Chapter 93: Human Anatomy

As he was thinking, Sister Li walked in and asked if the “teaching” should begin. She was the mother from the mother-daughter pair brought back by Zhang Xingjiao. Although she was older, she was literate and was put to work in the hospital doing administrative work and miscellaneous tasks. Since she had never revealed her real name, everyone just called her Sister Li.

“Yes, I’ll be right there,” Shi Niaoren said, extinguishing his cigarette.

The anatomy lab was located in the semi-basement of Bairen General Hospital. Apart from a few ventilation windows covered with shutters, there were no other windows. It was impossible for outsiders to see anything by peeking through the shutters. The door was always kept locked, and no one could open it except Shi Niaoren. The purpose of this was, of course, secrecy. Human anatomy was still a taboo for many Chinese people even in the 21st century. Unless absolutely necessary, families would never agree to it, let alone in this era.

Shi Niaoren entered a room where He Ma was already waiting. He was serving as an anatomy assistant, and also practicing his surgical skills.

He unlocked the usually locked door, led the way down the stairs, and turned on the fluorescent lights. At the end of the stairs was a corridor. Since there were not enough tiles available, the surface was still simple concrete. The fluorescent lights overhead cast a pale white glow.

The air was filled with the smell of disinfectant.

The autopsy order for the body had already been written. Shi Niaoren demanded that the procedures here be as meticulous as in a 21st-century hospital. He glanced at the order and saw that the person’s name was Chen Yabao, age unknown. He had been wheeled here, ready to face the physicians’ scalpels.

The anatomy room was not very large, about sixty square meters. On all four sides were tiered wooden stands for future medical students and nurses to observe the dissection. When full, it could seat about thirty people.

The room was unusually equipped with a ventilation system, which was quite a luxury for the transmigrators. In the center of the room was a reinforced concrete dissection table, tiled and rectangular. The transmigrators’ own porcelain kiln had not yet started production, so the facing tiles were custom-made by merchants in Fujian. The kilns there had years of experience making foreign porcelain and were more adaptable to producing new products. The tiles they made were truly “porcelain tiles”—not just glazed on the surface, but a solid “porcelain brick.”

The transmigrators were unaware that porcelain tiles had been manufactured in Ming Dynasty kilns. The most famous “porcelain tiles” that have survived to this day are the floor tiles of the Great Bao’en Temple Pagoda in Nanjing—they were even blue and white porcelain.

The surface of the dissection table had many grooves, and it was equipped with a faucet and a hose for spraying, so the body could be continuously washed during the dissection.

At one end of the dissection table was a supply cabinet with various dissection instruments and sample containers arranged on shelves. Next to the anatomy room were a preparation room and a specimen storage room.

Establishing such an anatomy room had taken a great deal of effort from Shi Niaoren to get the Executive Committee’s approval. It wasn’t like building a pharmacy or an operating room, which could immediately show tangible results to the committee. But it was an important cornerstone for rebuilding modern medicine in this time and space.

The lighting in the entire room was very bright, enough to see all the details on the dissection table.

A body, covered with a coarse white cloth, lay on the dissection table. It had just been brought down by a special winch. The deceased was a farmer who had worked on the Bairen City construction site and had died suddenly while working. He was not a local, which was why his body had ended up in the hospital’s hands. Such opportunities were not frequent. One of Shi Niaoren’s biggest headaches was the inability to preserve a source of bodies. There was no shortage of bodies in this time and space; sometimes after a battle, they were everywhere. But they couldn’t be preserved. They had neither cold storage nor enough preservatives. And the temperature in Lingao was always high. So, they had to use them as they found them.

He Ma changed into his clothes first, putting on latex gloves and a mask. He lifted the white cloth. The deceased was a young man, very thin and small. But his muscles and tendons were well-developed and strong. He had varicose veins on his calves and arms, clearly a man who had long been engaged in heavy physical labor.

