Chapter 29: Fever, Fever [3] Damn it.
Kanghyeok looked at the house-call bag with resentment.
No, it even had plates in it, so how could it not have malaria medicine?
It even had a hammer and chisels.
It was stuffed full of useless surgical tools.
There was no consistency whatsoever.
I checked twice, and it's still not here.
With someone as sharp-eyed as Kanghyeok, if he looked twice and still did not see it, then it truly was not there.
This is bad.
Seungmun was still trembling.
"Kanghyeok, I think I'll need that medicine you gave me before."
He still seemed to believe that the medicine had worked like magic.
When in truth, it was just a feature of malaria.
Even so, Kanghyeok could not simply leave him burning with fever.
"For today, please take only this."
Kanghyeok handed him just the anti-inflammatory and the antacid.
By now Seungmun trusted Kanghyeok's medical skill completely, so he did not question it.
"Father, this medicine alone will not be enough. I need to obtain another medicinal ingredient. Would it be alright if I stepped out for a while?"
"Yes. I'll feel better as long as this chill leaves me."
"Okseok! Light the fire. Dolseok, get ready to go out."
"Yes, Young Master."
Kanghyeok was not someone who raised his voice unless he had to.
At his shout, the slaves moved in perfect order.
Dolseok soon appeared, already holding the reins of a horse.
His face was full of worry.
"Young Master, is it very serious?"
"Not exactly, but I do not have any medicine that will work."
"Oh no…"
This was not just anyone speaking—it was Kanghyeok.
If he said so, then it was so.
Dolseok's face darkened even more at once.
"If you want medicinal ingredients, you'd probably have to go to the government office."
"Mm."
Kanghyeok let out a groan.
Going to the government office was not the problem.
He had a connection with the Busa.
Surely they would not be stingy if it was for treating Seungmun.
But what ingredient should I use?
The antibiotics he had were certainly good medicine.
Among oral medications, they had very few rivals.
But they only worked when used against the right bacteria.
Malaria… no, why is there malaria in Joseon of all places?
Kanghyeok desperately searched his memory from his student days.
Wasn't it usually seen around Ganghwa Island and nearby northern areas?
Kanghyeok was the type who almost never forgot anything once he memorized it.
As far as he remembered, malaria was by no means a common disease in South Korea.
What good does that do me now?
What could he do?
The disease was already here.
He shook his head with a dejected face.
Dolseok, gloomy as well, asked in a damp, uneasy voice,
"Young Master, aren't we going?"
That was the thing—he did not know.
If malaria existed in Joseon, then surely they must also have had medicinal ingredients for it.
"Yes, let's go."
"Yes, Young Master."
Maybe if his head cleared a little, more would come back to him.
Mounted on his horse, Kanghyeok kept dragging up old memories.
If he stacked all the lecture notes and textbooks he had studied as a student, they would rise to twice his height.
I definitely must have learned it.
He had probably only skimmed over it lightly.
I must have studied it in the history of medicine.
Of all things, that was the one subject that barely appeared on exams.
If it had been another subject, he would at least have looked at old exam notes.
Now he had no choice but to squeeze his memory dry.
Since he had stuffed plenty into his head and his mind worked well, something did come of it.
"Ah."
"Young Master, what is it?"
"Quinine."
"What-nine?"
Dolseok turned to him with a worried expression.
Whenever he got bored, Kanghyeok started muttering strange things.
And indeed, Kanghyeok kept talking to himself.
"No, quinine is not from around here. I think it came from South America. Not that—there was something else…"
He remembered seeing it somewhere more recently, not back in student days.
It had not been in a textbook or a paper either.
"Ah, right. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine!"
It felt like a clogged toilet had suddenly been cleared.
Kanghyeok swayed this way and that with excitement.
That forced Dolseok to stop the horse entirely.
"Young Master? You're alright, right?"
"I'm fine, you fool. I remembered. I remembered."
"It feels like you've finally snapped…"
Dolseok muttered without thinking, then hurriedly clapped a hand over his mouth.
Of course, Kanghyeok did not care in the least what Dolseok was saying.
Professor Tu Youyou won the prize in 2015 for developing artemisinin. And the source material was probably…
A common weed that could be found almost anywhere in East Asia.
It was growing without difficulty even along the roadside where Kanghyeok had stopped.
"Sweet wormwood! Find sweet wormwood!"
"What?"
"Do not just stand there blankly—find sweet wormwood. That's Father's medicine!"
