Chapter 14
Twenty minutes felt neither short nor long.
Especially when someone by your side kept bombarding you with questions, one after another, and you couldn''t just shoo them away... it felt like an eternity.
Garrett focused one eye on the child''s throat and the other on the priest, gesturing and exining until his mouth went dry. Finally, someone shouted, "It''s turning red! A big red circle!"
Peering in, the boy''s left forearm looked smooth and clear, no issues there. But on the right forearmwhere the fish meat was applieda big patch had turned red, swollen with a noticeable cluster in the middle. Surrounding the redness were faint, irregr red lines, resembling insect legs at a nce.
Redness with pseudo-legs and a cluster...
Exactly, it was an allergic reaction, and a pretty severe one! Of course, the reaction might also be intense because the fish meat concoction he prepared might not have been diluted at all...
Feeling a bit guilty, Garrett kept up a confident facade while pping his hands. "Confirmed! It''s the codfish''s fault!"
"What''s next?"
"Next..."
Garrett faltered.
After the skin test, the cause of the child''s illness was identified as acute throat edema due to an allergy. He knew the emergency procedures like the back of his hand, could prescribe them with his eyes closed. Even before giving the instructions, the veteran emergency ward nurses had prepared the medications:
0.1% adrenaline hydrochloride subcutaneous injection;
10ml saline solution + 1mg adrenaline + 10mg dexamethasone, immediate oral rinsing for three to five minutes;
Followed by 20-40ml saline solution, 1-2mg adrenaline, and 10mg dexamethasone for continuous nebulization.
But now, what did he have in his hands?
Absolutely nothing!
No adrenaline injection, no dexamethasone injection, not even saline solutionwhatever they prepared on-site was definitely impure, with inurate concentration and far from sterile...
Boom!
This day was a disaster!
Fortunately, Garrett had a n for this issue. Pretending to contemte for a moment, he calmly turned to the farmer:
"I saw there''s mutton soup in the kitchen. Are the sheep''s innards still there?"
"They are, they are!" Farmer Edmund vigorously nodded. Garrett breathed a sigh of relief: if they weren''t, he''d have to negotiate with the farmhands to ughter a sheep on the spot. He got up and headed for the kitchen:
"Bring me the innards!"
Through this rescue operation, Garrett had gained significant respect at the farm. With just a word, someone was already on their way to fetch the requested items. Soon, a bloody basin of innards was brought in and mmed onto Garrett''s table.
And there, amidst the crowd, Garrett squatted down, paying no mind to being watched, and unabashedly rummaged through the wooden basin...
Meanwhile, the priest, who had been following Garrett all along, crouched down curiously as well. After observing for a while, puzzled, he couldn''t help but ask, "What are you doing?"
"Looking for a specific organ."
"Which one?"
The priest leaned in. Finally unable to hold back any longer, Sir Roman, who had been guarding them diligently, stepped forward, bowing:
"Sir, your status is noble, you shouldn''t..."
"Hey!" The priest impatiently waved his sleeve. Stretching his neck left and right, he unexpectedly caught a whiff of a mixed, pungent smell, nearly staggering backward if not for Sir Roman''s support. Yet, despite the difort, he continued his questioning:
"What are you looking for exactly? It''s just innards; put them down, and they''ll find it for you!"
"They don''t know."
Garrett didn''t lift his head, focused on his search, muttering, "Kidney... Kidney... Found it! There''s one more..."
"Oh, you''re looking for the sheep''s kidneys!" The priest''s head popped back in. Garrett raised his hand, stained with sheep''s blood, as if to push him away:
"Stop bothering!"
A cold hum came from the top left. Sir Roman unsheathed his sword, blocking Garrett''s hand. With a chilling gleam, Garrett was taken aback, and the priest''s head retreated, muttering:
"If you won''t tell, fine... I was just trying to help..."
Ignoring him, Garrett remained focused, painstakingly searching in the wooden basin. The butchered sheep''s anatomy was inplete disarray, finding one kidney didn''t guarantee finding the other. He continued for a while longer, eventually uncovering both kidneys. Breathing a sigh of relief, he carried the bowl with the kidneys to the table and began meticulously dissecting them.
From the start, Garrett wasn''t after the kidneys but the adrenal nds.
Adrenaline constricts blood vessels, while dexamethasone acts as an anti-inmmatory and suppresses allergies. Dexamethasone was a syntheticpound, out of the question now, but adrenaline... maybe there was a way.
With this substance, at least the throat swelling could be alleviated, allowing the child to breathe normally. As for the chicken bone stuck in the airway, it could also be removed quickly.
Theoretically, adrenaline belongs to the protein hormone category and can''t be taken orally because stomach enzymes break it down. However, history mentioned instances of oral adrenaline intake. Garrett recalled reading about it in a past life:
In the autumn of 1893, British doctor George Oliver, who invented the sphygmomanometer, discovered that when a subject swallowed a substance extracted from goat adrenal nds, the sphygmomanometer could detect radial artery constriction.
Inter years, this experiment became the earliest significant evidence of adrenal extracts elevating blood pressure. But for Garrett at this moment, it signified something more important:
Adrenaline or adrenal extract taken orally did indeed work!
Of course, the child couldn''t swallow right now. But Garrett had another hope: among the adrenaline family, adrenaline and noradrenaline couldn''t be taken sublingually, but isoprenaline could! Therefore... adrenal extract... or rather, crushed adrenal nd mixed with water... might have some effect... right?
Garrett was too tense to speak, meticulously peeling the membrane off the sheep''s kidneys under the dim light. Snipping, pulling, bluntly separating... the rough iron scissors in his hand glimmered softly, almost exhibiting the dexterity of surgical shears.
The adrenal nd was small, snugly situated at the top of the kidney, enveloped within the renal capsule. Human adrenal nds weighed merely 5-7 grams; goat adrenal nds wouldn''t differ much. He had to be extremely careful to extract the adrenal nd intact without damaging it.
He didn''t know how much active substance was in these two adrenal nds or how much could be absorbed sublingually. He... better be careful and not waste any...
Garrett was fully absorbed, his actions cautious and gentle. The atmosphere he exuded while working unknowingly affected everyone. Even the fussy priest stopped talking, leaning over the table, silent. The knight coughed beside him, attempting to say something, but Garrett waved his hand, silencing him.
Only when Garrett sessfully extracted the two
adrenal nds, chopped and ground them in a clean empty bowl, mixed them with water for the child to rinse, did the priest heave a sigh of relief, jumping up and asking:
"Is this enough? Is it okay now?"
"Let''s wait and see..."
Garrett stared intently at the child''s neck, staying vignt in case the chicken bone shifted. Thankfully, after the child rinsed for one minute, two minutes, five minutes... the chicken bone remained intact, but the throat swelling gradually subsided, and the sound of air passing through the vocal cords became more pronounced.
"Wow! It worked! It really worked!"
"Yeah, it worked." Garrett wiped off a bead of sweat, pulled out the chicken bone, and smiled wearily at the priest, "Next, it''s your turn to heal his wound..."
"No problem! Watch me!"
The priest eagerly rushed over. After a night of turmoil with the child''s condition, he finally had a chance to contribute. His healing technique was particrly neat and precise. Once the wound was healed, he straightened his robe, held his head high, and extended his right hand to Garrett:
"Hello, young healer."
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