He Ma placed a pillow under the corpse’s neck and positioned its arms. Shi Niaoren laid out the dissection instruments they would need: scalpels, rib shears, forceps, a saw for cutting the skull… everything was cleaned very well. But it was not as strictly sterilized as the instruments in an operating room. There was no need to worry about the patient getting infected here; the physicians only needed to be careful about their own safety.

“The young nurses will be here soon,” He Ma said.

Shi Niaoren teased him, “Are you excited to dissect in front of them?”

“I’ll be happy if they don’t think I’m a man-eating demon,” He Ma said with a wry smile. “In modern society, although people can’t emotionally accept dissection, at least they know it’s beneficial to medicine. Here?”

“We have to take it slow. Changing concepts doesn’t happen overnight. They are the seeds of modern medicine,” Shi Niaoren said, picking up a four-page autopsy analysis form. He looked at it and spoke.

“What’s the cause of death?”

“Sudden death. Probably coronary heart disease or something like that,” He Ma said.

“In this time and space, coronary heart disease is very rare. And he’s still young,” Shi Niaoren said, studying the young but already ashen face. “He’s very thin, with mild malnutrition.”

“I’ll fill out the body condition record,” He Ma said, taking the folder.

He wrote and muttered to himself, “A scar from an external wound on the left arm.” He moved the arm aside. “Sorry, brother,” he said, and noted, “Mild muscle rigidity.” He opened the eyelids and wrote, “Pupils equal and round, diameter 0.3 cm.” He then pried open the already stiff jaw and said, “Let’s see the teeth.”

There were footsteps in the corridor outside. The door to the anatomy room opened, and Ai Beibei entered.

“They’re here.” Behind her was a group of young women, all top-performing nurses and, what the transmigrators were most happy to corrupt, orphans. Shi Niaoren planned to train them to be doctors and had even taught them some basic medical Latin.

“Good morning,” Ai Beibei greeted. “Come on in, all of you.”

The nurses stood in a line at the door, six in total. As they entered the room, they all nervously glanced at the corpse on the table.

They had been serving in the health department for several months and were used to all sorts of scenes. They had also participated in collecting corpses. They had gradually become accustomed to the sight and smell of sores, mangled limbs, and rotting flesh. But this was their first time watching a human dissection.

“Everyone, put on your masks and sit down. Don’t move around.”

Shi Niaoren looked at each of the girls. Guo Fu was also there. She was one of his favorite nurses. Although she was young, she showed more enthusiasm and ability in nursing than many older girls. She was especially not afraid of dirt or blood and was not at all superstitious.

The girls were all a little nervous seeing the corpse, even though they had seen quite a few. But this was the first time they were going to see a “live” dissection. It was like the somewhat frightening chart they had seen in class, only this time a real person was being cut open for them to see.

Guo Fu was very worried about how she would react. She already felt a little strange inside. As a nurse, she was used to seeing dead people, but for now, a dissection was a new and terrifying experience.

“Morning,” Ai Beibei greeted them and went straight to the changing room. She took off her white coat, put on a mask, took a gown from the rack, and put her arms through the sleeves. Shi Niaoren, who was also putting on a gown, gallantly helped her tie the back. Then, the two of them, as if rehearsed, went to the sink one after the other. After washing their hands, Ai Beibei picked up a container of talcum powder and sprinkled it on Shi Niaoren’s hands, then held open a pair of latex gloves. Dr. Shi put his fingers in. Not a word was spoken.

Shi Niaoren walked to the dissection table and took the clipboard from He Ma, concentrating on it. He didn’t even glance at the corpse on the table. He Ma secretly observed the professor’s movements, suddenly feeling that the scene was like a symphony conductor taking the stage, only without the audience’s applause.

Ai Beibei climbed the wooden ladder on one side of the dissection table and took a photo of the corpse from above.

“This is the body of a young male,” Ai Beibei said. “Normally developed, mildly malnourished, thin build…”

Based on these signs, Shi Niaoren analyzed the deceased’s hairstyle, facial features, tooth wear, and cranial suture fusion, then said:

“The deceased is an unmarried young man, between twenty-three and twenty-six years old.” Then he turned to the young nurses and said, “This is your first time watching a dissection, right?”

