Stethoscope.
A tool used by doctors to listen to a patient's breathing or heartbeat.
Honestly…
I wasn't exactly best friends with this thing.
Why?
No matter how well you listen to someone's breathing, it's never as precise as a chest X-ray—and it's not like X-rays are outrageously expensive, right?
As for the heart… auscultation is just really difficult…
Moreover, thanks to the development of ultrasound, even cardiologists don't rely solely on stethoscopes when they suspect something—they just grab an ultrasound instead. No one makes a definitive diagnosis based on auscultation alone anymore.
In other words, in modern medicine, the stethoscope is no longer the gold standard for definitive diagnosis.
Maybe that's why?
I didn't feel any particular attachment or regret toward it.
However…
"If you have a mouth, at least say something."
"Exactly. What didn't we have in Joseon?"
"That's what I'm saying."
Look at these 19th-century doctors in front of me.
A group of physicians having to debate whether a patient is dead or alive—does that even make sense?
A single ECG would tell you in seconds…
But we don't have that here.
In this situation, what kind of change could a stethoscope bring?
As I endured their criticism and mulled it over…
I realized it wasn't just about determining death.
Pneumonia… the heart…
Even if I could diagnose pneumonia in this era…
Would it really change anything?
Still, having one couldn't hurt.
Sure, I'm from the future and have talent as a surgeon, but among the madly experimental doctors of this era, there's bound to be at least one genius, right?
They might be able to achieve something with it.
"Well… I think there might be one possible method."
"Oh!"
"See, I told you there was something special about him."
Blundell looked genuinely delighted, while Liston wore a sly smirk.
This bastard…
He's definitely been a little suspicious of me lately.
But… the fact that he's not outright calling me out means he's willing to let it slide, right?
If Liston decided not to make an issue of it, that was actually good for me.
It meant that as long as I kept quiet, others would jump to my defense if anyone made a fuss.
Still, I couldn't just blurt it out, so I carefully gathered my thoughts before speaking.
Fortunately, there was already a pioneer in this field—not just in this era, but even in ancient times.
"Greek medical texts mention… that doctors of that era used hollowed-out wood t
o listen to heartbeats."
"Ah, right. But… how effective could that really be?"
Inteligencia artificia, assholes.
This is why you hear about the 19th century being the age of barbarism.
Isn't that a bit of a cop-out?
I looked at Blundell and shook my head.
I looked at Blundell and said, "Well, it's understandable, since the steam engine was invented."
How pathetic people of the past must have looked.
They couldn't build and row a boat?"
Not that they didn't, but to take extreme examples, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or the Cultural Revolution.
Of course, I know the last one had a different purpose. ....
There was a time when people were very arrogant and believed that anything old was something to be rejected, and that happened to be now.
But....
there must be something we can use from the past.
In fact, human intelligence itself is not much different between ancient times and now.
"Look at this."
"Uh-oh. What's the matter, why are you pulling people's faces?"
"Listen carefully, you'll know it when you hear it."
"Well, at least this."
I grabbed Blundell's head once and then went to my chest.
It's not that I don't exercise, but my body type and lack of food have made me a perfect candidate for auscultation.
"Can you hear it?"
"I can hear...."
"Can you hear my heart beating?"
"That... line sounds kind of romantic, or am I imagining things?"
"Now that you put it that way, I do, too. I'll have to use it later."
"Ha."
Blundell sighed.
Still, his ears pricked up.
As a doctor, he was curious about the sound of other people's hearts.
It was instinct.
"Let me see. Oh, yeah."
I left Blundell like that for a moment, then pulled his head away and picked up a piece of paper next to him.
I rolled it into a ball and held one end to my chest.
"Now put your ear to that end."
"Oh, this shouldn't be too hard."
"Can you hear it, the sound of my heart?"
"Oh, well, that's what they say... huh?"
"It's loud, isn't it?"
"Quietly...."
"Oh, yes."
I remained silent at Blundell's words.
After a bit of time passed, Blundell looked up with a slightly reminded look on his face.
"Hmm. Surely... sounds good?"
"It does, doesn't it?"
"This should work."
"No, it doesn't. It's not good enough. I'm a healthy adult, so I should be able to hear fine, but in a pinch, this isn't going to work."
I don't know the exact proportions, but....
At best, a rolled up piece of paper was going to have to do.
Besides, we're in a lab, and it's quiet around here, right?
I mean, there's less noise to get in through the other side of the opening....
This was going to be more distracting than I thought.
I'm a surgeon, so I don't know, but I have a close friend who's an ENT.
