pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

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He hasn't been to the infirmary before. He hasn't had cause; he hasn't needed a doctor's care. He's curious, a little, but curiosity isn't sufficient reason to disturb doctors at work. They're likely busy.

Now, however, he has cause.

He knocks before he enters. Then, stepping into the doorway, looks around with interest and bafflement in equal measure.

(Tidiness is laudable, but he's never seen a doctor's belongings or office so formidably, obsessively clean.)

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Simon bends to pick up his own drink, with a murmur of thanks to the rat.

"Or, for instance," he says in faint bemusement, "such as rats waiting tables."

Enjolras's mouth twitches, as he bends for his own cup.

"Yes."

For instance.

He takes a sip of Bar's excellent tea, and lowers his cup.

"In any case ... I've brought an outline for your reference," he says, indicating the folder with his free hand, "on the subject of germ theory and avoiding contagion. If you'd like to go over it?"

"Please."

Enjolras, with a may I? glance, opens the folder.

The paper on top is, thankfully, written in French. Enjolras relaxes slightly; it hadn't occurred to him until he was reaching for the folder that perhaps this might be a point of difficulty, since they spoke without a problem. He scans the page, brows drawn together intently.

It is, as Simon indicated, an outline: a few short paragraphs describing the germ theory of disease in simplest terms, and a few more about practices to prevent contagion.

The example of cholera is given, and the specific method of transmission: drinking water or eating food contaminated by the waste of someone ill.

Enjolras reads it once. Then again, slower.

So simple, these bare facts. So simple; so vast; so incredible. Reading this page is like mounting a small hill, and finding oneself on a mountain ridge, overlooking a vast cliff -- and a rolling vista below, all sunshine, all harmony, all hope, out of reach but visible now.

(Combeferre isn't here. He can't see his face, he can't show him this paper, but he can send the message.)

"Invisibly tiny creatures."

It seems beyond belief, but so do many scientific theories of fluids and forces. Enjolras is not a scientist. He wouldn't know where to begin in evaluating the theory.

He looks up. There's a burning intensity in him, banked, controlled, hot. "Soap, boiled water, strong spirits -- that's truly sufficient? Boiling water, cooking vegetables?"

The lives this would save. The thousands of lives.

Edited 2014-06-25 18:53 (UTC)

That intensity's a little scary, but also weirdly familiar somehow; he's finding himself warming to the man even further.

(He won't place the familiarity until some time later.)

"It's not a failsafe preventative, but it'll cut down your chances of contagion by ... call it ninety percent, at a conservative estimate. The more people you can get to adopt the safety measures, the better everybody's chances become. Fewer people catching the disease means fewer people to spread it."

Enjolras looks back at the page.

Such simple words. A handful of paragraphs, half of them theory: call it a ninety percent reduction of the chances of contagion.

"I don't know if you can understand, monsieur," he murmurs at last, "what this will mean to France."

(sometimes you need a doctor)

(ha sa te ka na e ku ta ma e)

Quietly: "I have some idea."

Enjolras looks at him: largely preoccupied still, but sober and studying, and just for a moment his attention is all on Simon.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

He means it. Sincerity is Enjolras's natural state.

The man has been at Milliways for years. His world has its understanding so far advanced that this is a simple outline to him, but who knows what other worlds he's helped?

His eyes return to the paper; his focus returns to the problem at hand, and the problems of a country far away.

"I doubt we can do much in the short term to affect the source of disease. We haven't the power to enact policy, nor the influence." In the long term -- well, that depends on many, many things. "But even a few doctors with this knowledge will make a difference. Especially when their preventatives and remedies work."

Remedies that work reliably in an epidemic were in very short supply.

He turns back a page, reads over certain paragraphs again, more thoughtfully. At length, he returns his attention to Simon.

"I hardly know what to ask next. So I ask you, Dr. Tam: what else do you think a man in my position should know?"

"That ..." Slowly. "That may depend on what you already know. I'm afraid I don't have the clearest idea of the state of medicine in your time."

"It will seem very primitive to you."

(The narration, once again, would like to apologize for Enjolras's context, and the fact that 'primitive' and 'civilization' and 'progress' are words he doesn't think twice about using.)

He thinks, quite suddenly, of Combeferre and Joly in the back room of the Musain one night. Gilded by stovelight, in the close air of a warm room in winter. Gilded too, in memory, by affection. They were speaking of the advances of future generations, of how the future would look back at the sorrows and sufferings of France in 1830 and think its newest science poor and primitive. A joyful thought. A triumph of Progress.

A moment's recollection only. It doesn't make him hesitate more than he was already doing to collect his thoughts. The best tribute and gift he can give them is the work he's doing right now.

"As I said, we didn't know the causes of disease. There were many theories. Miasmas, imbalance of the humors, physical contact, magnetic fluids. I don't know them all." Nor does he really know which of them are ruled out by this 'germ theory' and which of them are simply a part of it; perhaps there are miasmas of germs, perhaps tiny organisms in the body alter the balance of humors. He'll do his best to summarize, and let Dr. Tam sort it out.

"To combat disease -- to fight fever or infection from a wound -- again, many approaches. Some well-established, many experimental. Bleeding, purgatives, broth or rich food, tinctures and medicines of various sorts. Laudanum. Bed rest. Many injuries there was very little to be done about."

Edited 2014-06-27 21:18 (UTC)

Simon's face stays fairly neutral while Enjolras is talking. None of this is precisely new to him; it's still appalling, of course, but not shocking.

"Some of those are closer to the truth than others, of course," he says. "The components of the body are considerably more complicated than the old idea of humors, but it is true that an imbalance of body chemistry can cause illness. And physical contact definitely does spread some diseases, though not all ... I can tell you that bleeding as a treatment for illness has been completely discredited."

The corner of Enjolras's mouth quirks a little, in some private and complicated emotion.

He's never liked being bled. No one with whom he's share the sentiment is at this table; the urge to look over to catch someone's eye is hard to suppress.

(And if he can't see the extent of Simon's courteously suppressed horror, he can at least guess that some of that polite neutrality is deliberate. It only stands to reason for a man of so far into the future.)

"I'll pass that on."

"Laudanum, on the other hand -- well, it's an opiate, and has some use for pain management, but it's dangerously addictive...."

The discussion goes on for quite some time, as the remains of the tea and coffee grow cold.

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