A Hospital in Another World?

"Shush!"

Garrett whispered for him to be quiet. He was in the middle of intubating the deer, could he not keep it down!

Having spent over a decade in the emergency department in his previous life, tracheal intubation was certainly not beyond Garrett’s capabilities. The issue was... he was a human doctor, not a veterinarian. What did a deer’s airway look like, where did it turn, and what techniques were needed to successfully intubate?

Garrett had no experience. His only knowledge about deer (sika deer? reindeer? moose? It didn’t matter, he couldn’t tell them apart anyway) airways came from:

Having dissected quite a few sheep before...

Garrett used every trick in the book. Magical ultrasound, magical X-ray, short of actually opening up to take a look. Then, he took a seed, cast a spell to hasten its growth, and a slender vine silently sprouted, drilling into the deer’s left nostril.

The deer, under a sleep spell, was fast asleep, utterly motionless. Garrett squinted and leaned close to its mouth, focusing his mind, directing the emerald vine to grow, enter, and turn...

Oops!

It came out of the mouth!

He retracted the vine a bit and persevered. The vine grew and grew and grew...

Ah, it went into the esophagus...

Garrett was frustrated. Mage Simond, sitting cross-legged beside him, watched his constipated expression and, with a smile, tossed the Arcane Eye ring into his lap.

"Here, take it. It was given to me by someone else anyway. If you feel bad about it, just tell me, what are you doing inserting vines into its nostrils?"

After some thought, Garrett didn’t refuse the kind gesture. Whether it was the trachea or the bronchi, having a tracheoscope made things much easier. He activated the Arcane Eye and explained to Mage Simond while inserting the vine wrapped around it. His first sentence made the mage leap to his feet:

"I’m thinking of infusing water into its lungs..."

"What???!"

Had the barbarian’s wagon not had a high enough ceiling, Mage Simond’s jump would have surely resulted in a bumped head. Even so, when he landed, he still let out a groan, clutching his buttocks with one hand, the other hand hastily grabbing Garrett’s shoulder:

"What are you doing? Want to drown it? That’s too inefficient! Or do you intend to poison it? Assassinate? Torture? Listen to me, this method is too troublesome. We mages have many spells to kill someone, no need for such hassle..."

Garrett: "..."

Would you believe me now if I say I’m trying to save lives?

Garrett had wanted to do this for a while. Not to intubate deer lungs, but human lungs; not to infuse water into deer lungs, but after becoming proficient with animal experiments, to infuse water into human lungs...

Ever since he set out for the Dwarf Kingdom, or rather, since he was assigned the mithril production task and encountered a large group of dwarves, Garrett had been pondering one question. What do dwarves need the most? With his professional skills, what could he help them with the most?

Garrett observed that out of ten dwarves—or rather, ten dwarves working in the forge area—eight or nine coughed. Ultrasound, X-rays, sputum bacterial cultures, a series of tests showed two common diseases.

One was pulmonary tuberculosis, with about two or three in ten suffering from it—notably, dwarves’ robust bodies are commendable, as not all have fallen ill despite close contact. But Garrett hadn’t developed streptomycin, rendering him powerless against it;

The other was pneumoconiosis. Among the dwarven males Garrett knew, seven or eight out of ten had pneumoconiosis; those over 200 years old had a nearly 100% incidence rate. And for treating pneumoconiosis, Garrett had some ideas.

He had no medicine for pharmaceutical treatment, lung transplants were out of the question, and asking dwarves to stop mining... would probably get him killed. After much thought, there was only one treatment method widely implemented in the 90s with significant effects: �

Lung lavage.

Or, in medical terms, called whole lung lavage.

Under general anesthesia, ventilating one lung while infusing a large amount of lavage fluid into the alveoli of the other side, then sucking it out under negative pressure, repeating the process until the extracted lavage fluid becomes clear. Then, switching sides and continuing the lavage...

This treatment method can remove large amounts of dust, dust-laden macroph

ages, pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic factors, significantly improving or eliminating symptoms like difficulty breathing, chest tightness, chest pain, coughing, sputum production, and reducing the frequency of respiratory infections. After treatment, patients show significant improvement in lung function and physical strength.

With divine magic for anesthesia, the simplest respirator (air pump), vine-made tracheal intubation, and always-available divine magic as a backup, Garrett felt he could give it a try.

At least start with an animal experiment?

Mage Simond looked at him with extreme skepticism. Garrett smiled at him and continued with the procedure. With the Arcane Eye—well, a visual bronchoscope—tracheal intubation was much easier, turning left and right without a hitch.

"Hey, there’s a hole on the left! The left!"

"That’s the mouth, thank you."

"Why isn’t it moving?"

"We need to lift the epiglottis, otherwise, the tube can’t go in. —There, that part, there! Done!"

"Ah, why has it stopped again?"

"Waiting for the vocal cords to open..."

Mage Simond stared at the light screen opened by the Arcane Eye, incessantly asking questions. Garrett answered every question while focusing on the screen, controlling the vines. Four vines advanced together, in an orderly fashion:

Solid vine A, delivering the light source;

Solid vine B, controlling the Arcane Eye;

Hollow vine C, turning left at the first bifurcation, then its end expanded, firmly attaching to the tracheal wall;

Hollow vine D, turning right at the same bifurcation, going deeper and deeper into the bronchus—

Begin infusion!

Transparent gas flowed into the alveoli. For this first experiment, Garrett chose the right third lobe of the green deer—yes, the deer’s left and right lungs each have three lobes, plus a middle lobe...

Even though it was just an animal experiment, and this deer would be slaughtered at the latest by tonight, Garrett still used sterile saline. The liquid was pushed into the alveoli through the hollow vine, and soon, a 50ml syringe was pushed from the top to the bottom.

Garrett’s operation was smooth and steady. After all, during that special period in his previous life, he had performed bronchoalveolar lavage sampling countless times, and he was very skilled. After a brief pause, the injected sterile saline was sucked into a negative pressure bottle under Mage Simond’s astonished gaze.

"You can really infuse water! And it won’t kill!... Can I try?"

Garrett generously passed over the syringe. Mage Simond curiously fiddled with it, pushing in one syringe, then another, and another...

"Ow—"

A low deer cry. The deer, which had been motionless under magical hypnosis, suddenly kicked its hoof against the shield Mage Simond had propped up.

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