Chapter 228
freēwēbnovel.comConfronted with the bloody reality (some rabbits really did spit out pink bubbles), Garrett was finally sent down the mountain. The old man in work clothes escorted him all the way to the station of the small train, reluctantly and unwillingly:
"Hurry up! We’ve already prepared 30 high-precision microscopes!"
"The ones magnifying 100 times have all been sold. The ones with higher magnification are too expensive and no one buys them. We’re just waiting for your thesis to come out so we can swindle those folks in the Black Crow Swamp!"
Garrett: "..." You have to speak with conscience! What do you mean by swindle! Translate that for me, what the ** does swindle mean!
Given the size of bacteria, they can only be seen with a microscope! Only by increasing the magnification to 1000 times can the characteristics of bacteria be distinguished! Only by staining the bacteria, performing various tests, and conducting animal experiments can it be determined which bacteria caused which disease!
I provided them with research tools, and even paved the way for them, making some money for myself. Isn’t this a win-win situation? And you’re talking about swindling, where’s the swindle!
When he left, it was with one carriage, but when he returned, several carriages arrived at the laboratory one after another:
An alchemist specially brought him a customized shadowless lamp, which was installed in a separate dissecting room and adjusted for half an hour;
Another alchemist brought two spatial bags, filled with bottles of all the dyes that could be scavenged from the market and the laboratory, as well as all liquids and solids that could be dyed, along with alcohol, sulfuric acid, nitric acid... a bunch of chemicals;
The third alchemist who came to settle accounts with Garrett: the shadowless lamp hadn’t been sold yet, and the microscopes were all settled with contribution points. In addition, Garrett received a total of 87 gold coins, 5 silver coins, and 9 copper coins - the sales commission for the pencils.
It must be said that the production and sales capacity of the alchemist guild is indeed quite remarkable.
Oh!
More money again!
More gold coins!
More things to make or rather, more money to command the gold coins to do the work!
Listening to the clinking of coins, Garrett’s mood lifted.
He had just finished tidying up when the fourth carriage arrived, followed by the fifth and sixth - this time not carriages, but flatbeds pulled by manpower. One was full of rabbits, one was full of rabbit feed, and one was full of seaweed and sea anemones, with several large pieces of beef and mutton on top, brightly colored, obviously just slaughtered today.
Ah... how much money is this going to cost...
Bernard’s eyes sparkled beside him. Garrett glanced at him, pursed his lips, and painfully took out his wallet. My gold coins, my little money, are about to say goodbye before they even get warm...
"You... don’t need to pay, sir, you don’t need to pay." The boss accompanying the carriage hurried forward, nodding and bowing, waving his hands repeatedly. "The council has already paid!"
Garrett turned to look at him. The boss was wearing an ancient bronze velvet coat, worn at the collar and hem, with the cuffs concealed, embroidered with a small hexagram in blue silk thread. With a quick spell, a shadow rose from the hexagram, evidently authorized by the council as a supplier.
Garrett relaxed slightly. Looking down again, the boss’s high boots were splattered with mud, emitting a fishy smell, obviously brought from the harbor area, directly to here with seaweed. He ran from behind the second carriage to the front, nodding and bowing, handing over a folded note:
"Sir, please check. If the quantity is correct, I’ll go settle accounts with the council."
Garrett glanced at it, and saw a dark skull mark flashing in the lower right corner of the note...
He opened the note. A wisp of black smoke rose from the mark, and the skull’s mandibles opened and closed, emitting a dry mechanical sound:
"Little Garrett, hurry up, the plague branch is waiting for you!"
Garrett: "..." No, has this project been transferred to the Black Crow Swamp?
The alchemist guild’s hands are really fast! Or do you not want to spend money and just use the previous paper to fool the Black Crow Swamp into being the patron, and then put out the project list?
Anyway, it’s nice to have someone paying. Garrett immediately stopped pursing his lips, stopped feeling heartache, and straightened up. He quickly scanned the note, then turned to command the barbarians:
"Bernard, count the rabbits. There are a total of 20 on the carriage. Check if the quantity is correct and if each one is healthy!"
With experimental animals in place, experimental equipment in place, and various experimental materials - such as various dyes for staining bacteria, sea anemones for making agar, beef and mutton for making meat broth - all in place. Garrett then closed himself off and happily started toying with his penicillin.
Hmm, the laboratory environment is really good... No worries about food, clothing, or being exposed to the wind and rain. Apart from the slight noise in the laboratory, there’s basically nothing to complain about as horse hooves pass by from time to time outside.
Of course, this sound of horse hooves is also because Nevis City has expanded its security perimeter to include his laboratory, which is still quite reassuring... frёewebnoѵēl.com
"Ah... experimenting, experimenting, experimenting..."
Bacterial culture experiments are actually quite boring. Especially when you have to cook your own culture medium, dye it yourself, and start with burning seaweed for iodine...
If you’re just a science enthusiast, doing an experiment for fun, that’s fine. Producing results adds a sense of accomplishment, and if you don’t achieve results, it doesn’t matter, because you’ve already enjoyed the process.
