Chapter 349: When the Mother of Success Is Still Young

Infectious diseases have always been the focal point of medical research, with countless pathogens involved. Both internal and external medicine have recognized that it is in this field that the clinical outcomes and survival of countless patients are decided; thus, since ancient times, there has been a pursuit of anti-infective drugs. [8] Huh? Where’s my bacteria?

In the past, Master Fleming extracted penicillin from orange peel, and within three days of intravenous administration, the patient’s high fever subsided and blood indicators stabilized. Less than twenty years later, in soil as well, Schatz isolated Streptomyces from his teacher Waksman, obtaining streptomycin to treat gram-negative bacteria and tuberculosis, with remarkable efficacy.

I don’t understand why everyone is talking about traditional palliative therapy, as if anti-infective drugs are destined to be the place where medicine meets its downfall. A year ago, I sailed south from Wenden Port and began research into instrument-based pharmaceuticals; two of the three essential elements of surgery have now been conquered. On the day the treatment protocols were updated, patients and colleagues alike rejoiced—it was a time of favorable geography and human harmony.

The vibrant vitality, the flourishing of all things, still lingers before my eyes. How could it be that now, with space and funding secured, the situation has turned into an insurmountable impasse?

No matter how you look at it, equipment gaps can be compensated for by other means—the advantage is ours!

…

Huh? Where’s my mushroom?

The former monastery’s Warehouse No. 2, now the Knights’ sealed laboratory.

Kraft’s hand trembled slightly as he held the glass petri dish; the high cost of the equipment effectively restrained the amplitude and frequency of the tremor.

Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time. Several days earlier, the Knight Commander, having finally sorted out his daily affairs after waiting in vain for any abnormal outbreak, generously allocated the most secluded and independent area of the monastery.

What was once part of the monastery’s senior officials’ private storage now served as a laboratory, housing glass and crystal instruments of even greater value.

As the shelves filled with a dazzling array of instruments, the thought of leaving them idle and dusty became unbearable, and new ideas naturally stirred.

Inspiration may have come from mold spots on fruit peels in damp weather; the next day’s procurement list included a large quantity of various meats, fish gelatin, bones, wheat flour, and fine salt.

With relatively rudimentary biological lab skills and fairly ample culinary knowledge, a thick broth was created that solidified into a gel upon cooling, rich in components favored by microorganisms and multicellular life alike.

Then he scraped off the target mold colonies, scattered them into the petri dishes, and completed the inoculation. At that point, he had already begun worrying about how to perform organic solvent extraction under current conditions.

However, subsequent developments proved he had worried too far ahead.

The cultivation couldn’t be called unsuccessful—only unsuccessful in the direction he had hoped for.

To offer a more comforting perspective, at least the culture medium was well-made, and the results were artistically striking.

The vibrant, multicolored growth within constantly reminded him that the local and Vestminster microecological environments were highly similar.

If an artist were present, they might have been inspired, squandering precious pigments to create a masterpiece so haunting that Kup would wake in terror at midnight.

Fortunately, there were no artists here, and no Kup.

The latter had already led the team down the mountain; his situation remained unknown, but major progress was unlikely anytime soon.

Kraft trusted him; this assistant already possessed sufficient experience for preliminary investigations, cautious and knowing when to advance or retreat.

From a negative perspective, this might seem timid, but for the responsibilities he may one day bear, knowing when to withdraw three li is more valuable than pointless bravery.

Mistakes in judgment were inevitable, but there was no need to worry too much.

After all, he had been paired with Yifeng.

The thought of no longer having to handle everything personally brought Kraft a sense of relief and renewed vigor. He immediately decided to assign half of today’s paperwork to Brother Raymond, freeing up personal time.

Aside from the failed experiment, he was quite satisfied with the new laboratory.

The space was ample, the instruments complete—perhaps only the medical school of Dunling University during Professor Morrison’s lifetime could compare.

No, even Dunling University would not possess such a vast quantity of brand-new glass instruments.

Rows of white glass vessels of strange shapes stood neatly arranged in boxes lined with pure cotton, perhaps wondering why their master spent all day observing broth instead of being captivated by complex physicochemical reactions.

His failure clearly stemmed from an overly steep difficulty curve.

The correct choice would have been to discard the petri dishes filled with red, orange, blue, and purple—but no green—wash his hands, lock the door, and go next door.

The monastery’s charitable clinic was about to open; he needed to prepare some foundational remedies in advance, lest the monks, whose skills fell short of those of David V, could offer nothing but prayers and boiled herb roots.

Yet, what he intended to do was essentially no different from boiling herb roots.

He chopped two bundles of dried willow bark and tossed them into a round-bottom flask, poured in high-concentration alcohol, then submerged the entire flask in warm water for heating.

As a natural medicine, willow bark theoretically contained abundant salicin, extractable by alcohol.

The concentration was uncertain; no one had taught him, and he had never seen it. Kraft was only familiar with industrial products and the appearance of starch tablets after being pressed and bottled.

When it had soaked long enough—he didn’t know exactly when that was, only that he watched the liquid darken gradually, from pale yellow to amber, then fished it out and cooled it.

Theoretically, at this point, salicin should have transferred into the alcohol along with the pigments.

The next step was to filter out the bark, then continue heating to evaporate some alcohol and concentrate the solution—without boiling it.

The liquid’s color darkened further, turning brown; suspicious, poorly filtered residues swirled and churned like his anxious mood from rough handling.

Out of concern, Kraft filtered the solution again through fine cotton cloth, and added dilute sulfuric acid—slightly too much, but it didn’t matter, since the theory required an acidic environment anyway.

Once the acidity was right, the solution contained salicyl alcohol—the hydrolysis product of salicin.

If he remembered correctly, from a marginal aside in the organic chemistry chapter of some medical textbook, all he needed now was to add concentrated sulfuric acid; the oxidation product would have very low solubility in acidic conditions.

It was that simple: two bundles of willow bark, alcohol, sulfuric acid, and glass instruments worth a house in old Dunling’s district—the snowflake-like precipitate about to form would be the precursor to the legendary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesic, aspirin… salicylic acid.

Compared to its acetylated cousin, it had low solubility, poor absorption, an appalling taste, severe gastrointestinal side effects, negligible anti-thrombotic effect, and was so irritating it could be used to remove skin keratin—but its strength lay in being achievable under current theoretical conditions.

This was already his limit; his operational skill still lagged behind that of Adrian the Abbot, the distillation master of Weiqi Port who controlled fire with bare hands.

Wrong! Why isn’t there any precipitate?!

(End of Chapter)