Chapter 224: Banquet Invitation

Passing through the drainage gaps left in the stone slabs, the lamp below cast a limited pool of light; in the deep gloom, the height was indistinguishable. Mud and sand floated and settled slowly with the vortex, presenting layered, murky colors.

It seemed to be a trace of something that had passed through here before, or merely stirred up by swift movements.

But that itching, uncomfortable sensation of being watched had vanished.

The two returned to the clinic smoothly. Unexpectedly, they found that although it was late at night, the clinic's lights were still blazing bright, illuminating both floors completely.

Kraft approached and knocked on the door; amidst the pacing footsteps and conversations inside, no one responded.

He tried pushing the door; it was not latched, allowing him to walk through unimpeded into a scene rather familiar.

In the main hall, the area covered by white curtains had increased several-fold; the corresponding expansion of beds must have been no fewer than twenty.

Assistants and apprentices conversed at the tables, hastily jotting down two lines before walking toward the white curtains to join the cacophony of coughing and questioning, then returning a while later to add a few more notes.

Immersed in this bustling scene of work, they did not notice anyone arriving at first, busy only with filling the manuscripts in their hands and then consolidating them together.

Once a stack had accumulated, they sent the whole bundle upstairs.

Kraft leaned over to the table and looked at a Semi-finished product record, discovering it was the "medical history" of a certain patient; the basic information listed only a name and a nonsensical number.

There was no chief complaint; the section presumably for the history of present illness was stuffed with piles of lengthy, redundant subjective symptoms that couldn't all be written down. At first glance, it was impossible to tell whether it was an interrogation transcript or a diary; in any case, it was not what one would expect to see here.

Not long after a stack of papers was sent up, a series of hurried footsteps echoed in the stairwell.

Dai Wei, with sunken eye sockets, waved two freshly inked manuscripts and grabbed the handrail, roaring down: "Bed thirty-nine, who wrote bed thirty-nine?!"

Hearing Dai Wei's voice, not only did the apprentices bent over their desks writing tremble in fright, but Kraft shivered as well.

It was not a reflexive feeling of guilt; rather, this number had reached nearly three times the original bed capacity, and the total was likely even higher. Who knew how much workload had accumulated during the two days he had been mysteriously absent?

Seeing no one answer, Dai Wei's slightly trembling hand picked up the two sheets of paper and read them aloud:

"Yesterday, after arguing with his wife because the breakfast bread was too hard and scratched his throat, he left home to work at the blacksmith's shop. When he walked to the edge of the Tem River, he felt his throat dry and itchy; after coughing a few times, he spat out some saliva and saw what looked like blood streaks inside..."

A very long passage; the information density seemed high, yet also seemed low.

From the angle below, one could see the circles and marks he had pressed deeply into the paper. The saliva in that person's mouth might not have truly contained blood streaks, but the surface of Dai Wei's eyeballs certainly did.

"And this one for bed forty-one: coughing for over ten days, other treatments elsewhere were ineffective. Dr. Dai Wei admitted the patient to the clinic with the note 'Seems like tuberculosis, possibly pneumonia, not very certain; to be differentiated after Professor Kraft examines'?! "

Clearly, this person had been present during the outpatient consultation and had a pretty good memory.

Kraft pressed his forehead and sighed; at least the time of onset was written down, though it sounded to him like some kind of etiological auxiliary examination item.

It seemed that during the two days he was away, Dai Wei had not been able to withstand the pressure.

Even though some basic symptoms and signs were already written in black and white, this did not mean they could be handled like assembling a machine by following a blueprint.

Even assembling a machine could result in a few extra parts.

In actual practice, one always encounters ambiguous situations; without systematic study, it is only natural that everything starts to look like tuberculosis.

Then, these cases that could not be confirmed, or confirmed but where it was unclear whether artificial pneumothorax should be performed, quickly piled up, filling the clinic's beds intended for daytime temporary stays and becoming a terrifying amount of clerical work.

Of course, this work should originally have been completed by the only officially licensed physician here.

