I Became a Plague Doctor in a Romance Fantasy Novel

Episode 47. The Mysterious Plague (3)

Episode 47. The Mysterious Plague (3)

The mayor of Imentia sighed.

The city’s situation was not good. The gloomy atmosphere in the conference room reflected that fact.

“Let’s summarize the situation today.”

“There is strong opposition to the curfew.”

“Well… Is there any way around it? The disease could spread due to the stench rising from the sewers at night.”

“Every night, the madmen scream and pray in tongues, causing people to lose sleep.”

There’s no real way to stop them from screaming at home. Especially if there are several of them…

“Oh dear.”

“The temple discovered about ten more people with similar symptoms yesterday.”

“Is that a lot or a little? At least it hasn’t exploded in numbers. What does the professor say?”

“He said he doesn’t know, so he’s going to see the patients.”

“Does that professor still not know what the disease is? Hasn’t he returned yet?”

“No.”

The situation was desperate. No one knew what the disease was or how to respond. No one knew how far the epidemic would spread.

In the end, we could only hope that the professor would figure out what the disease was and suggest a solution. There was no other way.

Medicine is not a cold discipline that would place a dying son as a secondary priority. But statecraft might be such a discipline.

We arrived in Imentia and received a briefing on the situation. Now, we plan to see the mayor’s son, the initial patient.

The mayor’s second son, Manta.

During an overseas expedition, he contracted an unknown disease abroad and is currently quarantined in one of the towers of Imentia Castle.

Hemoptysis, skin rashes, coughing, phlegm. It might be pneumonic plague, but there were many suspicious points.

It’s hard to take Hedwig’s diagnosis at face value. Even if he’s skilled, it’s by this world’s standards.

Even if it seems reasonable, who knows when he might prescribe heroin to a kindergartener or call cutting off limbs with a dirty saw a treatment.

That might be an exaggeration. Anyway, I have to see for myself. It’s better to see the patient once than to read about him a hundred times.

But why is the infirmary so far away?

“Why is it so high?”

“It’s a tower.”

Istina murmured quietly.

“Why put a patient in a tower? It’s hard on the legs.”

“They probably put him far away. To isolate him.”

My legs hurt. It seems to be at least six stories high. Even if it’s for isolation, this seems a bit much.

How do they eat? Do they bring food up to the sixth floor every day?

That must be tough.

A few minutes later, we arrived in front of my son’s room. Istina and I stopped walking. We checked our plague doctor masks and knocked on the door.

“I’m a doctor. May I come in?”

There was no particular answer.

“Um, I’m a doctor. May I come in?”

“Ugh. Cough.”

I guess that means we can go in. Istina and I opened the door and entered the room. It was a well-lit, decent room.

In the center of the room was a bed, and on the bed lay a person with a haggard appearance.

Let’s deduce from what we see.

Judging by the items in the room and the position of the slippers, it seems he was moving around until recently. That means he’s able to walk.

Well, if he didn’t need active care, they could put him in a tower.

A wooden tray was placed on the floor next to the door. The menu was probably steak and porridge.

I don’t know why they gave it like that, but it seems he ate it well enough.

It is concluded that he can still walk and eat. Although it seems unlikely that he cleaned the room himself, it was generally clean.

Now, let’s see the patient.

The patient looked tired, but he was sitting on the bed when he saw us. His expression was not bright, and there were some red spots on his skin.

His eyes were sunken. The hair loss was not noticeable on his head, but quite a bit of brown hair had fallen on the bedside.

If it’s a week’s worth of hair, it seems like quite a lot has fallen out. I pondered a bit.

We need to treat him quickly.

Even the mayor didn’t have that much hair, but a young man shouldn’t be like this already.

More importantly.

Hemoptysis, red spots on the skin, hair loss, these are really typical symptoms of radiation poisoning. Is it really radiation poisoning? No way, it can’t be.

There can’t be radiation exposure.

It’s a fantasy world, there’s no way there’s a uranium mine or a decommissioned nuclear power plant nearby.

Let’s stop playing detective.

“Hello, patient,”

“Cough, cough. What is it?”

“We are doctors from Hwangdo. We heard that an epidemic is spreading in Imentia, so we were urgently dispatched to see you.”

The patient frowned.

