Seeking Truth with a Sword

Chapter 434 - 385 Animals

"Today, we are going to demonstrate an appendectomy on an experimental rabbit."

Li Ang lifted a white-furred rabbit from its iron cage and placed it on the operating table at the edge of the classroom. The students all stood up from their seats and gathered around the table to observe.

"First, position the experimental rabbit on the operating table, secure its limbs, then pluck the down from its ears." Li Ang explained his actions. "A rabbit’s ears are very thin. Once the down is removed, you can see the slender, curved marginal ear vein. This is the most convenient place for an injection on a rabbit. Before administering the anesthetic, lightly massage the ear and apply pressure at its base to engorge the marginal ear vein, causing it to bulge. Dr. Qiu, I’ll go wash my hands; you can administer the anesthetic."

Li Ang went to the sink to wash and disinfect his hands. Meanwhile, Qiu Feng picked up a syringe from a cart, filled with a prepared alkaloid solution with local anesthetic effects.

"The syringe should be inserted at a forty-five-degree angle, not too slanted and not with too much force." Holding the syringe, Qiu Feng accurately inserted it into the rabbit’s ear vein, speaking in a gentle voice, "Otherwise, it will penetrate the vessel and enter the subcutaneous tissue."

As the alkaloid solution was injected into the rabbit’s vein, the animal gradually stopped moving and became limp. Qiu Feng picked up a pair of scissors and trimmed the fur on the rabbit’s abdomen. At this moment, Li Ang, now wearing gloves and goggles, approached.

He took over at the operating table and said to the surrounding students indifferently, "Remember, standardized and precise actions are truly merciful towards experimental animals."

Truly merciful?

From the edge of the crowd, Li Leqing craned her neck, looking forward curiously. She quickly grasped the meaning behind his words.

Li Ang pinched the handle of the scalpel between his thumb and middle finger, leaned over, and gently made an incision in the rabbit’s abdomen, explaining as he went, "This is the skin, this is the subcutaneous fat, the linea alba, the transverse abdominis fascia, the peritoneum..." As Li Ang opened each layer, Qiu Feng used forceps to hold it aside.

The procedure was methodical, eerie yet beautiful.

"Use retractors to open the incision and expose the surgical field. Look carefully. The rabbit’s appendix is in the lower right abdomen. Here’s the colon, here’s the cecum, and this is the appendix." Li Ang used surgical instruments to separate, cut, and ligate the appendix’s mesentery, then removed the rabbit’s appendix. Afterward, he sutured the abdominal wall incision layer by layer and closed the abdominal cavity.

The rabbit’s appendectomy was completed cleanly and efficiently.

"You have memorized the content from your medical books many times. Now it’s your turn to practice," Li Ang turned to the students and said. "Form groups of six, with each member responsible for restraining, anesthetizing, making the incision, opening the abdomen, performing the appendectomy, and closing the abdomen. Each group, go get a rabbit."

The students looked tense and uneasy as they formed groups, each taking a rabbit from a cage and placing it on an operating table, proceeding with the steps in a seemingly professional manner. Li Leqing watched the students operate with a mixture of curiosity and awe.

For doctors to open up patients as if tailoring clothes, remove the afflicted parts, and then stitch up wounds to be as good as new—such a thing was unimaginable in the past. Perhaps only someone like Hua Tuo could compare. And now, a group of student doctors, with less than a year of schooling, could do just that.

Perhaps the words Li Ang once spoke could truly be realized one day. Every state and every county would have its own sick house, making it convenient and fast for common people to seek medical attention. Infant mortality due to illness would no longer be widespread, and people could easily live into their sixties, seventies, and eighties...

Suddenly, a piercing cry interrupted Li Leqing’s thoughts. A rabbit, its abdomen cut open, had awakened during surgery. It emitted sharp screams and struggled weakly on the operating table. The student group responsible for the operation stood in a panic, surgical instruments in hand.

Many students at the Imperial Medical Bureau came from ordinary families and had experience helping slaughter chickens and ducks at home. However, slaughtering livestock was an entirely different concept from witnessing an experimental animal, its abdomen cut open, struggling desperately on the operating table.

"Your anesthetic wasn’t administered properly." Li Ang strode over, glanced at the rabbit, and said coolly, "Move aside." He squeezed past the students, used Telekinesis to restrain the struggling rabbit, opened his medical kit, took out Mind Threads, swiftly sutured the rabbit’s wound, and then administered another anesthetic injection.

