The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 45

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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 45
The year had turned.
Late January.
The season when bitter wind curled through the alleyways of Danford.
A fire crackled in Edward’s Clinic, the afternoon consultations now finished.
“Mm. Mm-hmm.”
Edward stood before the full-length mirror.
Dressed in his newly tailored coat, he shifted his posture repeatedly, admiring his reflection.
“Yes, tell me where the discomfort troubles you. I see. As your physician, I shall give my utmost effort.”
Edward pitched his voice low and resonant, watching his gestures in the glass.
He tilted his head at careful angles, made graceful sweeps with his hand.
Behind him, William’s expression was visibly decomposing in real time.
“Did you eat something disagreeable at lunch, sir?”
Edward remained utterly unmoved by William’s rebuke.
“William. What do you suppose a patient sees first when he opens the door to this clinic?”
“The sign, sir.”
“The physician. The physician’s bearing—that is what matters. Healing begins before any remedy or prescription is offered. An authoritative physician’s medicine already feels half-effective before it touches the lips.”
William closed his mouth, deeming the conversation beneath reply.
Edward, undeterred, continued his self-satisfied musing aloud.
“A weighty coat, a dignified tilt of the head, an elegant gesture—each of these lends gravity to the prescription itself.”
“So you are… constructing authority, then, sir?”
“Precisely. I am crafting an image so that when the people of Danford merely hear the name Edward, trust blooms naturally in their hearts.”
“The people of Danford already know you well enough, sir.”
More accurately, they knew him as “that scrawny fellow with the skill to heal.”
Edward was now making what he considered earnest efforts to shed that roughhewn reputation.
“William, you ought to try it yourself. You seem rather… dour, and I think you would benefit from some effort to overcome that impression.”
A hunched posture, sparse and bristling blond hair, shadowed eyes—yet unusually sharp, brilliant blue irises.
Objectively, it was not a pleasant countenance, and William himself knew this well.
Though he had never entertained any thought of changing it.
“I am content as I am.”
“Tsk, tsk. That is a luxury only men born gentlemen from the beginning—like Alan—can afford.”
“It’s a pity Alan isn’t here to see this…”
Alan had a subtly twisted sense of humor that would have made him remark with a sardonic edge on this whole spectacle.
Or perhaps he would have indulged Edward with a fond, “How admirable you are, Doctor.”
Of late, Alan had grown inclined to gently humor Edward’s foolishness, to accept it with quiet amusement.
“Speaking of which, he is taking longer than expected. He left for the house call an hour ago.”
Edward peered out the window at the darkening street, muttering to himself.
When the urgent request had come—a feverish child needed treatment—Edward had been in the middle of consultations and could not leave.
So he had sent Alan in his stead.
Perhaps, he had thought, it was better that Alan went anyway.
“What were the exact symptoms? Sore throat, harsh cough, and difficulty breathing, wasn’t it?”
“Laryngitis, I’d wager. Common enough in children that age during the dead of winter.”
Alan had gone to the estate of a noblewoman in Greenhills—the same place where Edward had performed the Pharyngeal procedure with him last autumn.
An only son, now perhaps seven years old; acute laryngitis in winter was an affliction he would naturally encounter.
Click.
The sound of the door opening came then.
Edward and William’s heads turned toward the entrance in unison.
Alan entered with the winter wind, his brown coat dusted with cold.
“My! Alan, you must be exhausted!”
Edward began to greet him in his usual informal manner, but then caught himself and spread his arms wide in a gesture of dignified welcome.
At this, William heaved silently, as if swallowing an entire lump of butter whole.
“A word, if you please, Doctor.”
William spoke, but Alan’s expression appeared quite grave.
Only then did Edward and William adopt serious faces and gather closer to Alan.
“…Has something gone wrong?”
Edward asked carefully.
Alan nodded.
“Are you familiar with what people call the Angel’s Wings Plague, or Strangulation disease?”
Edward and William’s faces turned to stone in the same instant.
“The child had that illness?”
Edward mumbled something in a trembling voice, then slumped into the nearest chair.
A shadow fell across William’s face as well.
He knew all too well how terrible this disease was.
Strangulation disease. Or Angel’s Wings Plague.
It swept through the population periodically, driving children toward suffocation—a terrifying affliction.
The very name “Angel’s Wings” came from the sight of a child gasping for breath, arms stretched toward the heavens as if welcoming an angel.
“…Then there’s no hope, is there? If the strangulation stage has already begun?”
Alan shook his head at Edward’s words.
“Not at all. It’s not yet severe—the breathing difficulty isn’t pronounced. Only… we cannot know when it might worsen.”
