"Today, we are going to demonstrate an appendectomy on an experintal rabbit."
Li Ang lifted a white-furred rabbit from its iron cage and placed it on the operating table at the edge of the classroom. The students all stood up from their seats and gathered around the table to observe.
"First, position the experintal rabbit on the operating table, secure its limbs, then pluck the down from its ears." Li Ang explained his actions. "A rabbit’s ears are very thin. Once the down is removed, you can see the slender, curved marginal ear vein. This is the most convenient place for an injection on a rabbit. Before administering the anesthetic, lightly massage the ear and apply pressure at its base to engorge the marginal ear vein, causing it to bulge. Dr. Qiu, I’ll go wash my hands; you can administer the anesthetic."
Li Ang went to the sink to wash and disinfect his hands. anwhile, Qiu Feng picked up a syringe from a cart, filled with a prepared alkaloid solution with local anesthetic effects.
"The syringe should be inserted at a forty-five-degree angle, not too slanted and not with too much force." Holding the syringe, Qiu Feng accurately inserted it into the rabbit’s ear vein, speaking in a gentle voice, "Otherwise, it will penetrate the vessel and enter the subcutaneous tissue."
As the alkaloid solution was injected into the rabbit’s vein, the animal gradually stopped moving and beca limp. Qiu Feng picked up a pair of scissors and trimd the fur on the rabbit’s abdon. At this mont, Li Ang, now wearing gloves and goggles, approached.
He took over at the operating table and said to the surrounding students indifferently, "Rember, standardized and precise actions are truly rciful towards experintal animals."
Truly rciful?
From the edge of the crowd, Li Leqing craned her neck, looking forward curiously. She quickly grasped the aning behind his words.
Li Ang pinched the handle of the scalpel between his thumb and middle finger, leaned over, and gently made an incision in the rabbit’s abdon, explaining as he went, "This is the skin, this is the subcutaneous fat, the linea alba, the transverse abdominis fascia, the peritoneum..." As Li Ang opened each layer, Qiu Feng used forceps to hold it aside.
The procedure was thodical, eerie yet beautiful.
"Use retractors to open the incision and expose the surgical field. Look carefully. The rabbit’s appendix is in the lower right abdon. Here’s the colon, here’s the cecum, and this is the appendix." Li Ang used surgical instrunts to separate, cut, and ligate the appendix’s sentery, then removed the rabbit’s appendix. Afterward, he sutured the abdominal wall incision layer by layer and closed the abdominal cavity.
The rabbit’s appendectomy was completed cleanly and efficiently.
"You have morized the content from your dical books many tis. Now it’s your turn to practice," Li Ang turned to the students and said. "Form groups of six, with each mber responsible for restraining, anesthetizing, making the incision, opening the abdon, performing the appendectomy, and closing the abdon. Each group, go get a rabbit."
The students looked tense and uneasy as they ford groups, each taking a rabbit from a cage and placing it on an operating table, proceeding with the steps in a seemingly professional manner. Li Leqing watched the students operate with a mixture of curiosity and awe.
For doctors to open up patients as if tailoring clothes, remove the afflicted parts, and then stitch up wounds to be as good as new—such a thing was unimaginable in the past. Perhaps only soone like Hua Tuo could compare. And now, a group of student doctors, with less than a year of schooling, could do just that.
Perhaps the words Li Ang once spoke could truly be realized one day. Every state and every county would have its own sick house, making it convenient and fast for common people to seek dical attention. Infant mortality due to illness would no longer be widespread, and people could easily live into their sixties, seventies, and eighties...
Suddenly, a piercing cry interrupted Li Leqing’s thoughts. A rabbit, its abdon cut open, had awakened during surgery. It emitted sharp screams and struggled weakly on the operating table. The student group responsible for the operation stood in a panic, surgical instrunts in hand.
Many students at the Imperial dical Bureau ca from ordinary families and had experience helping slaughter chickens and ducks at ho. However, slaughtering livestock was an entirely different concept from witnessing an experintal animal, its abdon cut open, struggling desperately on the operating table.
"Your anesthetic wasn’t administered properly." Li Ang strode over, glanced at the rabbit, and said coolly, "Move aside." He squeezed past the students, used Telekinesis to restrain the struggling rabbit, opened his dical kit, took out Mind Threads, swiftly sutured the rabbit’s wound, and then administered another anesthetic injection.