“Yes, Director,” the girls answered in unison.

Shi Niaoren nodded. “Today, we are conducting a gross anatomy. The reason we are dissecting this person,” he pointed to the corpse on the table, “is so that we, as doctors, can clearly understand the structure and state of the human body, and at the same time, know why they died.”

Shi Niaoren pointed to the wall behind him and said to the girls, “Please look at the words on the wall.”

The girls’ eyes followed his hand to a motto written in black ink on the white-plastered wall.

Mortui Vivos Docent.

Shi Niaoren read the Latin phrase aloud and then translated it, “The dead teach the living.” He then turned his gaze back to the corpse.

“The person on the dissection table died suddenly while working. There were no prior symptoms of illness. We call this sudden death.” He looked at the girls with a solemn gaze, seeing them watching him with bated breath, just like the graduate students he used to teach. Who could have imagined that just over half a year ago, they were waiting to be sold as slaves in the human market of Guangzhou or begging on the streets.

“We will now analyze through dissection the cause of his sudden death.”

After saying this, Shi Niaoren examined the set of dissection instruments in front of him and selected a scalpel. He glanced at the area where he would make the incision, then, cleanly and decisively, plunged the sharp knife deep into the corpse.

A girl screamed when the knife went in and was immediately reprimanded by Ai Beibei.

He Ma secretly observed the nursing students. He knew that people who were too soft-hearted or had a phobia of germs could not watch a dissection. Even experienced people were reluctant to watch the first cut. Until this point, the corpse on the table still looked somewhat like a living person.

But after the first cut, there were no more illusions. The corpse had lost all human dignity. Whether it had been a man, a woman, or a child, it was now just a pile of bones and flesh, lymph and blood vessels.

Shi Niaoren, having been engaged in research, had not done many dissections in the past. But after D-Day, he knew that surgery would be a long and arduous task, so he took every opportunity to dissect a body and had regained his skilled knife work. His cuts were as smooth as flowing water, and he began the dissection with composure and agility.

He made two cuts from the corpse’s shoulders downwards, meeting at the bottom of the chest cavity. Then, he made one cut from there to the genitals, opening the abdominal cavity. The three cuts formed a perfect “Y.” As he made the cut, there was a “puchi” sound as the skin and flesh were split open. According to Shi Niaoren’s dissection experience, modern people with over-nutrition would usually have a layer of yellowish fat here, but this person had none—he was truly lean.

He Ma and Ai Beibei were watching the expressions of the nursing students. Three of them had already turned pale. Another one gagged and turned away. The other two held on, not moving.

Logically speaking, this group of senior nurses had seen many strange and gruesome corpses. When the pirates attacked Bopu, the first batch of nursing school students had all been sent out to collect bodies to build up their courage. Although they had vomited their guts out at the time and had nightmares in their dormitories at night, they had gradually become accustomed to it. People in this time and space were much tougher or more numb to death.

Ai Beibei clapped her hands. “Anyone who wants to step out for a few minutes can. If you can’t hold it in, go outside and vomit.”

But no one moved. The dissection paused for a moment, and only continued after everyone had gotten used to it.

Now, He Ma put on his gloves and worked alongside Shi Niaoren. The professor began to use a larger scalpel to separate the skin from the ribs, quickly peeling it back. Then he used a sharp pair of rib shears to cut the ribs, exposing the pericardium and lungs. The gloves, scalpel, and table were covered in blood. Ai Beibei turned on the faucet and began to wash it with the hose.

On the other side of the table, He Ma cut open a section of muscle, opening the abdominal cavity.

“This is the stomach…”

Shi Niaoren explained. As he explained, He Ma removed the stomach and intestines from the abdominal cavity, placed them in a stainless steel shallow dish to show the nurses, and then checked for any specific lesions before placing them in a glass jar. Because the amount of formaldehyde that the chemical department could produce was still very small, he did not plan to make too many human specimens for the time being.

As Shi Niaoren explained and dissected, the room was soon filled with the thick smell of blood and stench. Ai Beibei turned on the ventilation switch, and the smell in the room improved.