“Oh, that’s a relief!”
Edward, reassured for a moment, suddenly tilted his head in puzzlement.
“…Wait. But your words don’t sit right with me. If the child is breathing perfectly well, how can you declare it strangulation disease so confidently? Strangulation disease means the airways must be constricted. If it’s merely throat swelling and inflammation, isn’t that just common pharyngitis?”
It was a natural question from Edward.
In this world, disease was simply the name of its visible symptoms.
Fever meant fever; blocked breathing meant strangulation disease.
To call a child whose throat wasn’t yet obstructed a victim of strangulation disease was as backwards as calling a man who walks on two steady legs a cripple.
“We must look beyond the mere symptoms to what lies beneath them.”
Alan answered as though he’d been waiting for exactly this question.
“Strangulation disease is not the name of the disease itself, but the name given to a particular manner of death. Whatever the underlying ailment, if a person dies from suffocation, they are said to have died of strangulation disease. But what I’m describing now is the true cause hidden behind that name—a disease that begins long before the airways close, leaves unmistakable marks, and follows a precise path to strangle the child’s breath.”
Edward and William exchanged bewildered looks.
Nor was their confusion unfounded.
In Dreamland this disease is called Diphtheria, yet in this world it has never been diagnosed as a distinct illness—it remains indistinguishable from other throat complaints.
“Marks, you say? What marks?”
“A gray membrane.”
Alan set down his medical bag as he continued.
“Ordinary pharyngitis causes the throat to swell and ulcerate, and after a few days of suffering, the crisis passes. But this disease is different. It begins innocuously, like a common cold, but within days a gray membrane forms in the throat—thick, tough, almost like leather. That membrane is the hallmark of this disease and a feature rarely seen in any other throat ailment.”
Edward and William nodded numbly as they listened.
“So… if one sees that gray membrane in the throat, one recognizes the disease at once.”
“Yes. And that very membrane is what kills the child.”
Alan’s voice dropped lower.
“The membrane doesn’t remain stationary—it creeps gradually down the airway. Eventually it blocks the passage entirely. Worse, if a section of the grown membrane loosens and falls away, that fragment can lodge lower in the airway, strangling the breath in an instant.”
“…Couldn’t it be simply removed?”
William asked, but Alan shook his head.
“It’s not so simple. The membrane adheres tightly to the mucous tissue. Tear it away by force, and severe bleeding follows. When that happens, blood floods into the airway and the child suffocates on it instead.”
“Ah…”
Edward exhaled heavily.
William nodded with grave understanding.
“Then what the common folk call strangulation disease is almost certainly this very affliction.”
“Some cases of malignant laryngitis or scarlet fever also end in suffocation, certainly. The sack named ‘strangulation disease’ holds many different illnesses jumbled together. But nine in ten are this one. Other throat diseases lack such ferocity.”
“…In the city where I lived, this disease swept through once. It was ghastly. That winter, funeral processions never ceased.”
William trembled slightly as old memories stirred within him.
In fact, he had once seen that gray membrane in the throats of dying children.
At the time, though, he had mistaken it for nothing more than rotted, ulcerated flesh—a decaying crust.
“There is another reason this disease is so terrible: its infectiousness is extraordinarily high.”
Alan looked between the two men.
“The presence of even one patient with strangulation disease means that a considerable number of children in this city may already be infected with the same illness.”
Edward’s and William’s faces darkened once more.
Strangulation disease shows early symptoms indistinguishable from common cold or pharyngitis.
There could be many more afflicted children scattered throughout the city, yet unaware they were sick.
“Master, is there truly… no treatment? Must we only stand by and watch them die?”
William asked, frustration evident in his voice.
His old teacher’s remedy for such cases had been to lance the veins beneath the tongue and bleed the patient, salve the throat with honey, and apply poultices to the neck—nothing more.
The cures proved worthless, and even then William had thought the methods foolish.
“There is a way: to cut open the airway with a blade.”
Something flickered through William’s mind at those words.
That tube affixed to the wall of the Rusty Anchor.
“You mean… the Cricothyrotomy you performed before, sir?”
Yet Alan shook his head.
“That’s not wrong, but it’s merely an emergency measure—a temporary expedient. It alone cannot sustain the airway long-term.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll need to do a Tracheostomy.”
Alan pressed his finger to the center of the boy’s neck, where the trachea lay.
“It’s an ancient procedure—documented in texts from antiquity. You cut through the neck, open the cartilage rings of the trachea, and insert a metal tube to create a new airway.”