Before leaving, Kraft had left Dai Wei a simplified template, including only the chief complaint and key points of medical history; given the abilities of a Dunling University graduate, understanding it should not have been difficult.

In his mind, upon returning, he could quickly understand individual difficult cases through written records, saving a great deal of time.

However, the reality was that Kraft had underestimated the patient flow and overestimated Dai Wei's abilities. It was not individual cases, nor had time been saved.

The unfinished tasks were passed on to others; the apprentices below, having just received second-hand instructions, temporarily took up the posts but lacked the ability to work independently, ultimately resulting in the grand spectacle of the entire clinic working overtime.

After reciting these blood-pressure-raising descriptions, Dai Wei calmed down temporarily and noticed Kraft appearing among the crowd.

"Ah, Professor Kraft." He walked down the stairs, tightly grasping Kraft's hands, momentarily unable to speak, the blood vessels in his eyeballs particularly obvious.

Looking at the manuscripts in his hand that clearly raised blood pressure, then at the beds behind the vast white curtains, he condensed a thousand words into one sentence: "You're back?"

"I've organized about... fifty-plus files, some of which are unfinished and need to be asked about again."

"Never mind, let's go see the patients." Feeling guilty, Kraft decided to stay and work overtime with Dai Wei for a while. "Don't write the rest for now; have everyone come along."

The professor perked up and led the group toward the curtains, thinking it was time to establish some formal wards.

The clinic's space was adequate for daytime use, but it would inevitably face patients requiring long-term observation, and at this time, medical institutions capable of providing "hospitalization" conditions were very few.

Doctors were still mostly working alone; however, some monasteries could take in large numbers of patients for treatment. One had to admit that the Church possessed considerable advancement in certain aspects.

But he had to solve the immediate problem first before thinking about those things.

"For this pneumothorax case, remove the needle and the air-liquid bottle; avoid vigorous activity, but don't remain completely immobile either."

The patient who had suddenly developed pneumothorax had been very lucky to survive after emergency treatment, which had made everyone happy for a short while.

The patient's son stepped forward to express thanks, only to find that the doctor's smile behind the face-covering fabric did not last long; he merely nodded and left. Tuberculosis still lingered in the patient's lungs, meaning his life countdown was reduced to the last small handful of sand in the hourglass.

"This one who said there was blood in his spit..." Kraft pressed down the tongue with a tongue depressor, made a simple observation of the oral cavity, and found the source of the bleeding. "His wife's bread might really have been very hard."

"Gum and oral mucosa injury; if it's really unbearable, soak it before eating."

"I told you her bread was like a stone." The patient lay back on the bed, relieved.

There was also one who had been coughing for a long time but not severely. "Hmm, this cough history is very long, with nasal congestion and runny nose; nasal secretions dripping down the posterior pharyngeal wall, irritating the throat. Go back and wash your nose with salt water, and we'll see again in a while."

After spending some time, Kraft excluded some patients who were obviously unrelated, feeling his physical fatigue deepen gradually.

Yet his spirit remained active, even as if he had undergone a warm-up exercise, becoming more agile and excited.

"Alright, that's enough for now; I will be here tomorrow morning."

Dai Wei sighed with relief, remembering something he had forgotten amidst the earlier busyness. "By the way, while you were away, some of your private letters arrived at the clinic; I was asked to deliver them on your behalf."

A stack of various letters was handed to Kraft. He found a table at random, sat down, and opened them one by one amidst the cluttered writing implements.

There were several letters offering high consultation fees to invite him to their homes, invitations for exchange from institutions and individuals he had never heard of, and a few social banquet invitations, one of which was even sent from within the Dunling University School of Medicine.

The speed at which the relationship between the two colleges was mending was gratifying; recently, they had even reached the point of being willing to gather outside of necessary occasions.

Kraft lost interest after reading a few, but the signature on one of them caught his attention slightly.

【Higuo】

Beautiful turquoise mineral pigment was painted around the seal, giving it a turquoise color that made it stand out even among letters with exquisite patterns, the tone particularly bright and cheerful.

"Uh, Dai Wei, I might not be at the clinic the day after tomorrow; you'll have to exercise a bit more."