I Became a Plague Doctor in a Romance Fantasy

144. The Power in the Box (1)

****

Professor Bernstadt was seated at the front. Unlike her, most of the people invited to this seat were professors of medicine and physiology.

Bernstadt was the exception.

Though it was a medical symposium, Professor Bernstadt believed she had every reason to attend the presentation since she was one of the co-authors of the paper.

After all, frog legs were ultimately just a means to visualize the invisible force of electromagnetism.

Professor Asterix’s physiological research also seemed intriguing. Observing the dissected corpses of humans or frogs might border less on simple interest and more on morbid curiosity…

But death is a fascinating subject, isn’t it?

Anyway, Bernstadt considered this experiment a great success. Static electricity, interactions between metals, lightning…

All these phenomena were now tied together under the single concept of “electricity,” and thanks to Professor Asterix’s machinery, they had become controllable.

Without using magic, no less.

It was somewhat absurd.

This had been the long-sought goal of physicists for so long, yet here it was discovered by a scientist who cared little for physics while dissecting frogs.

Why frogs of all things?

Still, there was no way to refute it. While Bernstadt wasn’t an expert in physiology, hadn’t she seen the blue energy flicker between the copper wires?

Small as a fingernail, but Professor Asterix had successfully trapped the power of lightning in a jar.

Humanity had finally, as of today, claimed one of heaven’s powers. Lightning trapped in a box without magic—wasn’t that poetic?

****

The atmosphere in the auditorium wasn’t good.

The murmurs made it noisy.

The main criticism seemed to be: “Is it really plausible that so many coincidences led to such groundbreaking discoveries multiple times?”

That’s true… How could I explain this in a way that would satisfy everyone here?

I scratched my head. Everyone seemed more skeptical than usual. Maybe crossing into another field made persuasion harder.

Let me restate the logical structure.

I looked at Professor Amiya, who had been the loudest critic, and began speaking while organizing the logical flow of the presentation in my mind.

“So. Through dissection studies, we confirmed that nerves connect from the brain throughout the body, and that they don’t transmit fluid currents since their interiors aren’t hollow.”

“Yes.”

“Through prior research and observation, we established that nerves transmit signals within the human body.”

Professor Amiya slowly nodded.

“Next. We discovered that when a frog placed on a copper plate is pierced with a zinc knife, electricity is generated, causing the frog’s muscles to move.”

“Yes. That much makes sense.”

Then the next part should make sense too.

“We created a machine using copper and zinc to generate electricity, thereby proving in a controlled environment that electricity can cause frog muscles to move. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Professor Amiya still sat at the front with her arms crossed, seemingly searching for flaws. Whether she found any or not, I couldn’t tell.

“Hmm.”

“Go ahead and speak.”

I waited briefly.

Professor Amiya spoke.

First point.

“First, you said nerves don’t transmit fluid currents. However, there are ventricles in the brain and a central canal in the spinal cord’s cross-section.”

A question about cerebrospinal fluid. Though valid, cerebrospinal fluid doesn’t flow through the nerves themselves.

It flows around them.

“It’s difficult to consider this as a structure that transmits fluid currents. When you look at the cross-section of peripheral nerves under a microscope, most nerves aren’t tube-like structures. The spinal cord has holes but isn’t tubular.”

Second point.

“As for copper, zinc, and frogs. Isn’t the evidence that frog legs respond to these two materials rather weak? Can you distinguish it from pain stimulation?”

That’s due to a lack of understanding of the electrochemical series of elements and metals. Since I haven’t memorized everything either, how should I explain this?

“If you cut off a frog’s head, it’s unlikely to react to pain stimuli. For that to happen, the skin would need to be peeled back and the leg would have to move.”

Meaning, the muscle movement in the frog wasn’t caused by electrical signals but by some other stimulus present during the experiment.

“We could add a control group. Try poking it with a wooden stick. You can verify experimentally if you’d like. But since we’ve already created a battery, I consider this matter nearly verified.”

