Chapter 24 Part 3 - Since I was reborn as Saito Yoshitatsu, I'm aiming to hand over the territory to Oda Nobunaga and live longer!
1537 (Tenbun era, year 6)
TL: Yuina They were more motivated than I expected, and I had to teach them a lot of things, so I decided to make chalk and blackboards during the winter. I made two kinds of chalkboards, one for the students and one for the teachers, using the ones I saw at the Kaichi School I visited in Nagano as reference. I've heard that the early blackboards were made with lacquer and persimmon tannin. A mixture of pumice powder from the Kiso River, lacquer from Hino in Omi Province, and whetstone powder was used to make the paint, which was then applied thickly to the cedar board, then finalized with sharpening stone and persimmon tannin.
As for chalk, plaster can be obtained in Ogaki, so I burn it with brown coal, break it into pieces, melt it with water, and put it in a mold. If you breathe it in for a long time, you may get pneumoconiosis, so just be careful not to inhale it too much into your lungs.
Since we didn't know the mixing ratio for both, it took me until before spring, but I managed to complete the prototypes. The second waterwheel, which was supposed to serve as a paper battering machine, turned out completely white, but I guess that's excusable.
After checking the finished product and preparing a cloth as a cleaner for the blackboard, I gave them a lesson on the physiological functions of the human body.
Since the snow hasn't finished thawing yet, my uncle, who seemed to have some free time on his hands, as well as Toyo and the other Kosho also joined in.
Everyone seemed to be able to learn about the bones, blood, and muscles, but more and more people dropped out after getting on to the internal organs, and only the three doctors could understand the nerves properly. They were able to understand it faster because they had already seen the real thing.
I wanted to get a loupe, which I realized was lacking after the surgery. I also want to obtain a microscope in the future. The apprentices at the glass factory are gradually getting better, but they still have a long way to go. In the end, I managed to distill the alcohol using a ceramic distiller that was fabricated for me. By the way, sake uses too much rice, so we use all the crops we cultivate to make alcohol. If I were to make rice for drinking, I would have to wait until the environment was ready for salt water selection and regular-row planting, and then I'd have to increase the number of square rice paddies to be able to increase the rice production itself.
If I could somehow make plate glass, I should be able to make lenses, so I decided to search my memory for a method to fabricate plate glass.
Relying on a program I had once seen on TV, I decided to try to make plate glass by pouring hot glass into a heat-resistant tray-type container.
All I had to do was to make a mold of a certain thickness by calculating the reflection of the lens.
Calculating the lens and making the mold will require overtime work, as the craftsman would go through trial and error for the rest of the year. The microscope will be further down the road, so I'll have to work steadily, step by step.
Oh no, that's even more overtime...
Author's Note:
It is not that the five zang organs and the six fu organs theory of Eastern medicine are completely wrong, but the Western medicine still held an advantage (at least until the beginning of the 19th century) since they could grasp even the finer details concerning the internal organs.
The idea of defilement [1] is deep-rooted and will inevitably come up, but he has a special ethic as a modern doctor, so it doesn't bother him as much. Also, how could three doctors with such a desire for knowledge not show some greed?
The hurdle should be lower than Genpaku Sugita and Ryotaku Maeno, so this development was made.
[1] Kegare (穢れ・汚れ, uncleanness, defilement) is the Japanese term for a state of pollution and defilement, important particularly in Shinto as a religious term. Typical causes of kegare are the contact with any form of death, childbirth (for both parents), disease and menstruation. (source: Wiki)
He could have avoided the trouble, if he just let the random and complete stranger die. I know that he has to do the hippocratic oath, but I'm suprised he can mindlessly follow it, but I guess this type of singleminded serious people is the ones that overwork themselves to death.
ReplyDeleteI think he wouldn't forgive himself if he left him to die, as he was the only one who knew how to save him.
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