Chapter 122: Great Men Are for Me to See [3] Silence once again filled the room.
Only the occasional groan escaping Kanghyeok broke it.
"Hmm."
Usually, Kanghyeok would have started rambling about something right after that, but now he stopped there.
He simply kept scratching under his chin and sinking back into thought.
It has to be a lesion of the fifth cranial nerve... right?
Kanghyeok stared at Kim Simin's face while recalling the course and distribution of the fifth cranial nerve.
Even so, no special solution presented itself.
It was the same face he had been looking at since earlier, and it was showing no change at all.
First, I need to confirm the diagnosis. Only then can I treat it.
Whether treatment was even possible, he did not know.
Still, any proper doctor had to follow the right order.
Those quacks who threw medicine at a patient before even knowing the diagnosis were charlatans, and Kanghyeok had no desire to become one of their kind.
He had his pride.
Breaking the long silence, Kanghyeok began asking questions again.
"You said you were injured a year ago, correct?"
"That's right."
"How did you end up injured like this?"
"Well... hmm. It's a rather long story."
"No, just how you were injured..."
"That is what I'm saying."
Kim Simin began recounting the story with an expression that seemed to have forgotten all about the pain.
Muttering, "Here he goes again," Hwang Yungil turned his body aside altogether.
Kanghyeok, however, could not do that.
The man was older than him, and more importantly, he was a true great man.
One of the most loyal of loyal subjects, a man who would later treat his life as no more than straw and die at Jinju Fortress.
If I treat this illness now, maybe he might survive then.
Of course, to make that more certain, the best thing would be for Kanghyeok to be there with him when the Battle of Jinju happened.
But Kanghyeok had no intention of taking such a risk.
If I have to run somewhere, I'd rather stay beside Brother Sun-sin on a battlefield.
After all, Yi Sun-sin had never lost even once, so the odds of dying would be lower.
Kanghyeok drifted in his thoughts for a long while before finally tuning back in to Kim Simin's story.
Contrary to expectation, the tale was still in full swing.
"So then those Jurchen bastards came charging in. Ha, if it hadn't been for Brother Yi Sun-sin, we'd all have died."
"Yes, I see. So that wound..."
"It'll come up soon enough, so wait a little."
"Yes, yes."
Since he had said soon, Kanghyeok endured it and waited.
But before long, he seriously began to wonder if he had misunderstood the definition of the word soon.
Kim Simin's long, long tale of martial exploits did not end until it was almost noon.
"So, that was how I got slashed by a man on horseback and ended up like this. I thought I was done for, but Brother Yi Sun-sin saved me. That elder brother is a truly outstanding warrior, with nothing lacking in either military strategy or martial skill."
Apparently Kim Simin's praise of Yi Sun-sin had been repeated almost as many times as the tale of his exploits.
The moment Simin said that, Hwang Yungil began waving his hand at once.
"Come now. Anyone hearing you would think you were nothing but a useless commander. Physician Baek, this man is every bit as fine a commander as Yi Sun-sin. Especially with the bow, the way he shoots is simply astonishing."
"Haha, sir. I'm a lacking man."
"That's just how he is. In any case, please treat him. He's a man who could be put to great use for the country."
"I do not know whether I can be put to great use or not... but I do intend to serve with loyalty. Ever since that day, I've felt that the life I'm living now is extra."
If someone else had said something like that, Kanghyeok would not even have snorted.
But hearing it from a man who had actually fought and died for his country made his chest tighten.
What's wrong with me? Am I getting old?
They said men grew more tearful with age.
He had started showing signs of that just before being flung into Joseon.
He had once thought he might be a robot, because he had never cried in his life.
And yet? Watching Ode to My Father or 1987, he had cried his eyes out to the point that the resident watching beside him had even handed him a handkerchief.
That was one thing. But Miss Granny was a comedy.
Even then, tears had streamed down uncontrollably.
When he looked in the mirror, he had looked absolutely hideous.
He could hardly afford to make such an embarrassing spectacle of himself in front of great men.
Kanghyeok forced down the sting rising in the bridge of his nose and resumed the consultation.
"I see. Hmm... then after that, how was the wound treated?"
"The wound? Well, what was there to treat? I just left it alone. Still, it healed well enough."
"You left it alone? No one took care of it?"
"Ah, they did. They wiped the blood off me... fed me thin rice gruel. Brother Yi Sun-sin looked after me in every possible way."
It always came back to Sun-sin in the end.
It seemed that after serving together in the north, he had given his heart over completely.
It's nice seeing great men cherish one another.
It would have been wonderful if that could have continued afterward as well.
But actual history had gone in nothing like that direction, and the thought pained him.
Even the great hero Yi Sun-sin had fallen in his final battle, had he not?
I'm supposed to be treating him, but I keep thinking about strange things.
Kanghyeok clutched at his increasingly sentimental heart.
"Then... the wound is almost exactly as it was when you were first injured."
"No. It closed up."
"But you did not receive any special treatment for it, correct?"
"That's right."
Kim Simin nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
It seemed to be because this was an age in which surgery for external injuries had scarcely developed at all.
Well... I've heard that in the West too, the most they could do was cauterize with fire and disinfect with alcohol.
Besides, was Joseon not a society softened by long peace?
There were even records saying that the treatment of external injuries in the far older Spring and Autumn and Warring States period had been more advanced.