“I see…”

We’ve already built a device to deliver electric shocks and can induce muscle contractions even in living frogs. It’s easily verifiable.

Professor Amiya thought for a long time, seemingly searching for more points of criticism. Finally, apparently out of arguments, she sat back down.

I checked the audience again.

“Does anyone else have questions?”

“I do.”

It was Professor Klaus. Surprisingly, he usually didn’t ask many questions.

“Please go ahead.”

“How exactly do you think muscles and nerves are connected? Have you discovered that too?”

“Good question.”

I posted the diagram I had drawn on the blackboard.

“To put it simply, under the microscope, the nerves appear to just stick to the muscles like clubs. Istina, did you bring that thing?”

The microscopic specimen of the neuromuscular junction.

“Oh, yes!”

Istina quickly rushed over and set down the pre-focused microscope at the front.

Professor Klaus looked through the microscope first.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is the neuromuscular junction. It’s a section separated from a human arm where the nerve meets the muscle, observed under a microscope. What function can you infer from the structure of the neuromuscular junction?”

There was no answer.

I looked at Istina.

“Um, I think it’s more for sending signals than material exchange, but I’m not sure.”

It wasn’t a very satisfactory answer.

Come on, Istina, if you studied with me and understand this little, what will we do?

“Well. You’ll see soon enough, but the nerves just touch the muscles like sticks. This is another proof that nerves transmit signals rather than fluid currents.”

The professors took turns looking through the microscope.

I waited while everyone examined it. There were only twenty people today, so it didn’t take long.

“No more questions?”

No one raised their hand.

****

Almost done, but the most shocking part of the presentation remains—the practical application of this technology. It’s closer to physics or engineering than medicine, but they’ll handle it in detail later.

I plan to announce it here. Someone needs to be recorded in history as the inventor of the telegraph.

“Then, let’s move on to the next discovery.”

“Are there more discoveries?”

I scratched my head.

“As you saw earlier, batteries can be used to move animal muscles. The principle would likely be similar even inside living animals.”

Of course, the method by which nerves create potentials and electrical signals differs somewhat from wires, but the basic principle is the same. Even the cells surrounding the nerves act as insulators.

“On another note, this also shows that the heart lacks information processing functions and is simply an organ that receives commands from the brain. The heart doesn’t have many information-processing mechanisms.”

Since we’ve uncovered new findings, we need to address some old medical superstitions.

The unit in the human body that processes information is the nervous system.

“In short, most higher-order thinking and conscious activities seem to occur primarily in the brain. To put it abstractly, you can consider the soul to reside in the brain.”

Professor Amiya sitting at the front reluctantly nodded, seemingly convinced.

The location where information processing and decision-making occurs is the brain, which contains the most nervous tissue.

“If there’s a way to almost instantly transmit information within the human body, mimicking this process in engineering shouldn’t be too difficult. Especially if combined with magic or alchemy.”

The core idea is this: if you can transmit information signals along neural connections…

“Let me share something with just you all. Since the metal used to create electrical signals is copper, wouldn’t pulling copper into thin threads allow us to use it as telegraph wire?”

By the way, the wire used in this experiment was just pulled copper thread. We didn’t prepare any insulation for this experiment.

“Nerves inside the human body are covered with fatty insulation, so covering our wires with rubber or paper should allow us to transmit signals too.”

We can transmit signals across long distances.

The only limitation? How long a wire we can pull. But pulling long wires isn’t as hard as you might think…

Considering the British army managed to connect Jeondeungdo to London during the Jeondeungdo incident in the 19th century, maybe the Empire could do it too.

Or maybe not.

“Considering the speed of neural responses, information processing happens faster than the blink of an eye, right? The speed of signal transmission through wires will be even faster.”

****

The presentation ended quicker than expected.

It had a different vibe from other symposium presentations. Perhaps because it wasn’t everyone’s specialty, there was no opposition to the latter half.

****

Violet lifted her head at the sudden breeze by the window. For some reason, the imperial prince’s headache worsened, and it felt like the history of academia was being rewritten.

And…

The smell of money? I don’t know.

---