse.
Sterilization…
It was really good that I went to Paris.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have grasped the concept of sterilization…
How on earth could I have persuaded them in that situation?
It would have been impossible.
Of course, even with the concept grasped, this isn't easy.
Persuading them to use both alcohol and an acidic solution like this…
'Is this the reason I was sent back?'
To wag my tongue well and save more people…
Because I'm the only one who can do it.
I unnecessarily wiped my mouth once more and got into the carriage with Liston.
We were off to the slaughterhouse to extort—no, to borrow some pancreases.