I Became a Plague Doctor in a Romance Fantasy Novel

Thump Thump (5)

Episode 39. Heart Fluttering (5)

Mint looked up at me with sparkling eyes.

It was an expression I hadn’t seen in a long time.

It was the first time I’d seen it since leaving the imperial palace. Come to think of it, it’s a bit pitiful. The princess had no friends and was lonely.

But going with the professor doesn’t seem better than going alone… Anyway.

I followed the princess out of the lab.

Academy Café.

Actually, it’s not a place I come to often. I don’t usually sit here leisurely.

Usually, I ask Istina to bring it for me. When I came, it wasn’t a crowded place.

It was just quiet enough. A few passing glances seemed to be directed at Mint. Mint didn’t care.

“Princess. Don’t sit next to me, sit over there-“

“I don’t want to.”

We arrived at the café. Instead of sitting across from me, the princess chose to sit next to me. Well, if she sat over there, she’d have to face the sun.

Her expression was somewhat softer than usual, but otherwise, she looked the same.

A pale face as stiff as her shirt collar, a tie that no one would tell her was crooked. Her hair was meticulously tied up.

According to rumors, she was the most beautiful in the empire. Today, too, I tried to recall someone prettier than Mint.

Well, there must be someone somewhere.

Mint sipped her coffee while seated. I pondered over a conversation topic, but for some reason, the princess was looking into the distance.

“Your tie is crooked, Princess.”

“Shut up. It’s my decision.”

Ah, the princess’s foolish personality.

“It’s nice to think about the old days.”

“The old days?”

“When I was in the royal palace.”

It was a bit unexpected. Mint’s memories of staying in the royal palace were mostly painful or lonely, sitting alone in a small room. I don’t know why she thinks of them as good memories.

Is it because the past is romanticized?

Well, that could be it.

“I see.”

“I’ve finished a few exams. I’m quite free these days.”

“Just out of curiosity, do you remember your childhood positively, Princess?”

“Childhood? Why childhood, all of a sudden?”

“Because you said it’s nice to think about the old days.”

“Why would that be childhood? Of course, I’m talking about the time after the teacher came and I was treated for tuberculosis.”

“Ah.”

I hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Princess, I think it would be good for you to practice talking with other people.”

“What?”

“There must be things you couldn’t learn or enjoy because you were sick in the past.”

Mint’s expression turned sour.

“How to deal with people… I think it’s not too late to start building that now. There will be many people who want to get close to the princess, and no one can treat the princess recklessly.”

“Stupid and disrespectful brat.”

The princess glanced at me sideways. What am I supposed to do if this is the reaction even when I speak nicely?

“First of all, with me. You need to practice talking to me like a person.”

“Oh, look at that. There’s someone here who can treat me recklessly.”

Mint looked at me and chuckled.

Like a rookie princess.

“Let’s get up now.”

“Right, teacher is busy.”

I really have to go. I got up first. The princess stared at me blankly, then held out her hand a few seconds later.

“Help me up.”

I wondered why, but I didn’t feel the need to argue with Mint any further. Well, in a way, isn’t she my superior?

If she orders, I have to do it.

I helped Mint up. She staggered for a moment, then stood on her own two feet.

“Then. See you next time?”

I nodded.

Now I have to write the thesis.

This time, it has to be a thesis that can directly refute the conventional wisdom of academia. There must be no gaps in logic and experiment.

There are various experimental grounds.

First of all, when you place liver tissue under a microscope, you can easily observe the capillaries.

And if you squeeze the heart once, about 0.1 to 0.2 liters of liquid comes out.

Let’s work hard on the paper for now. It might be published in the summer academic conference, and if we’re lucky, it might go up before that.

“Right, how about that?”

“About what?”

“The thing we presented last time, the professors threw a tantrum and came to class asking us to explain it, remember?”

Yes, that happened.

Many professors are like children. Show them something interesting, and they flock together, wanting to play with it.

Like Professor Kropfelter. Anyway.

“So?”

“Why don’t we just gather people and present it right after submitting it for review, regardless of the conference? Wouldn’t that be more convenient for both sides?”

I considered Istina’s suggestion.

It seemed like a good idea.

“Alright, let’s do that.”

People will come.