He told me that this thing is really sensitive to sound.
"Think about it, do you think anybody would have been buried alive if they'd heard this?"
"I do. Now that I think about it."
"Why do you have such thin ears?"
"You do."
"You do."
Blundell and Liston nodded and looked at me again.
There was still a hint of anticipation in their eyes because I had been singing for so long.
Kim Tae-pyeong, a man from Joseon.
How out of shape is it when the nineteenth century, which claims to be the age of science, comes up with a way to roll up paper and write with it.
"Let's look at our ears."
"Ears?"
"Suddenly?"
Everyone knew what ears looked like.
But do many people know why they look like this?
I bet not, at least not in this day and age.
"These auricles. Did God put them there for nothing?"
Just sayin'...again....
These guys are fine, but you never know where an attack might come from.
This is where the God Shield came in handy.
No one dared to argue against creationism in the days before Darwin.
If you said that, even in the nineteenth century, you were burned at the stake, not hanged.
"Mmm...."
"He couldn't have done it for nothing."
"Yes, he did!"
I waved my arms this way and that, like I was a revivalist preacher.
Honestly, I felt bad about spouting off such advanced knowledge, but fortunately, I was getting nothing but positive reactions from people who had no prior knowledge and nothing but goodwill toward me.
"This would be a form of sound collection."
"Collect sound?"
"Isn't sound just air?"
Of course, this wasn't easy either.
How do you get people to understand that sound is vibration?
And the idea that that vibrational energy is amplified in the auricle, then in the ear canal, then in the eardrum, then in the concave eardrum, then in the ossicles leading backwards, and finally in the cochlea, where it is turned into an electrical signal, was too difficult for them to grasp.
It was too advanced and too difficult.
Honestly, I don't even know if I understood it correctly because it was all I could pick up.
With all due respect, ENT doctors....
"Imagine if it came on the wind, and you collected it."
"Mmmm."
"Mmmm."
"Do you think it's supposed to look like this?"
"Ah, yes."
"Anyway, so?"
They say imitation is the mother of creation.
I hadn't realized it until just now, but when I thought about the shape of the ear, it was very similar to a stethoscope, after all.
The stethoscope must have been made first, so in a way, it's like they saw the ear and copied it.
"If you put your hand over your ear like this and spread it out, you can hear the sound better, can't you? It's gathering the sound."
"Yeah, it's a little weird to stop there, isn't it?"
"Aha, right."
"I hadn't thought of that. But you're right."
Not just the two of them, but the silent students nodded in agreement.
I gathered up the momentum and continued.
"So let's continue to follow God's design."
According to my sister, it was safe to go with the revivalist concept.
"This earlobe. What else is this for?"
"Hmm...."
"I guess it's not for nothing after all...."
"Have you ever been to a cave?"
"No."
"When do you go to a cave."
Oh, my mistake.
This is not a time when tourism was commonplace.
Even with the advent of the steam engine, traveling was, for the most part, synonymous with hardship.
Sure, the aristocracy would travel all over Europe, or even to Asia....
No one in our circle could do that.
Not even Colin or Alfred.
"I meant the hallway over there, but I misspoke."
"The hallway?"
"Yeah. The... that leads to the urolithotomy room."
"Oh, it's like a cave."
"Didn't your voice echo in there?"
"Huh? Huh. Uh...?"
It's a long stretch of tubing that's blocked off on one side, the blind canal.
It's amplified by bouncing back and forth.
It's actually about three times as much sound amplified in our ears, isn't it?
Of course, we can't discuss specific numbers right now, so I had to let it go.
"It's the same with the ear canal. Sound gets louder as it travels through this tube. That's what Professor Blundell experienced earlier."
"How on earth do you know such things?"
"It's the grace of God."
"No, I mean, why is it only yours?"
I don't know
why I'm alive again.
Only me again....
No?
How can I be the only one with such a long history?
I don't know how the hell we got to the 21st century with all the advancements we have now.
Maybe we're changing history one person at a time?
"Dawn prayers."
"What...."
"Anyway, as you know from dissecting your ear, there's an eardrum at the end of your earlobe."
"There is."
The eardrum....
It's concave, too.
It's like a miniature version of the auricle.
"They're there to collect sounds, too."
"Oh...? Now that you think about it?"
"Isn't that right?"
"Yeah."
"So, what if we made something else that mimics the ear? We make a concave iron plate, stick a tube in the back of it, and listen with our ears. I bet that would sound pretty good, huh?"
"Huh!"