Only after the rabbit fell unconscious and stopped moving did Li Ang turn to the trembling group of students. "During the anesthetic injection," he explained, "if the needle fails to enter the rabbit’s ear vein, local swelling will occur. At that point, you should immediately withdraw the needle..."

Before he could finish, a cry of alarm came from another group of students on the other side of the classroom. Their operation had gone awry; blood was gushing from the rabbit’s abdomen, quickly obscuring their surgical field.

Li Ang quickly stepped forward and used Telekinesis to probe. Furrowing his brow, he said, "You’ve cut a blood vessel."

"Should we stop the bleeding?" the student in that group responsible for the appendectomy asked, full of trepidation. "Dr... Dr. Li."

"It’s too late. There’s been too much blood loss; it can’t be saved." Li Ang released his Telekinesis. SNAP. He twisted the rabbit’s neck.

The classroom fell silent, so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Li Ang’s gaze was calm as he swept it across the classroom. He said faintly to everyone, "Standardized and precise operations are the truest form of mercy towards experimental animals. Continue."

He took two steps back and surveyed the classroom.

Li Leqing, standing at the back of the classroom, quietly lowered herself from her tiptoes, her expression somewhat complex.

From the perspective of a public lecture, this class was undoubtedly a failure.

Although the students had been reading medical books for over half a year and believed they were well-prepared, many errors still occurred when it came to actual practice.

Some groups couldn’t administer the anesthetic properly, having to find the injection site several times, leaving the rabbit’s ears a bloody mess.

Some groups, too tense and forceful when restraining the rabbits, frightened the animals to the point of incontinence.

All rabbits that survived surgery were placed in designated cages to observe their postoperative healing. Those that died were tossed into waterproof bags and taken to an incinerator to be destroyed.

The public lecture ended in a somewhat silent, oppressive atmosphere. Students slung their bags over their shoulders and left the classroom. Meanwhile, Li Ang and Qiu Feng were at the sink, cleaning and inventorying the surgical instruments.

"How was this class?" Li Ang turned his head and casually asked Li Leqing.

Li Leqing hesitated for a moment and asked softly, "Were these rabbits bought from the market?"

"A very small portion were bought from the market; the vast majority are bred by the Imperial Medical Bureau." Li Ang stated calmly, "Experimental animals must possess characteristics such as high sensitivity, good reproducibility, and consistent reactions. Therefore, they must be domesticated and selectively bred to obtain genetically stable lines of experimental rabbits."

It took Li Leqing a moment to process his words. "Isn’t that... a bit cruel?" she asked hesitantly.

Li Ang paused slightly in his task of inventorying the surgical instruments and said earnestly, "That is why I wanted to deliver a lecture on medical ethics first.

"In the barbaric age, when gods and humans coexisted, what was the average human lifespan? Perhaps only in the teens.

"Now, it’s closer to the late twenties or early thirties.

"With the development of medical technology and the proliferation of sick houses, the average lifespan of the Yu Country people will reach forty, fifty, or even higher.

"Everything comes at a price. If medicine is a great white tower symbolizing enlightenment, then its foundations are inevitably built upon countless bones."

Li Ang paused, then continued, "Aside from rabbits, the Imperial Medical Bureau also breeds experimental mice.

"These are derived from albino house mice and albino brown rats, produced through more than twenty generations of close inbreeding, such as pairings between parents and offspring, or between siblings.

"In terms of quantity, reproductive capability, and cost, they are the most suitable experimental animals.

"Do you remember the anesthetic used in the surgery earlier?"

Li Leqing nodded. She had read in recent newspapers that doctors in the Yu Country army were already using this anesthetic to perform surgery on injured soldiers.

"To verify the drug’s safety, I’ve conducted many experiments." Li Ang said.

"For instance, I placed a small white mouse in a sealed glass jar, released an excessive amount of anesthetic fumes into it, and observed the mouse’s reaction.

"The little mouse, as if sensing its fate, scurried about frantically in the glass jar. Meanwhile, I stood at the desk, expressionlessly taking notes with pen and paper.

"As the fumes spread, it suddenly performed an action, as if learned from somewhere. It pressed its tiny paws together and bowed to me repeatedly, continuously, until the fumes engulfed it."

Li Ang added, "It was as if... it was begging me to save it."

"Did you save it?" Li Leqing asked subconsciously.

The Haotian Bell tolled, its chimes drowning out Li Ang’s reply.