Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 355
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 355
The Namgung Family’s estate stood just beyond the harbor of Muho Port.
To be precise, it was the estate of the merchant company operated by the Namgung Family, but since it was ultimately a subordinate force under their control, the distinction hardly mattered.
Unlike the Namgung Family’s estate, Baekrin Uiseon’s Muho branch was located on the outskirts of Muho Port.
This was why I had chosen to examine Gong Yu-bing, the granddaughter of Tugoe Gongyageon, at the Namgung Family’s estate.
The distance from here to the Muho branch would have been considerable.
Of course, if this were the modern twenty-first century, I would have rushed directly to a hospital equipped with medical devices.
The treatment I had devised for Gong Yu-bing did not require elaborate medical equipment.
“You’ll feel a slight sting.”
My thick needle pierced the smooth, well-muscled arm of Tugoe Gongyageon and sank deep.
Simultaneously, blood gushed forth, and it began to flow into the specialized transfusion pack of Baekrin Uiseon.
I turned my gaze to look beside me.
There already lay a girl with thin tubes inserted into both her arms.
“Now… let’s begin…”
I stepped back one pace.
Soon after, Gong Yu-bing’s blood began to flow into Tugoe’s body, while his blood flowed into hers.
“With this… our little one will live?”
“Of course. Your granddaughter’s condition is what we call acute renal failure.”
“I’ve never heard of such an ailment…”
“That’s because there’s usually no treatment for it, so patients die. To explain simply, the kidneys located around here become damaged, causing this disease. We physicians call them the nephrons.”
I explained acute renal failure to him.
How the kidneys filter waste and expel it through urine.
Therefore, the kidneys must maintain their function to keep the blood clean.
When they’re damaged, uremic toxins accumulate, causing complications that eventually lead to death.
Tugoe’s expression naturally grew grave upon hearing this.
“The fortunate part is… the kidney function still retains about thirty to forty percent capacity. If more than ninety percent function had been lost… permanent treatment would have been impossible.”
In modern times, I could have used a dialysis machine.
But in this era, that was impossible.
‘If I could obtain the Immortal Divine Art, it might be possible to regenerate damaged kidneys… but that was only mentioned in the Jicheon Cheonma, and it never revealed who had mastered it.’
Even pursuing the martial world path would be difficult.
‘Come to think of it… didn’t Master mention that Dong Cheon-gun’s severed limbs reattached and regenerated? Could Hyeolseonggyo have some hidden secret about stem cells? I’ll need to extract information from them later somehow…’
While I entertained these wild thoughts,
the devices I had designed began to function properly.
Hummmmm.
First of all.
A tool that applied a gentle curse activated through the formation array.
It was currently projecting power into the blood drawn from Tugoe.
I stopped thinking and observed the device.
On the surface, it appeared to be merely a palm-sized square box, but inside, blood flowed in winding paths.
The reason I created this was precisely for the transfusion.
When transfusing fresh blood from one person to another, immune systems can attack each other.
Even if blood types match, there exists a possibility of immune rejection when blood from different individuals mixes.
When this occurs, the blood coagulates into clots that block blood vessels, causing severe complications.
In essence, transfusion becomes poison.
This is why modern transfusion packs remove white blood cells from donor blood using a device called a radiation irradiator before use.
In the past cases of Gungwi Wang Chae-baek and his daughter Wang Gak-yeon, my inner energy played a role, but without it, the patient would have died—we could only leave it to heaven.
We were fortunate then, but would fortune smile upon us again?
Of course, martial artists possessed inner energy, so there had been no major complications thus far.
But what of ordinary civilians?
There were limits to relying on formation techniques and qi healing for every case.
I could not accept such limitations.
So after that, I searched for a solution to immune rejection, and eventually found one.
Through the use of curses.
I achieved an effect similar to radiation irradiation using curses.
In the modern world, the solution to immune rejection is simple.
Remove white blood cells and transfuse only plasma.
But in this world without centrifuges or transfusion filters, how could I safely separate plasma alone?
The kidneys also release erythropoietin, leaving the patient suffering from chronic anemia.
Therefore, while performing plasma transfusion, I decided to preserve the red blood cells.
I also killed the platelets to prevent blood clots from forming during transfusion.
Using curses to kill white blood cells and platelets while preserving only red blood cells and plasma.
This would have been impossible had I not understood the anatomical structure and principles of these cells, and had I not conducted countless repetitive tests.
In that moment, cold sweat poured down my face.
‘This… is far more exhausting than I anticipated.’
The need to control my power with such precision made my mental energy feel as though it would shatter.
Headaches and exhaustion born from intense concentration.