"Y-yes… yes!"
Dolseok immediately started tearing through the grass that had grown past his waist.
Kanghyeok knew the name, but not exactly what it looked like, so he had to keep confirming with Dolseok.
"Is that it?"
"Of course. Sweet wormwood grows all over the place here."
"So that's what it looks like? Only cut the fresh young leaves."
Kanghyeok jumped down from his horse and joined in gathering the sweet wormwood.
Luckily, he remembered that the leaves contained more of the active component.
The stems have grown huge.
Naturally, looking only for leaves was not easy.
They searched for quite a while, but in the end did not even gather a full basket.
"Let's go home first."
"Yes, Young Master."
The moment they stepped inside, Okseok came running.
"How is Father?"
"After taking the medicine you gave him, he improved somewhat. He is lying down now."
It seemed the anti-inflammatory had brought the fever down.
If this keeps going…
The anti-inflammatory was no more than a temporary measure.
If he left him to keep suffering, there was no telling what would happen.
The kind of malaria Seungmun had—tertian malaria—rarely became severe.
But "rarely" was just probability, nothing more.
"Now then, this is the herb that will become Father's medicine."
"Ah. As expected of you, Young Master."
Okseok smiled warmly, thinking his master was saved now.
Dolseok, on the other hand, tilted his head.
"But, Young Master."
"What?"
"How much of this should he take, and how?"
"Oh."
Contrary to his appearance, Dolseok could be sharp sometimes.
Though in a rather irritating way.
Damn it. I have no way of knowing the dose.
No one could tell how many grams of artemisinin would come out of a given amount of sweet wormwood.
There's no good in giving too much. I'll start small and increase it gradually.
Unexpectedly, he was about to conduct a clinical trial on his own father.
There was no filial impiety quite like it, but what choice did he have?
And dosage was not the only problem.
I need to extract the artemisinin.
As far as Kanghyeok knew, artemisinin did not dissolve in water.
He had looked it up before because of something he had heard from a patient in hematology-oncology.
They said lightly steeped mugwort was good for cancer. Unfortunately, that was wrong.
It was fine as something to drink in place of water.
But as a medicine, it was the wrong method altogether.
Kanghyeok reached further back in time.
He recalled organic chemistry classes from his first year of pre-med, and the experiments he had been forced to do endlessly in science high school.
Back then he had grumbled about why he needed to do all that if he was going to become a doctor anyway.
Now he regretted it deeply.
Ether would probably be best, but…
Ether.
Where in the world was he supposed to find that?
Then I'll have to use alcohol at least.
As luck would have it, the Busa had previously sent over a few jars of liquor.
"Dolseok, go bring me some alcohol."
"What? Alcohol? But Madam is sick."
Dolseok looked at Kanghyeok with sullen eyes.
His eyes were so narrow and ugly that irritation surged at once.
"You think I'm asking because I want to drink it? Of course it's for making medicine."
"Ahh. Yes, yes. Then I'll bring it right away."
"Damn that bastard."
Kanghyeok briefly wondered whether he should at least pretend to roll him in a straw mat once.
"Here it is."
"Mm. Good. I wonder how strong this is."
Kanghyeok grabbed some random spoon and tasted it.
No matter how generously he judged it, it did not taste even close to 40 proof.
"You said you were making medicine, so why are you tasting it?"
"Shut up, you fool."
Only after taking a smack to the back of the head did Dolseok close his mouth.
With the background noise shut off, Kanghyeok felt like his mind worked a little better.
At least it's distilled liquor. If I pack it full of mugwort leaves and steep it, it might work…
At this point, he had to try something.
"For now, pour the liquor into the pot and boil it with a couple of handfuls of wormwood."
"A couple of handfuls?"
"Yes."
"Exactly how many handfuls?"
Dolseok kept pressing.
It was not a wrong question, but it was deeply annoying.
When someone kept asking questions about something you did not know well yourself, anger naturally rose.
Kanghyeok smacked the back of Dolseok's head hard.
"Two handfuls, you idiot."
"You could just say it. Why do you have to hit me?"
"Because you deserve it. Just boil it first."
"Yes."
Rubbing the back of his head, Dolseok started boiling the wormwood.
As it boiled, a strange fragrance began to emerge.
The liquid also turned a deep ocher color.
"Mm. It's boiling vigorously. Dolseok, you do know how to make a good fire."
When he looked to the side, Dolseok was staring at him.