Only after the rabbit fell unconscious and stopped moving did Li Ang turn to the trembling group of students. "During the anesthetic injection," he explained, "if the needle fails to enter the rabbit’s ear vein, local swelling will occur. At that point, you should imdiately withdraw the needle..."
Before he could finish, a cry of alarm ca from another group of students on the other side of the classroom. Their operation had gone awry; blood was gushing from the rabbit’s abdon, quickly obscuring their surgical field.
Li Ang quickly stepped forward and used Telekinesis to probe. Furrowing his brow, he said, "You’ve cut a blood vessel."
"Should we stop the bleeding?" the student in that group responsible for the appendectomy asked, full of trepidation. "Dr... Dr. Li."
"It’s too late. There’s been too much blood loss; it can’t be saved." Li Ang released his Telekinesis. SNAP. He twisted the rabbit’s neck.
The classroom fell silent, so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Li Ang’s gaze was calm as he swept it across the classroom. He said faintly to everyone, "Standardized and precise operations are the truest form of rcy towards experintal animals. Continue."
He took two steps back and surveyed the classroom.
Li Leqing, standing at the back of the classroom, quietly lowered herself from her tiptoes, her expression sowhat complex.
From the perspective of a public lecture, this class was undoubtedly a failure.
Although the students had been reading dical books for over half a year and believed they were well-prepared, many errors still occurred when it ca to actual practice.
So groups couldn’t administer the anesthetic properly, having to find the injection site several tis, leaving the rabbit’s ears a bloody ss.
So groups, too tense and forceful when restraining the rabbits, frightened the animals to the point of incontinence.
All rabbits that survived surgery were placed in designated cages to observe their postoperative healing. Those that died were tossed into waterproof bags and taken to an incinerator to be destroyed.
The public lecture ended in a sowhat silent, oppressive atmosphere. Students slung their bags over their shoulders and left the classroom. anwhile, Li Ang and Qiu Feng were at the sink, cleaning and inventorying the surgical instrunts.
"How was this class?" Li Ang turned his head and casually asked Li Leqing.
Li Leqing hesitated for a mont and asked softly, "Were these rabbits bought from the market?"
"A very small portion were bought from the market; the vast majority are bred by the Imperial dical Bureau." Li Ang stated calmly, "Experintal animals must possess characteristics such as high sensitivity, good reproducibility, and consistent reactions. Therefore, they must be dosticated and selectively bred to obtain genetically stable lines of experintal rabbits."
It took Li Leqing a mont to process his words. "Isn’t that... a bit cruel?" she asked hesitantly.
Li Ang paused slightly in his task of inventorying the surgical instrunts and said earnestly, "That is why I wanted to deliver a lecture on dical ethics first.
"In the barbaric age, when gods and humans coexisted, what was the average human lifespan? Perhaps only in the teens.
"Now, it’s closer to the late twenties or early thirties.
"With the developnt of dical technology and the proliferation of sick houses, the average lifespan of the Yu Country people will reach forty, fifty, or even higher.
"Everything cos at a price. If dicine is a great white tower symbolizing enlightennt, then its foundations are inevitably built upon countless bones."
Li Ang paused, then continued, "Aside from rabbits, the Imperial dical Bureau also breeds experintal mice.
"These are derived from albino house mice and albino brown rats, produced through more than twenty generations of close inbreeding, such as pairings between parents and offspring, or between siblings.
"In terms of quantity, reproductive capability, and cost, they are the most suitable experintal animals.
"Do you rember the anesthetic used in the surgery earlier?"
Li Leqing nodded. She had read in recent newspapers that doctors in the Yu Country army were already using this anesthetic to perform surgery on injured soldiers.
"To verify the drug’s safety, I’ve conducted many experints." Li Ang said.
"For instance, I placed a small white mouse in a sealed glass jar, released an excessive amount of anesthetic fus into it, and observed the mouse’s reaction.
"The little mouse, as if sensing its fate, scurried about frantically in the glass jar. anwhile, I stood at the desk, expressionlessly taking notes with pen and paper.
"As the fus spread, it suddenly perford an action, as if learned from sowhere. It pressed its tiny paws together and bowed to repeatedly, continuously, until the fus engulfed it."
Li Ang added, "It was as if... it was begging to save it."
"Did you save it?" Li Leqing asked subconsciously.
The Haotian Bell tolled, its chis drowning out Li Ang’s reply.
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