Even when one looked through Mukjae Diary or Miam Diary, which were regarded as among the most detailed medical writings, one could safely say there were no records on the treatment of trauma.
Feeling the limitations of the age all over again, Kanghyeok let out a sigh and continued asking questions.
"Then when did pain like this begin?"
"Well... I do not remember exactly, but I remember the sensation clearly."
"What was it like?"
"I thought I had been slashed by a blade again. The pain was so sharp... I asked people several times."
"So it was just as I thought. And that pain has continued until now."
"That's right."
A disorder of the fifth cranial nerve.
In more familiar terms, it could be given the diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia.
Usually, pain like this happened when the nerve was compressed because of an abnormality in a vascular structure, often an artery near the cerebellum.
But in rarer cases, like Kim Simin's, the symptoms could also appear when part of the nerve had been damaged by trauma or when it was compressed by some other abnormality.
"Can you feel what I'm touching right now?"
"Hmm? Yes. Ugh."
"Did that hurt just now?"
"At times, even the mere touch of wind causes pain. That is why I wear my gat like this."
From the medical history to the nature of the pain to the facial grimace that evoked a tic disorder, everything pointed to trigeminal neuralgia.
He should have been pleased to have identified the diagnosis, but he could not simply be happy.
That is, if only there were a way to treat it.
Kanghyeok looked back at the house-call bag sitting alone in one corner of the room.
He knew perfectly well how much and what kind of things were inside it by now.
How could he not, when he carried it around every single day?
There's nothing in there useful for nerve pain.
In truth, trigeminal neuralgia sounded frightening, but in the Republic of Korea it was not such a difficult disease to manage.
Of course, in cases where medicine did not work well, surgery was sometimes needed.
But that was true of every illness.
Really now, they packed Viagra in there, but no anticonvulsants?
Kanghyeok turned his gaze back to Kim Simin.
He did have fairly effective painkillers on hand.
There were nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and even narcotic painkillers.
But for sudden, sharp pain of the kind seen in neuralgia, none of them would be particularly effective.
"Why, would it be hard to treat?"
As Kanghyeok's face darkened more and more, Simin asked with a worried look of his own.
Kanghyeok slowly shook his head.
There was a medicine worth trying, even if the chances were not very high and it did not seem especially safe.
I'll just have him stay here for a while.
If a doctor of Kanghyeok's caliber watched him frequently and paid close attention, would he not somehow find a way?
"It would be a very experimental treatment..."
"Oh, so there is a way?"
"I can at least attempt it. However..."
"However?"
"It may take quite a long time. Would that be all right?"
Was that not the sorrow of salaried men, in any era?
They worked to live well, yet when they were sick, they could not even rest.
It was badly backward, and here he saw that even in Joseon it had been the same.
Most yangban in office had to return to work before even having their stitches removed after surgery.
But Simin laughed heartily and nodded.
"It does not matter. Being dismissed from office is finally doing me some good."
"Dismissed?"
When Kanghyeok's eyes widened, Hwang Yungil answered in his place.
"You have connections here and there, so you must know the court has been in quite an uproar these days."
"Yes, I do know that."
Kanghyeok recalled the conversations he had exchanged recently with Ryu Seong-ryong and Yi Hangbok.
Seonjo wasn't quite as utterly incompetent as I expected.
He had thought the whole thing was nothing but a total mess, but it turned out not to be quite that bad.
At the very least, Seonjo had been trying not to get swept away by factional politics.
To begin with, although he had severely suppressed the Easterners in the Gichuk Purge, he had still left them enough strength to stand against the Westerners.
But that, too, was causing problems.
The Easterners who had barely survived were now fighting with all their might to take revenge on the Westerners.
Was it the issue of appointing the Crown Prince?
The matter had not yet fully erupted into the open, but everyone who needed to know already knew.
Jeong Cheol, leader of the Westerners, was insisting that a Crown Prince had to be appointed as soon as possible.
It seemed Yi Hangbok was desperately trying to stop him, but without much success.
Jeong Cheol was never the sort of man to bend his stubbornness.
You could tell just by the way he looked.
The reasoning, from one angle, did sound valid enough.
Seonjo had no children by his lawful queen.
All his sons were princes born of royal consorts.
If Seonjo were suddenly to die while things remained like this, the aftermath would clearly be immense.
Even so, there was no need to bring it up aloud.
Had Yi Hangbok not said it again and again?
Seonjo was still young, and he hated even the very talk of royal succession.
From Seonjo's point of view, there was no way Jeong Cheol's conduct could look favorable.
The Easterners had seized the chance to attack.
War was right on the doorstep, yet every day the court was in uproar over internal strife.
Watching Kanghyeok, who for some reason looked bitter, Hwang Yungil continued.
"Yes.... This man cannot stand factional fighting. So as a result..."
"I got dismissed. Hahaha."
"It worries me, it worries me. Capable and upright men are being dismissed, while those skilled in factional fighting are rising to power."
"Thanks to that, I've been given the chance to receive treatment at leisure, have I not? Haha."
As Kanghyeok listened to the two of them talking, he rummaged through a drawer.
Then he took out Seomsu and Cho-o, which had first been used as poisons and were now being used as sleep anesthetics, and laid them out.
"I cannot say whether it will really be leisurely or not. To use them—"
for treatment, I'll have to determine the concentration properly...."
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