But, Garrett is counting on these rudimentary experimental conditions to really produce results...
"Ah - there are still 500 samples to stain!"
Empty and lonely in the laboratory, with only himself, Garrett let out a heartfelt wail.
Bacterial staining is a technical task, and it depends on materials. In Hartland City, Garrett searched the entire city for dyes, tried them one by one, and only found one dye extracted from wood that could dye cells a light blue.
The reserves of the Magic Council, compared to the small Hartland City, are much richer. Hundreds of dyes were sent to the laboratory - considering the need to use acids, alkalis, and various chemicals, the workload became even more terrifying to the point where people dare not look at it directly.
But with such a large pile of materials, apart from increasing Garrett’s fatigue, there weren’t many results - except for one red dye, the others either couldn’t be dyed or could be washed off with water.
"I want gentian violet! Crystal violet!" Garrett angrily slammed the table. With iodine, with red dye, give him gentian violet, and he can differentiate between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria! But everything is predicated on him getting gentian violet!
Garrett angrily wrote, the sharpened pencil pressed against the white paper, poking two holes. His list of demands was taken back by the supplier boss, and on the third day, a magician came specially to deliver a space bag of materials:
"These are the purple dyes we’ve newly found. This is conch purple, this is mountain bulrush purple, this is cochineal powder, this is madder purple... This is a solution extracted from gentian flowers, although it’s not purple, we’ve also brought it here. Oh, there are also two bundles of gentian flowers... And, there’s no gentian, but there are different types of snake gallbladders and fish gallbladders here, you can try using them..."
Garrett: "T_T..."
How did that predecessor of the Gram stain find gentian violet again? What’s the chemical formula of this thing? How is it synthesized?
Garrett searched his memory hard, vaguely remembering that this thing is a mixture of tetramethylrosamine chloride, pentamethylrosamine chloride, and hexamethylrosamine chloride...
Just the names are hard enough to pronounce. If it weren’t for being sent back with enhanced memory through the transmigration, he wouldn’t even be able to recall the formal name. As for how to synthesize this thing, Garrett said he wasn’t a chemical engineering major... cough, did the neighboring pharmaceutical major ever make gentian violet?
I’m having a hard time, I have nothing...
How to relieve worries, only through dissection. Garrett nurtured and purified the bacteria he created, then nurtured and purified them again, trying various methods to torment the rabbits:
Mixed into the feed and fed to the rabbits;
Wiped on the rabbits’ nasal passages and respiratory tracts;
Cut a small incision on the rabbits’ skin and applied it...
Then, observe, measure vital signs, and record the course of the disease. When the rabbits died, or were half dead and gasping for breath, they would kill them, one by one, and dissect their organs in sequence to observe the extent of organ damage.
Fortunately, he can still dissect, still dissect a dozen or twenty rabbits a day, to maintain the feel of his hands... Every day, cultivating and staining, he would think he wasn’t a surgeon anymore, but had changed to a laboratory technician...
"Um... Rabbit A03, showing signs of dehydration throughout the body, with dry and inelastic skin, dehydrated subcutaneous tissue and muscles, shrinking of the heart, liver, and spleen due to dehydration... Significant edema of the small intestine... Renal necrosis..."
Garrett glanced at it and recorded it. After finishing writing everything, he quickly glanced at the previous records:
"Feeding at 8:05 AM on the 21st. Began to fall ill at 2:37 PM... Excrement is rice-water-like... Excrement smear microscopy results are as follows..."
In one corner of the record book, there was also a hand-drawn diagram, with bacteria like commas, gathered in groups like tadpoles, lively and active.
Very good, combining the shape of the bacteria, the course of the disease, the time of death, and the results of the autopsy, it can be basically confirmed that this thing is, ninety percent, probably Vibrio cholerae.
Garrett showed a satisfied smile. Following the numbers in the record book, he carefully took out two petri dishes, each stored separately. One was used to settle accounts with the necromancy faction, and the other was kept to prepare a cholera vaccine -
In a world where you have to rely on your constitution and medical skills for everything, not having a few vaccines on hand always feels very insecure.
After surveying the storage cabinet again, Garrett’s smile became even lighter. Suspected Staphylococcus aureus, cultured and isolated; suspected Pseudomonas aeruginosa, cultured and isolated; suspected Shigella, cultured and isolated...
Including today’s Vibrio cholerae, he has cultured, isolated, and verified seven pathogenic bacteria, and with three more, he can wrap up and hand over the project!
But... why hasn’t he found penicillin yet...
He’s already worked so hard, spreading out a table full of petri dishes every day, sprinkling soil, dust, and everything he wants to get onto the culture media for Staphylococcus aureus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and various bacteria...
Why? Lady Luck, why won’t you favor him?
"Ah, ah, ah - it’s getting colder, if it gets colder, the melon will be gone!"
The lucky charm for penicillin! The best culture medium! If it gets colder, there will be no more, and he hopes will be even slimmer!
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