“I thought you were a grim reaper or an undertaker. I thought it was time to die, just.”

“No.”

“Please take off your mask.”

“We shouldn’t take it off, should we…?”

Anyway, let’s start the examination.

“When did you start feeling sick?”

“As soon as I got off the ship.”

“Were you not sick during the adventure?”

“Well, during the adventure… I might have been tense, but I wasn’t sick.”

I sighed. No clues in sight. What kind of illness could this be?

“I heard you had hemoptysis. Was there blood mixed with your phlegm? When did you start coughing up blood?”

“After I arrived.”

“Was there blood mixed with your phlegm?”

“Yes.”

“Please cough again.”

“Cough, cough, cough.”

The patient coughed a few times.

It wasn’t a deep or severe cough. When you have a serious respiratory illness like pneumonia, you hear a deep, phlegm-filled sound in the cough.

But it wasn’t like he was coughing frequently. Could it be that it’s not a serious illness after all?

I checked the patient’s conjunctiva and skin turgor. The skin turgor seemed normal, and there didn’t appear to be any signs of dehydration.

“How much water do you drink?”

“Three bottles.”

The patient scratched his head briefly.

“Have you figured out what illness it is?”

“No.”

“The old sailors call it sailor’s sickness. They say it’s a disease you get from being at sea too long or traveling too far.”

“Really?”

“They say it goes away if you stay on land for about two weeks. I thought that might be the case.”

Sailor’s sickness. What kind of disease is that? Should I consider it some kind of strange overseas infectious disease?

I stepped back from the patient and looked at Istina. Istina tilted her head.

“Istina. What kind of disease is this?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t it the Black Death?”

That was the conclusion Hedwig and the city government had reached. It’s not impossible.

The Black Death.

It’s called that because the skin turns black before death. This patient only had some rashes, their skin wasn’t blackened, and they didn’t look like they were about to die.

The treatment for the Black Death is doxycycline. It can be treated with antibiotics.

Thinking about it carefully, I don’t think it’s the Black Death.

If it were insect-borne Black Death, there should have been a scab at the bite site, and there should have been skin and soft tissue necrosis. If it were pneumonic Black Death, the patient should already be half-dead.

No, in the first place, human-to-human transmission is impossible except for pneumonic Black Death. Based on the information we’ve gathered so far, we can completely rule out the Black Death.

“I don’t think so. This patient doesn’t have black skin, and they don’t look like they’re about to die. It’s hard to see it as the Black Death.”

“Then what disease is it?”

“I need to think about it a bit more.”

I don’t know. Let’s think a little more.

The patient coughed up blood…?

Hemoptysis is quite a rare symptom.

The most common causes of hemoptysis are lung cancer or bronchial cancer. Of course, if you cough too much, you might see blood from that area.

Let’s go back to the basic premise.

“Istina. What is hemoptysis?”

“It’s a symptom where blood is mixed with phlegm.”

“What’s the differential diagnosis?”

“Hematemesis.”

“And?”

“I don’t know.”

Oral bleeding. Since phlegm is spat out through the mouth, even if there’s blood mixed in the phlegm, it might not be coming from the lungs or bronchi, but from the mouth.

So, isn’t it because of hemoptysis that these bizarre diagnoses like lung cancer, radiation poisoning, and the plague are coming up?

Let’s review the premise that there is hemoptysis. I turned my head back to the patient.

“Patient, open your mouth.”

“Uh…”

With my gloves on, I pulled back the patient’s lips to check the gums. As suspected, there was some bleeding from the patient’s gums.

“Is it a serious condition?”

No. At least it’s not more serious than the plague, radiation poisoning, or lung cancer. Well, is there a disease more serious than those three?

“Istina! Look at this.”

“Yes. Oh, from the gums-“

“You see the blood coming out.”

“Yes.”

“It’s not hemoptysis. From the beginning, there was no hemoptysis, just blood coming from the mouth, and it only came out when sneezing or coughing up phlegm.”

“I see…?”

Istina seemed not to understand what I meant. It’s a bit unfortunate. If it were a modern doctor, they would have figured out what disease it was as soon as they heard about the bleeding gums.

I opened my mouth. The patient and Istina looked at me with eyes full of anticipation.

“What kind of disease is this…?”