His eyes were bright, as if he expected something.
Probably because Kanghyeok had never once gotten something wrong so far.
Maybe I should taste it.
For all he knew, it might taste like something no human should drink.
"Can you bring me a spoon?"
"Here it is."
Dolseok immediately offered the spoon Kanghyeok usually used.
Kanghyeok felt uneasy about using that.
"Not this one."
"Not that?"
"The silver one."
"Silver… mm, yes."
Though suspicious, Dolseok obediently followed the order.
"Here it is."
"Good."
Kanghyeok stirred the wormwood brew with the silver spoon.
The color isn't changing.
Kanghyeok knew it was basically meaningless.
Silver detected arsenic.
Which meant it was useless unless it was an actual poison.
"Let's see…"
With a tense face, Kanghyeok drank some of the brew.
"Ugh."
The bitterness struck so sharply it stung the tip of his nose.
Even the subtle fragrance the wormwood originally had was completely gone.
Though he knew absolutely nothing about medicinal herbs, there was one thing Kanghyeok could tell for sure.
This is not something a person should drink.
The saying that bitter medicine was good for the body did not apply here.
Come to think of it, poison was bitter too, was it not?
There was no way he could make Seungmun, already sick, drink something like this.
Ugh.
The bitterness did not leave easily.
It seemed the problem was that they had boiled it too hard and too long.
It definitely had not smelled or looked like this at first.
While he stood there grimacing, Dolseok approached.
"Young Master, your expression is…"
"You fool, who told you to boil the liquor like this?"
"What?"
"Try it over a gentler flame. Let it simmer slowly."
"Ah… but earlier you seemed pleased that it was boiling hard."
"When did I say that? I just stated the fact that it was boiling hard."
"Wow… Young Master, if you keep changing your words like that, heaven will punish you."
Grumbling all the while, Dolseok still did exactly as Kanghyeok instructed.
"Ah, I'm dying."
Letting out a groan, he removed the pot full of liquor and put on a fresh one.
Then he lowered the heat and began slowly warming the liquor.
"Good. Now let's put it in again."
"Yes."
Dolseok dropped the wormwood into the liquid.
Soon a fragrant aroma rose, along with a clear ocher-colored broth.
Kanghyeok had a feeling.
This was it.
"Alright, let's scoop some up."
The way Kanghyeok kept fumbling about was suspicious.
Dolseok looked at him doubtfully.
"This isn't your first time doing this, right?"
When someone struck directly at the truth, anger usually followed.
"It's just been a long time!"
"Yes, yes. You're oddly quick-tempered today."
Dolseok ladled out the liquor—or rather, the wormwood medicine—into a porcelain bowl.
It definitely looked better than before, and it smelled better too.
"Mm."
Kanghyeok swallowed dryly and tasted it carefully.
Oh. It isn't bitter… it isn't foul either. Smells good too.
Come to think of it, he vaguely remembered hearing that artemisinin came out best at around 60 degrees or so.
"Good. This is it. Let's go to Father."
"What about this?"
Only a little more time had passed, yet the liquor in the pot had already turned dark brown.
"He can't drink that. Throw it out."
"Ugh. My back hurts."
"I'll give you medicine. You're a big guy."
"You're even bigger, Young Mas—… no, nothing."
While Dolseok grunted and complained, Kanghyeok headed toward Seungmun's room.
The anti-inflammatory seemed to have lowered the fever a bit, but his complexion was poor.
"Father, please try drinking this too."
"Mm. It smells good."
"Yes. The taste is not bad either."
"Good. Give it here."
Seungmun drank down the wormwood-infused liquor in large gulps.
Perhaps because it was a warm medicine, he seemed to feel fairly good.
"This is nice. To be honest, that medicine you gave me before didn't feel like medicine at all…"
"For your illness, this is the more important medicine. I'll prepare it for you every day."
"Thank you."
"Would you lie down for a moment? I need to check your abdomen."
"Very well."
His body already felt pleasantly heavy and drowsy.
Seungmun obediently lay down on the bedding.
Kanghyeok carefully examined his abdomen.
The liver is more swollen than before. The disease is progressing.
As expected, the anti-inflammatory had clear limits.
A young person might recover on their own strength.
But with an old man like Seungmun, there was no certainty.
"For now, please rest. That's the only way this ague will improve."
"Very well. I will do as you say. Since your medical skill is so miraculous, it changes the way I think…"
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