Even a strange dizziness that felt like it might drive me mad washed over me.
“Hyeong?”
Yeo Ha-ryun rushed to support me.
“I’m fine.”
I said this and continued with the procedure.
‘Good. It’s working exactly as I tested in the research chamber! This completes human plasma dialysis!’
I felt satisfied internally while continuing my explanation aloud.
“Right now, I’m sending the granddaughter’s contaminated blood into Tugoe’s body through this tube. The blood will be filtered and purified within his body, then sent back into the granddaughter’s body.”
A primitive form of kidney dialysis using a living body.
“Is… is such a thing even possible?”
“Of course, it requires special apparatus and mystical knowledge, but… it’s working well now.”
Indeed.
A dialysis machine is a product of modern science.
This world’s current technology could not create a filtration device.
It wasn’t something I could fashion together like a life straw on the spot.
So what I came up with was plasma therapy.
Plasma therapy is a treatment method where blood from another person is transfused, and it gained its own notoriety when the pandemic broke out.
You extract blood from someone who contracted the pandemic but recovered, create transfusion packs from it, and then transfuse it into pandemic patients.
The principle being that some immunity exists within that blood, so it shows decent results in its own way.
Of course, it was a makeshift treatment that emerged in the early stages when there were no proper medications available.
What I conceived from that was my current treatment method.
I would use Tugoe’s body as a filter!
I would use curses for the immune response of the transfusion!
With this, human plasma dialysis is complete!
‘Hehehehe, it’s insane. Even I think it’s insane, but….’
Of course, in the modern 21st century, we don’t perform this kind of treatment.
Because dialysis machines exist.
There was no need to do something so crude.
But this is the martial arts world. A place where you use your gums if you have no teeth.
In the end, I managed to pull it off.
The effects actually began to appear gradually.
Color returned swiftly to Tugoe’s Granddaughter’s face, and her body’s functions were slowly recovering.
‘I should write a paper on treatment methods for patients with prolonged poison exposure too.’
When I was on that blue planet Earth.
My orthopedic friend said this.
‘Hey, I’ve never once seen bones broken in exactly the same pattern.’
Now that I’ve come to the martial arts world, I felt I could answer like this.
‘Hey, I’ve also never had a patient come in with exactly the same accident.’
Whether it’s because I’m inside the Dosan Sword Forest, all sorts of unimaginable things kept happening that I couldn’t fathom as a doctor.
And I myself… naturally began accepting this situation.
It meant I had become skilled at improvisation.
‘Phew, at least I’m grateful I consistently researched the curses I learned from Wanong.’
There are countless poisons in Gangho.
Not just those that rot skin or dissolve organs.
There are also poisons that torment people for this long, and even if you administer antidotes, other organs are already severely damaged, making them irreversible.
Warriors could endure them, but commoners who suffer them cannot.
‘I need to prepare much more.’
Whenever a blood wind blows through Gangho, people are brought to the Medical Guild.
With my current knowledge, I could still treat them through trial and error.
But how much longer could I manage?
Fear gripped me, yet I could only move my hands—there was no other way.
Still, I had to do it.
If I let go of my hands, the patient would surely die.
Even if I treated them and the patient’s body couldn’t endure it… I had to do what I could.
In the end, that’s what life is.
Saving someone is so difficult, yet dying comes so easily.
It’s much like the process of being dragged out of a swamp.
I cannot know exactly where this swamp ends or where the outside begins, yet I trudge forward with whatever strength remains.
Whether humanity’s wisdom falls short, or a patient’s wounds run too deep to heal even with that knowledge.
There is nothing to do but try.
And so humanity continued forward, failed, and tried again.
That was what papers and statistics were.
Records created not by Jin Cheon-hee alone, but by countless doctors and patients.
‘Like a tree….’
In the modern world, such a tree’s existence was so taken for granted.
Even if one couldn’t understand it, anyone who wished could see the tree’s form.
After countless verifications and painstaking research, one earned the right to add even a single leaf or twig.
This place has no such tree.
No great tree cultivated by humanity.
In a world of non-human perfection, medical knowledge is transmitted only in secret within the sects.
There is no information exchange or cross-pollination like in the modern era.
‘Of course, I know I cannot destroy that very system.’
This is the Gangho, and I am ultimately an outsider.
I know that attempting modern methods would only lead to being used and stabbed in the back.
Yet building knowledge within reach and establishing systems—that much should be possible.
‘Then someday, even after I’m gone, it will continue to be passed on to others.’
Since I myself have hidden enemies in the Gangho, I must always be prepared to die.
With that thought, I watched over the granddaughter’s condition.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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