Edward and William both found themselves touching their own throats unconsciously.
The logic was sound enough.
If the upper passage was blocked, you opened one below.
“But there’s no one here who knows how to perform it.”
At William’s question, both Edward and Alan shook their heads with the certainty of men who already knew the answer.
“I’ll need to practice. Come dawn, I’ll get ox tracheas from the market.”
Edward rolled up his sleeves.
Alan took up the thread of his thought.
“We’ll also need to forge metal tubes. A simple reed won’t maintain the airway. We must prepare tubes sized and curved to match the airway precisely.”
A challenge with an unknown surgical technique.
Yet the faces around them showed concern more than expectation.
Rightly so.
Strangulation disease struck primarily young children, and a child’s trachea was impossibly narrow.
No amount of practice could make the incision easy—opening an airway in such a small throat was almost beyond reason.
“Alan, we should begin with the anatomy of the neck today.”
Edward spoke with a slight swallow, and Alan nodded in agreement.
“An epidemic may reach Danford any day now. We must have our preparations complete before it does.”
* * *
Two tense days passed.
Requests for house calls began arriving at Edward’s Clinic one after another.
When Edward and the others arrived with their medical bags, some children had only simple Laryngitis, but among them were cases of Diphtheria as well.
“Open wide, now.”
Alan pressed the tongue depressor down on the child’s tongue, peering into the mouth.
In the sunlight, a distinct gray membrane became visible deep in the throat.
Edward, watching it, let out a low sigh.
“It truly looks like dead flesh. But you say it isn’t.”
“No. It’s a leathery pseudomembrane the disease spreads across the surface of the pharynx.”
More precisely, it was nothing but a secreted crust—dead cells, fibrin leached from the blood, clusters of white blood cells and bacteria all matted together.
Not living tissue, but a false membrane crafted by the disease itself.
This was why it bore the name “pseudomembrane” in medical knowledge.
“It could worsen within days. You cannot take your eyes off the child for a moment.”
They kept a separate list of such households.
Edward made sure to emphasize that if the child’s breathing grew labored, someone must rush immediately to the clinic.
“Three cases already.”
Edward’s expression was heavy as he returned from that day’s rounds.
William, who had finished his own visits to other households, met them on the road and joined the group.
“One case came from the house I visited as well. It seemed to be early stage, but the gray membrane was clearly visible inside the mouth.”
“That makes four. Once it begins to show itself, it spreads like wildfire.”
Edward shook his head slowly.
William’s face was equally grim.
“All of them are children seven years old or younger. It was the same in the cities I’ve worked in. Only the young ones died in such concentrated numbers.”
“That age has the least resistance to illness. And this city has seen no outbreak in ten years. When it comes, it will come hard.”
The three men quickened their pace toward the clinic with heavy hearts.
As they reached the entrance, two figures approached them hurriedly.
It was a noblewoman from Greenhills, attended by a servant.
The same woman whose son Edward had treated with the Pharyngeal procedure.
Edward recognized her face and began to offer a greeting.
“My lady, what brings you here?”
But as she drew close, her face was drained of all color, pale as death.
She seized Edward’s sleeve and clung to it desperately.
“Doctor, please! Save my child!”
Edward’s face went rigid.
Alan, following behind, felt the same shock.
“For an hour now he can barely breathe. The child is gasping, turning blue before my eyes, and I… I can do nothing. Doctor, please!”
Edward forced his voice to steadiness. “Compose yourself, madam.”
Yet even as he spoke, he abandoned all pretense of authority and returned to his true self, panic and urgency overtaking him just as much.

Yet seeing even the physician thrown into such alarm seemed to reassure the lady—as if the desperation of his concern had broken something open in her own chest, and the sobs threatening to burst free were gradually swallowed back down.
“Well, I cannot say for certain without examining the child, but it’s possible we may need to operate immediately.”
“Operate? You mean that surgery you mentioned before—the one to open the airway?”
The woman’s hands trembled visibly.
Alan stepped forward.
“Yes, madam. The very procedure I described. If we are to save your child, it must be done.”
“Surgery…”
While the lady fumbled for words, Edward pressed ahead without hesitation.
“I’ll gather the surgical instruments and my medical bag and follow at once. William, you escort the lady directly to the residence and wait there.”
“Me, sir?”
William, hopelessly inept at comforting others, looked flustered—but without protest, he took the lady’s arm and led the way out.
Once inside the clinic, Edward exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
“Can you manage it?”
“We must.”
Alan’s answer came short and firm as Edward wiped cold sweat from his brow.
There was no other path forward.

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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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