Those who somehow sneakily obtained the cross-validation paper and came to my class to sit in. If we send out invitations, they will surely come running.

When you think of something, you have to do it right away.

Why? Because life is a series of choices. There are so many things you can’t do in this world. If you can do what you think of right away, you should.

After sending the paper on ‘Blood Circulation’ to the journal, I booked a lecture hall.

I had also sent invitations to the professors who had occupied my class last time.

“Then, let’s begin.”

The crowd murmured even before we started. Not many professors themselves had come. Most of them were graduate students sent in their place.

“A few days ago, a patient came in with a ruptured organ. So, to check how much blood they had lost and whether their blood pressure was still maintained, I found that there was no proper way to do so.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the auditorium. It’s a common sight for doctors or healers. Patients dying from blood loss.

“Let’s start from the basics. What is blood? Where does it come from in the body, and where does it go? There have been many hypotheses since ancient times.”

I looked around the auditorium.

“To get straight to the point. Blood leaves the heart and returns to the heart with only slight changes in its components. It is neither created nor destroyed during one or two cycles of circulation.”

“What?”

The auditorium began to buzz.

I’ve seen this scene many times. Because it differs from the majority opinion in academia, they will scrutinize it to see what the problem is, if there is anything wrong.

A male graduate student sitting in the front raised his hand. I don’t know his name. I don’t particularly know which professor he came in place of either.

“Do you have evidence?”

I do have evidence.

“Let me tell you the strongest evidence first. How much blood do you think enters the heart?”

No one particularly answered.

I took out a glass bottle from under the podium.

A human heart filled with alcohol. I took the heart out of the glass bottle and squeezed it tightly, and about a cup of liquid spilled onto the floor.

“You just saw it, right? The heart pumps about 0.1 liters of liquid at a time. The heart rate can go up to over 150 during exercise.”

The cardiac output during exercise can exceed 15 liters. This is the problem we can see here.

“Everyone, please think about it. Isn’t it strange? The human body only has about 3 liters of blood. Does it make sense to say that all the blood in the body is created and consumed every 10 seconds?”

I wonder what the reaction will be?

I looked around the auditorium again. Half of the faces looked confused, the other half looked bored.

I am not the first person to present this problem. No one has solved it so far, so it has just remained an unsolved issue.

This time, Anne raised her hand.

I gestured to take her question.

“Professor Asterix, isn’t there no evidence that squeezing the heart with a hand is similar to what the heart does inside the human body?”

I nodded.

“Ms. Anne, have you ever dissected a living rat? To see the heart.”

“No?”

“Try it. See for yourself how the heart moves inside the body of a mammal.”

Of course, the heart pumps blood as if it were being squeezed even inside a living body. Anne, with a complex expression, sat down again.

“Any more questions?”

Several hands went up.

“Even if what you say is true, isn’t there no way for blood to flow through the body at that speed?”

“Even if blood is not consumed in that way, doesn’t it have to be created somewhere?”

“If peripheral tissues do not absorb and consume blood, where do they get nutrients from?”

There are many questions today as well.

I am satisfied.

I don’t know about the other questions.

The first question is one I had when I was an undergraduate. Why is the blood pressure in arteries three digits, but in veins, it’s a single digit?

This is the problem.

If arteries and veins are connected and blood flows through them, why are the properties of arteries and veins so different? First of all, the color is different. Incorrect past theories stem from this problem.

“Could you be more specific?”

“Even if you claim that, isn’t it an observable fact that blood is absorbed by peripheral tissues and doesn’t come back out?”

“It does come back out. It comes out through the veins.”

“If Professor Asterix’s claim is true, what is the structure that connects arteries and veins?”

Capillaries.

“So, to summarize. The current majority opinion in academia is that arteries and veins have different properties and there is no conduit connecting them, right?”

A nod followed.

“In conclusion, arteries and veins are connected by microscopic structures called capillaries that pass through peripheral tissues and organs.”

Again, a professor stood up. Professor Brown. He was known as an orthodox within the Academy’s Department of Healing.

He was also very negative about the germ theory.

“Isn’t this outside the realm of falsifiable science? Now we have to assume the existence of invisible blood vessels for your claim to hold?”

Well, that’s true, but what can I do about the fact that invisible blood vessels exist? It’s fortunate that we’ve already observed capillaries.